The buzz in the P________ household last night was about a Wall Street Journal article that declared French parenting to be “superior” to American parenting (here). The author is an American mother who lived in France and wondered why French children are impeccably behaved in restaurants, playgrounds, and in the home (a phenomenon that I have witnessed repeatedly in France) while American children quickly fall apart under any sort of stress and misbehave and/or tantrum. She concludes that American children are overindulged and aren’t given firm boundaries. (BTW, a quick scan of this article’s comments reveals that the majority of WSJ readers don’t take kindly to being compared unfavorably to the French and react with lowbrow, pop-culturally informed comments about “cheese eating surrender monkeys,” socialism, and, my favorite, “French kids as [SIC] so well behaved that when France is invaded we have to send our ‘poorly raised’ kids there to save them.”)
As a French citizen (and a Canadian citizen, and recently an American citizen, though of his 3 nationalities he is most proud of his French), Mr. P was a little smug about this article, though I quickly pointed out that all its recommendations should not be applied to adopted children, at least not in the first year. According to the author, French parents don’t play with their children and teach them to play independently because they are not “obsessive” with their families. I agree with this philosophy whole-heartedly, but for adoptive parents, play is one of the most important ways to build attachment, expose language, and teach desired behavior. In our case, when he first came home and suddenly had numerous cars, trains, legos, and blocks at his disposal, Little Boy how no idea what to do with them. We’re slowly weaning Little Boy off direct Mommy-Daddy play and he is more content to play by himself as long as we’re nearby. Which is good, because after spending countless feigning excitement over pushing around cars, piling blocks, and constructing train tracks, I’m so ready to retire from being a playmate.
By virtue of being first-year adoptive parents, I admit to toeing the line of hyperparenting. Yet, a quick glance at any restaurant, supermarket, playground, or preschool playground tells me that Little Boy is generally more well-behaved then his peers. He may whine quietly to us if something is amiss, but listens to us if we tell him to wait. And I think Little Boy has attributes that, according to the article, French parents instill in their children that American parents don’t: Self-control, the ability to wait, and an attention span.
And to test this, we did our own version of the Marshmallow Test, the famous 1960s study about how children delay gratification, which is discussed in the article. Basically, a child is left in a room alone with a marshmallow for 15 minutes after being told that, if he doesn’t eat the marshmallow, he can have two marshmallows when the researcher returns. Only 1 in 3 kids could do it, and the majority lasted only 30 seconds. Years later, the study found that the good delayers were better at concentrating, reasoning, and handling stress.
So, last night after a virtuous dinner of whole-cooked red snapper (which Little Boy ate zealously), green beans (which he ate reluctantly), and cheese (which he simply relished), I plopped a small dark-chocolate truffle in front of him. “If you wait to eat it until Mommy is finished the dishes, you can have two chocolates,” I said.
“Two chocolates?” he repeated joyously. “I want two!”
“Then wait,” I told him, and he nodded. I went into the kitchen to help Mr. P clean up. We peeked into the dining room and saw Little Boy craning his head towards us, the chocolate still sitting inches from his hands.
“I’m going to go be the devil,” Mr. P said, walking into the dining room. “Little Boy, you should eat the chocolate! Why wait? Eat it now. Yum!”
He shook his head, firm. “Mommy said I wait, I have two chocolates!”
It was then that I knew he could hold off for the second chocolate indefinitely, but I still waited 6 minutes before placing the second chocolate in front of him and praising him for waiting. All of this was entirely unscientific, of course, and can probably not be attributed to parenting at all but rather the lack of it — one year in a well-run orphanage, though not recommended, teaches infinite patience. And Little Boy reaped the rewards of his ability to delay gratification, savoring each micro-bite of chocolate truffle before looking at me pleadingly and uttering his most favorite word: “Television.” Sigh.
Independent play, albeit in the dining room
