COTUS

Today, I was discussing COTUS with Josh while we were out and about. What is COTUS you ask?? Well, it was something I used to shorten what I call "Center Of The Universe Syndrome". It is something one can see all around. Some places more than others. We try not to participate in COTUS with our children. I'm not saying that there aren't times that they are the COTU, but we as parents disagree with the COTUS method when parenting. Now, COTUS pretty much always applies to newborns so that isn't what we are referring to here.

COTUS...involving children from a very young age into playgroups that meet several times a week, putting them on every team imaginable so that the parent can live vicariously through the child, stopping everything in the household pretty much so that all life and schedule revolves around THE CHILD. COTUS...giving a child everything they have ever wanted (or never even knew they wanted), never allowing them to lose or "fail", allowing said child to choose where they want to eat, what they want to do and...well you get the idea.

Neither of us are of the opinion that children can't be spoiled a little or given something special, but we are not COTU parents. WHY?? Because it creates selfish and problematic adults. How do they function as adults?? This problem is alive and well in China. Why? They are only allowed to have one child. Since families live together, there are a set of parents and many time grandparents all living in the same household doing everything imaginable for this child. They are tended to and made sure to constantly be waited upon because they have to get into the best schools and be THE BEST. It has begun to manifest itself in very unhappy adults as they are very selfish and have a hard time adjusting to life without all of their "helpers".

Don't worry, COTUS is alive and well here in America as well. You see it everywhere. As soon as children are born or in some cases before birth, they are on a waiting list for the perfect daycare and then pre-school. We want nothing but top notch for everything as it gives "that edge". There are personal trainers for elementary and jr. high students in sports. Yes, because prodigys abound...ha! The US should sweep every medal event at the Olympics by 2016! People cannot go to the grocery store without feeding the child practically an entire meal while they shop. We have seen people going through Target feeding their kids all kinds of snacks and drinks... C'mon (this isn't an infant with a bottle! Whatever child wants...he/she gets. Mom or dad (whichever has stopped everything in life to give the COTU experience) must carefully schedule in as many playgroups and activities as possible while the other is at work. We wouldn't want little "COTU" getting overstimulated at home or anything. Heaven forbid imagination be used to simply play at home. The parent is so busy with little COTU, they have time for nothing else.

I guess our children will get a horrible childhood experience because we don't subscribe to COTUS. We both work outside the home, homeschool, and a myriad of projects around our home just to name a few. While we don't have a problem with children playing with others or getting together to do so, there's no way we would have time to schedule playgroups. We take our children to the store and they are expected to be seen and not heard. We do not eat snacks & drink while on store trips (unless they were infant age). Our code word is "ducks". That means they have to walk right in a line behind the cart so as to not block the store aisles.
They don't ask for toys or stuff and we don't have to offer them a toy to get them to mind at the store. We try our best to instill manners in them although they are still learning. "Excuse me", "thank-you", "please", "hello", "Yes ma'am" etc..

Overall, I think parents could save themselves a lot of schedule grief and expectational grief if they simply let kids be kids. Your chance at childhood ended a long time ago. Remind your kids to enjoy and live life to the fullest. They can have fun doing the simple things and just being together as a family. They don't need more stuff and activities to feel loved. They need YOU!
C'mon, if you think about it...you've seen it! Does it work well in the long run?