My two cents on a couple of these from the perspective of a father of two girls (4 years old and 2 years old, I’m 30). Just my perspective, feel free to disregard if not helpful!
On emotions and discipline, I’m also a very calm person and rarely show anger and frustration. But kids are really good at finding was to frustrate you. I almost never yell at them, but I do get frustrated or exasperated and raise my voice, and it’s genuinely unclear to me how anyone could parent a child without doing that.
In general I think the military wisdom “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” is a good rule of thumb for parenting, except substitute “the enemy” with “these small lunatics I never imagined I could love so much.” My wife and I had bold plans for how we would parent, how we would minimize screen time, how our children would eat healthy foods all the time, and so on. But a lot of that goes out the window when you’re tired and have chores to do and the kids won’t give you an inch of personal space or you need to make a quick dinner or one kid is potty training and needs near constant attention but your other kid is bored and also wants attention or whatever. We also know other parents who had big plans about how they would parent, and in the end made many compromises.
All that is to say that I think it’s good that you’re thinking about how you want to parent. Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did sticking to your original plans. And maybe it’s good to start with ambitious initial plans, that way if you deviate from them you’re still mostly on track, I’m not sure. But I would just advise that I think a key part of parenting is flexibility and prioritizing which values you care about. If you let your three year old watch a TV show a few times a week so you can have some time to get the dishes done or get dinner made, how harmful is that really? If that helps you de-stress a little and leads to less exasperation it may be beneficial on net. Kids differ a lot in personalities and attitudes (it was surprising to me how different my kids can be), so the compromises you need to make may vary depending on what your kid is like, and I think it can help to be mindful of that going in.
On developing curiosity and wonder I think just sharing fascinating things with your kids whenever possible seems to work well. Sometimes I share something and I can tell my four year old isn’t really interested or maybe doesn’t understand, and that’s fine. But other times I’ll show her something cool I can tell she’s echoing my excitement and interest in it and asking surprisingly thoughtful questions. I think the big thing is just sharing your excitement about it and trying to include your kid in it. In general making time to share your interests seems to work well, recently I’ve been watching football with my oldest and explaining the rules and how it works, and even though I don’t think she fully understands it she seems to be really enjoying it and picking up a lot of stuff, and I think that’s mainly just because she knows I’m trying to include her in it. The same thing happens when I show her pictures from the James Webb space telescope or show her videos of rocket launches or SpaceX landing their boosters or whatever and make the time to explain why I think it’s so awesome.
My two cents on a couple of these from the perspective of a father of two girls (4 years old and 2 years old, I’m 30). Just my perspective, feel free to disregard if not helpful!
On emotions and discipline, I’m also a very calm person and rarely show anger and frustration. But kids are really good at finding was to frustrate you. I almost never yell at them, but I do get frustrated or exasperated and raise my voice, and it’s genuinely unclear to me how anyone could parent a child without doing that.
In general I think the military wisdom “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” is a good rule of thumb for parenting, except substitute “the enemy” with “these small lunatics I never imagined I could love so much.” My wife and I had bold plans for how we would parent, how we would minimize screen time, how our children would eat healthy foods all the time, and so on. But a lot of that goes out the window when you’re tired and have chores to do and the kids won’t give you an inch of personal space or you need to make a quick dinner or one kid is potty training and needs near constant attention but your other kid is bored and also wants attention or whatever. We also know other parents who had big plans about how they would parent, and in the end made many compromises.
All that is to say that I think it’s good that you’re thinking about how you want to parent. Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did sticking to your original plans. And maybe it’s good to start with ambitious initial plans, that way if you deviate from them you’re still mostly on track, I’m not sure. But I would just advise that I think a key part of parenting is flexibility and prioritizing which values you care about. If you let your three year old watch a TV show a few times a week so you can have some time to get the dishes done or get dinner made, how harmful is that really? If that helps you de-stress a little and leads to less exasperation it may be beneficial on net. Kids differ a lot in personalities and attitudes (it was surprising to me how different my kids can be), so the compromises you need to make may vary depending on what your kid is like, and I think it can help to be mindful of that going in.
On developing curiosity and wonder I think just sharing fascinating things with your kids whenever possible seems to work well. Sometimes I share something and I can tell my four year old isn’t really interested or maybe doesn’t understand, and that’s fine. But other times I’ll show her something cool I can tell she’s echoing my excitement and interest in it and asking surprisingly thoughtful questions. I think the big thing is just sharing your excitement about it and trying to include your kid in it. In general making time to share your interests seems to work well, recently I’ve been watching football with my oldest and explaining the rules and how it works, and even though I don’t think she fully understands it she seems to be really enjoying it and picking up a lot of stuff, and I think that’s mainly just because she knows I’m trying to include her in it. The same thing happens when I show her pictures from the James Webb space telescope or show her videos of rocket launches or SpaceX landing their boosters or whatever and make the time to explain why I think it’s so awesome.