Slow Parenting: a new parenting model

Slow Parenting, is a parenting style that promotes education based on the natural rhythms of children themselves, beyond insisting that they acquire knowledge as quickly as possible.

Since it emerged, it has been considered an educational revolution, since it makes important criticisms of parenting styles based on hyperactivity, and Ensure that children are happy and satisfied with their own achievements, even if these will not make them the richest or the most popular or the most fast

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What is Slow Parenting?

Slow Parenting is also known as Simplicity Parenting. It is a parenting style based on lifestyles through which daily activities are carried out at appropriate paces, without putting pressure to advance in the development of learning and skills.

That is to say that, far from being a movement that suggests doing all our activities slowly, This is an educational proposal that values ​​quality over speed: suggests that it is more valuable to do things as best as possible than to do them as quickly as possible. Thus, ensure that children learn the importance of achieving their own goals, beyond achieving them first.

Slow Parenting arises in response to the negative consequences of parenting styles that are based on speed and hyperactivity; an issue that is also part of the Slow Movement, where the tendency of our societies to equate success with speed is discussed.

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A proposal in defense of slowness

The Slow Parenting proposal is born from a series of books written by the Canadian journalist Carl Honoré, who, in fact, never used the term “Slow Parenting”, but did question the obvious obsession with acceleration that is characteristic of Western societies.

We tend to do things too quickly, i.e. our habits are strongly based on speed. This is because we consider the latter as a success factor: it is more valuable to arrive first; than the process itself of achieving our objectives.

The problem is that this is a lifestyle that in the long run affects our health, our emotional relationships, our productivity and our creativity. In other words, excessive haste directly affects our quality of life, so we should not transmit these values ​​to children.

Although the author himself says he has never used the concept of “Slow Parenting,” now that it has become widespread, he defines it as a way to create balance at home, which is based on the following premise: it is evident that children need to develop and adapt to different demands that each environment presents to them, but this does not mean that childhood is a kind of career.

Parents should give children the time they need to explore the world on their own terms. Thus, the Slow Parenting proposal is to let the little ones function according to their own needs, since These are the reflection of their true potential (and not of what adults want them to be, do, aspire or achieve).

This also means that children They will receive the attention and affection they need without being conditioned to the rhythms that adults set. in our adult activities.

Why did speed become a synonym for success?

Carl Honoré has also explained that our tendency to educate quickly has arisen from the need that we adults have to create a “perfect childhood.” The problem is that frequently, This perfection is quite focused on consumption ideals.

For example, given the widespread demand for “perfection” in Western societies, we constantly seek to have “the perfect house”, “the perfect job”, “the perfect car”, “the perfect body”, and “the children” cannot be missed. perfect”; which also connects with the new needs generated by globalization: competing is the way to respond to crises and labor uncertainties.

In addition to this, Honoré points out the latest transformations in family models, where the number of children they have many couples in developed countries has declined, giving parents less opportunity to build experience in breeding.

In addition, The age at which people become parents significantly transforms educational styles. Given all of the above, it is common for parents to feel distrust and uncertainty about their practices, and not knowing how to create “perfect children,” they delegate responsibility to specialists, tutors, etc.; and they end up transmitting among themselves (between parents from different families) demands for perfection and the idea of ​​childhood as competition.

Some Slow Parenting suggestions

To begin to counteract what we have developed in the previous section, one of the Slow Parenting proposals is to try to spend more time with the family, but ensuring that the main activity is not shopping, nor living around devices that do not facilitate interaction, such as television; but through truly interactive activities, which also leave space for everyone's inactivity and rest.

Another suggestion is enhance children's spontaneous play, which is one that starts from their own initiative and their curiosity about the elements of the natural environment in which they operate. The latter to avoid imposing rigid models with content that often does not encourage the creative and curious potential of early childhood.

Finally, Slow Parenting seeks for children to develop the ability to cope with the unpredictability of the real world and learn to know themselves from a young age.

In other words, Ensure that children recognize that everyday life has risks, and the most appropriate way to do this is to allow them to confront them. Only in this way will they be able to generate strategies to detect their needs, solve their problems and to ask for help in the appropriate ways.

Bibliographic references:

• Eldiario.es (2016). Carl Honoré's “slow” philosophy, the “global phenomenon” against haste. Retrieved May 10, 2018. Available in https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/filosofia-Carl-Honore-fenomeno-global_0_508499302.html.
• Belkin, L. (2009). What is Slow-Parenting? The New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2018. Available in https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/what-is-slow-parenting/.
• The Telegraph (2008). Slow parenting part two: hey, parents, leave those kids alone. Retrieved May 10, 2018. Available in https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3355928/Slow-parenting-part-two-hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone.html.