What we do to our children

Not that I have any. Yet. Though I want a baby, badly. But that's a topic for another time. How much of what our kids do is nature and how much do we put in their heads. A few things I have noticed. I was at the park with my then 2 year old nephew and my sister-in-law on the swings and she said to him can you swing higher then me? And as he was pushing his skinny toddler legs back and forth in an attempt to swing higher then me I realized something. We encourage competition, we encourage success, we make people into sore losers. We talk all about winning, all about the end, and not what you can accomplish on the way. Obviously it's good for kids, or for anyone to feel they can succeed but I think we forgot lessons when we encourage getting to the goal first and not just finding the best means to get to the goal and enjoying the journey of getting there. The next thing is that children have no concept of time. That is our own fault. Time is a complex concept for anyone to grasp especially children. But if we were consistent in telling Johnny an amount of time it will be till we go to the park and usually keeping to it he would understand the difference between 5 minutes and 5 hours. For instance, some mothers tell their kids, bedtime in is 45 minutes, getting bored and tired of having their kid up they put them to sleep 10 minutes later, the child is screwed for their childhood and no longer can grasp what 45 minutes is because their parents do not keep to the time they tell their kids. I know people will say kids do not understand time, but try it first. Have a baby and be consistent with what you tell it. Then get back to me. I am waiting to experiment this and several other things on my own children. Just need to find someone ok with me experimenting on our offspring.