1 Mother 2 Another

I just read href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-grossloh/the-milestones-that-matter-most_b_3195567.html"
target="_blank">an interesting piece on the Huffington
Post from the end of May – yes, I’m behind –
on parents in America versus other cultures, and how we mark
different sorts of milestones than parents in, say, Sweden.


The article points out that while we as a culture raise
spectacularly verbal kids – children here can bargain and
negotiate like trial-room lawyers while still in kindergarten
– we sometimes lose sight of other values that would be
worthwhile to foster.


The author lists such values as thinking about others, and being
more independent at an earlier age. On taking care of younger
siblings, she writes:


In our country, we worry that asking siblings to care for each
other puts an undue burden on their individual potential. The
opposite is true: when we ask our kids to care for one another, it
unleashes their potential as nurturing, socially responsible human
beings.


I know I find myself sometimes putting on my eight-year-old’s
shoes still, partly out of habit and partly out of a desire to
hurry the whole process along; this is probably an anathema to a
culture that has five-year-olds out herding the family livestock
for hours at a time.


What do you guys think? And if we’re losing sight of some
important social values here, what’s the best way to go about
teaching them?