The Wild and Free Family by Dr. Ainsley Arment is another in a long line of books about raising a family with more calm in its life. It's about rejecting the hustle and bustle that society wants your family to live so that you can spend time connecting with each other instead of passing in the night as you run between different activities.
A big focus of the book is the importance of connecting with your kids. Arment emphasizes that kids need connection but don't know how to ask for it, and they likely don't recognize that connection with their parents is what they're searching for1. When your kid has big emotions, or your pre-teen comes out of their room repeatedly at night with random questions that don't matter, they're often just missing connection with you and expressing it in the only way they know how2.
In the midst of this Arment reminds us that we don't have to parent or discipline every behaviour out of children3 or rush after every new fad in parenting4, and pay the experts in this fad to teach us how to make it work for our kids. She also reminds us that every negative interaction with our children uses up relationship capital5 which reminds me of How Full Is Your Bucket6.
Through the middle of the book Arment addresses how to build curious kids, let them be bored7, and how important it is to have some type of adventure in your family life8.
Unfortunately, the last number of chapters lack the depth of the beginning of the book. She spends a whole chapter telling readers to pursue big dreams and the universe will help make your dream happen. I call this idea in many books "universe juice" because if you dream big enough and hard enough then the universe will squirt its magic juice on you and your dream will happen. The flip side of this advice is that when it doesn't happen it's your fault because you didn't believe hard enough or dream big enough, or trust....something. Guru's often use this argument to blame their followers for not doing "it" right, though the guru is happy to claim responsibility for any students that have success.
Should You Read Wild and Free by Dr Ainsely Arment?
This is a quick read, especially if you skip everything after chapter 10, with some thought-provoking words in it to help you evaluate if you're happy with where your family life is going. I still don't think it's a super valuable book. I mostly feel that it devolves into sharing the author's personal experiences in parenting, with very little that's widely applicable to other parents.
Still, I've changed how I treat my pre-teen when she's up 22 times at night during the only time my wife and I have to hang out before I head to bed early. Before she even goes downstairs I try to make a connection with her on the couch for a few minutes. This connection time does seem to have changed how many times she visits us upstairs with random things that "clearly" need to be addressed right now, by adults. Plus, I've enjoyed talking to her about whatever happens to come up.
Last night's discussion started with the impact that bananas had on colonialism out of the US towards South American countries9. Then we talked about Canada's poor record on how it treats First Nations and how the Canadian government has repeatedly ignored the commitments it's made to First Nations10. Not only did we connect, but we also had a fairly serious discussion that I hope will help her be a more compassionate person.
