Slow Parenting: A New Parenting Model

This way of looking at parenting emphasizes not taking parenting as a career.

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

Since its emergence, it has been considered an educational revolution, since it makes important criticisms to parenting styles based on hyperactivity, and seeks to make children happy and satisfied with their own achievements, even if these will not make them the richest or the most popular or the fastest.

• Related article, "The 4 educational styles: how do you raise your children?"

What is Slow Parenting?

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

That is to say, far from being a movement that suggests doing all our activities slowly, it is an educational approach that values quality over speed: it suggests that it is more valuable to do things slowly.It suggests that it is more valuable to do things as well as possible than to do them as quickly as possible. Thus, it seeks that children learn the importance of achieving their own goals, rather than 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 framed in the Slow Movement, which discusses the tendency of our societies to equate success with speed.

A proposal in defense of slowness.

The Slow Parenting proposal stems from a series of books written by the Canadian journalist Carl Honoré, who, in fact, never used the term "Slow Parenting".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 fast, ie, our habits are strongly based on speed. This is so because we consider the latter as a success factor: it is more valuable to get there first; than the actual process of getting to meet our goals.

The problem is that this is a lifestyle that in the long run has repercussions on our health, our emotional relationships, our productivity and our creativity. In other words, too much haste directly affects our quality of life, so we should not transmit these values to our 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 of creating balance in the homeIt is clear that children need to develop and adapt to the different demands of their environment, but this does not mean that childhood is a kind of race.

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

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

Why did speed become a synonym for success?

Carl Honoré has also explained that our tendency to educate with speed has arisen from the need we adults have to create a "perfect childhood". The problem is that this perfection is often this perfection is quite often centered on consumer ideals..

For example, given the generalized 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 perfect children"; which also connects with the new needs generated by globalization: competing is the way to respond to crises and job uncertainties.

In addition, Honoré points to recent transformations in family models, where the number of children many couples have in developed countries has decreased, giving parents less opportunity to generate parenting experience.

Also, the age at which people become parents significantly transforms parenting 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 the responsibility to specialists, tutors, etc.; and end up transmitting among themselves (among parents from different families) demands for perfection and the idea of childhood as competition.

Some suggestions of Slow Parenting

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

Another suggestion is to to encourage spontaneous play in childrenAnother suggestion is to encourage children's spontaneous play, which is that which begins with their own initiative and their curiosity about the elements of the natural environment in which they develop. The latter to avoid imposing rigid models with contents that often do not encourage the creative and curious potential of early childhood.

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

In other words, it seeks to help children recognize that everyday life has risks.The best way to do this is to allow them to face them. Only then will they be able to generate strategies to detect their needs, solve their problems and to ask for help in appropriate ways.

Bibliographical references:

• Eldiario.es (2016). Carl Honoré's "slow" philosophy, the "global phenomenon" against haste. Retrieved May 10, 2018. Available at 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 at 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. Recuperado 10 de mayo de 2018. Disponible en https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3355928/Slow-parenting-part-two-hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone.html.