Parenting

Recently I've been thinking about parenting.
How do we want to parent the little girl?

The traditional chinese way is too stifling. The American way is too indulgent. And i am not familiar with any other way.

I know it's not going to work like a textbook. As in you do this, you get that. I also considered not thinking too much and going with the flow. After all, I believe that a huge part of parenting is about instinct, understanding the child and then bringing your child up in the best way I know how to and because of that I've parked the parenting thing for sometime.

Until we realize that the little girl has a reallyhuge temper.
And she is very violent. Often hitting people, pinching people or slapping people.
When she's not happy about something, she screams and she sweeps things away.
She doesn't do it much with me but she bullys her grandma and I witnessed it myself on a few occasions.

My feel about the little girl is that she is aware of what's happening but she gets so frustrated, so bored, so impatient sometimes. And she only knows one way of expressing how she feels... By throwing a tantrum.

I thought about the kind of person we would like JoyJoy to be. But I realize theres more.
As in the things I don't want her to be.
I don't want her to be self-centered. This world was never made for just one person.
I don't want her to be unable to cope with frustrations. Life holds many frustrations.
I don't want her to be disrespectful or rude. To me, this is a deal breaker in many social situations.

I also don't want her to think that throwing tantrums is a way of getting her way.
But how am I going to teach her all that? As in what exactly do I do to teach her all that? I repeat myself to death (read: nag)? Not going to work.

Whilst I wasn't actively looking for a parenting style, I seem to have found one accidentally. French parenting. Not that i know a lot about it...I've only read a grand total of about 3/4 of a book on French parenting but it seems to be a perfect match:


From what I understand, it's similar to the traditional Chinese authoritarian style but what I grasp is, there are some non-negotiable limits set and these limits set are put in place for a reason (safety, manners etc), the child is given unlimited freedom within the constrains of those strict limits and most importantly, the kid is respected as a person. French parenting is purposeful and intended to educate the child, not rein them in.

I think my focus will be parenting as a priority.
Upbringing is important education which a child must receive from her parents and in many ways, I think it is more important than whether she can read by 1 years old or whether she eventually goes on to get a masters degree in some field.

Assuming that she chooses some occupation that does not reap significant monetary returns, we would have done our best to make sure that she is able to make the best out of situations she finds herself in.

Epitome of kiasuism.