Some friends of mine and I have had an ongoing conversation based around nature vs. nurture, different parenting styles and outcomes. One of the issues that keeps getting brought up is that we should nurture a child's spirit and that discipline will break a child down so that they lose their spark (we are not talking corporal punishment, just basic manners reinforcement, etc).
Given that, here is a scenario:
5 year old female child (E) has a ball. Her older sibling (S) would like to use a ball. The ball is a house ball that might have been given to E originally, but is used by the household. S takes the ball. E throws a fit, "MY BALL!!!" and grabs it back. S says she wants to use is for baseball. E refuses. This may or may not devolve into the children hitting each other. This instance was dealt with by mom telling E that she can keep the ball (ie not share a toy she wasn't even playing with) and then calling a friend to ask if she can borrow a ball for S to use. The reasoning given was that asking E to give up the ball would "break her spirit."
Oh and E did not originally have the ball, it was just lying around.
Now I know what my take is on this, but I'm curious what other people see and how other parents would react to that situation.
Last edited by Wyldkat; 10/02/12 03:08 PM.
