Theoretical parenting discussions that are meaningless in the real world.

I'm feeling rather cross at the moment about some of the parenting ideologies to which I subscribe to a greater or lesser extent.

Please come back to Earth. It can be nice and fun and we can make it better if we try!

I go to great lengths to consider my child's point of view and we don't snatch things off him and a voice is never raised in anger in our family.

The snatching issue is high in my mind right now. We come to situations where my toddler clearly covets a toy or thing that someone else has. He will stand and watch hopefully to see if he might be offered a turn. Occasionally he is, but he won't dive in and snatch from anyone else. I normally have a quick scout around for an alternative so everyone can play.

My theory for this behaviour is that neither me or Daddy snatch things from him.

I see children have objects forcibly removed from their hands by parents. Interesting stuff like keys, mobile phones, pens and the like. These children are then chastised by the same parent when they copy their parent's behaviour and forcibly take toys from other children.

And they wonder why.

So I was whinging about impractically idealistic parenting theory.

What I do not believe makes me a bad parent is forcibly strapping our toddler into the pushchair in order cross the road safely. It makes him so much less dead.

Completely non-coercive parenting can never be more than an idea.

The Freegans demonstrate my point quite well. It is possible to have an idea which is used to inform one's behaviour without being intolerant of someone who does not apply the idea to every situation or every aspect of their life.

I find useful many parenting ideas but cannot subscribe wholeheartedly to any one, particularly those which encourage complete conformity to an unachievable ideal.

So tell me it's a cop out. Tell me I can't be bothered to find a mutually agreeable solution. My parenting happens in the real world today and is merely informed by abstract hypotheses that have never been near a real bedtime snotkiss.