{"id":22921,"date":"2019-05-16T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T16:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22921"},"modified":"2019-05-16T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T16:00:41","slug":"the-continual-development-of-an-american-parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-continual-development-of-an-american-parent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Continual Development of an American Parent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since speaking with Garfield in Hong Kong, I have been doing my best to read each of our assigned books through the lens of \u201chow does this impact my dissertation research\u201d and then have tried to write a weekly essay on how the reading impacts my work.\u00a0 Some weeks I have done that well . . . others, not so much. But this week\u2019s reading The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure<\/em> by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt didn\u2019t merely impact the way I am collecting data for my research, but impacted the way I want to parent.<\/p>\n

Not since reading Richard Louv\u2019s Last Child in the Woods,<\/em> have I reconsidered the style and intentionality of my parenting.\u00a0 Sure I want to love my children in as healthy, wholesome, and full a fashion as possible.\u00a0 And by the grace of God I am continually learning more and more about how best to do that.<\/p>\n

Louv posits that time spent out of doors and immersed in nature is not only good for all people, but is especially imperative for the healthy formation of children.\u00a0 As an example, Louv writes of how formative experiences out of doors can build someone\u2019s creative thinking and self-confidence.\u00a0 Adults reminiscing on camp experiences from their youth, that took place in nature, were able to \u201cdescribe transcendent moments \u2013 and the importance of building self-confidence in situations of controlled risk.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 I immediately thought of this section of Louv every time Lukianoff and Haidt remind the reader of \u201cthe books most important single piece of advice: Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.\u201d[2]<\/a> The list they provide on how to go about doing this was not only fascinating to read, but also included this gem, \u201clet your kids take more small risks\u201d which, especially given the example of the authors children playing in an outdoor junkyard playground on an island in the middle of New York Harbor, echoes Louv\u2019s focus on risk taking out of doors.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

This \u201cout of doors play and risk taking\u201d concept certainly isn\u2019t a concept that only these two books encourage.\u00a0 There is an entire school of French Painting called En Plein Air<\/em> and the premise is that painting out doors in natural lighting allows a painter to best capture the natural essence of the object they are painting, and ultimately, improves the overall quality of their painting.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 This idea has been adopted by educational theorists and outdoor learning has become a central focus in the world of \u201cPlay Based Curriculum\u201d schools, including the nursery school at the church I currently serve.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Yes, this nature focus leads me to imagine what a church can look like that worships out of doors, that regularly meets and shares a meal outside.\u00a0 Or a church that perhaps spends an afternoon cheerfully picking up trash and litter along the shore of their local river, the river they are of course advocating municipal government to maintain and protect, or even (the scandal!) holds church meetings in a more natural out of door setting.\u00a0 But upon finishing Lukianoff and Haidt this week, I wasn\u2019t thinking all that much about my research.\u00a0 Al I wanted to do was place my children and dogs in the car, pick up my wife at the train, and drive to the local park, so we could go on a nice hike in the great, risky, and sacred, out of doors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder<\/em> (New York: Algonquin Books, 2008), 228.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure<\/em> (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), 237.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Lukianoff and Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind<\/em>, 238.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u201cEn Plein Air,\u201d Wikipedia, accessed, 5\/16\/19, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/En_plein_air<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> \u201cLet’s Play! Using Play-Based Curriculum to Support Children’s Learning throughout the Domains,\u201d Early Childhood News, accessed, 5\/16\/19, http:\/\/www.earlychildhoodnews.com\/earlychildhood\/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=453%20<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since speaking with Garfield in Hong Kong, I have been doing my best to read each of our assigned books through the lens of \u201chow does this impact my dissertation research\u201d and then have tried to write a weekly essay on how the reading impacts my work.\u00a0 Some weeks I have done that well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1529,1530],"class_list":["post-22921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lukianoff-and-haidt","tag-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22922,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921\/revisions\/22922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}