It’s been sort of a week for disussions on parenting. Over at Paxye’s place, we hear a bit about some of the don’ts of parenting. Namely threats, escalation, and intimidation. And while we do employ “consequences” in our parenting style, I have to agree with her that simply throwing a threat at a kid doing something you don’t want them to do, then building up the threat is not the way to go. As I said in the comments on that entry, there are a few things we’ve found to be very important in raising a child that’s “easy to get along with” (I’m none too fond of the phrase “well behaved” - sounds like dog training to me. But then so does much of traditional authoritarian child rearing techniques):
1) IMO there’s nothing wrong with logical consequences. We still have them now. For example, on road trips, I let Paul eat whatever he wants. The deal is, though, that if he orders that huge crepe with fruit and syrup and whipped cream at chez Cora and then he turns into a sugared-up maniac, I impose restrictions on what he can eat. If he plays games on his computer when he’s mant to be reading/researching/working with Lego Digital Designer then we put restrictions on his computer time.
2) Do what you say. Whether you believe in threats or not, the woman made a huge mistake in escalating the consequences but not applying them. Realistic consequence would be (if I had a problem with the sitting which I wouldn’t) to say that I don’t want her to sit there because (whatever the hell the reason is) and if she couldn’t cooperate, I wouldn’t feel comfortable coming back to go swimming for (duration). And then when she does it again, make good on it.
3) Most importantly (though I’m not always great at this one) don’t abuse the power you have as an adult. Yes, there are times when physically carrying a kid out of a situation is warranted, but doing it because you’re tired of waiting isn’t always the best thing. Sage and I had the same sort of conflicts when I didn’t want to leave a store and she did and she didn’t go dragging me bodily out.
So far it’s worked out really well for us. OK - here’s my pet peeve at this stage. Having raised a well behaved kid without resorting to physical punishment, it still doesn’t convince people it isn’t necessary. Their answer? Good genetics - we got lucky…*grrr*
Meanwhile, Kite talks about putting all of your hard work teaching your child to obey voice commands to good work by giving really good ones. She’s put a few there, and a few commentors have put theirs there as well. I was going to put mine there but realized that I was likely to talk for a while on the subject and I always feel weird leaving really long comments on people’s blogs, feeling as if I have hijacked their forum or something. So my suggestion as to what phrase Paul should (and frankly does) obey is “Question Authority.”
Now before the socially conservative people who read here get all up in arms (are there any left?), let me explain. So often in our culture we are told to obey leaders, parents, priests, parents, police, etc, for the mere fact that they are “authorities”. Blind obeisence of people because of their position in the community is not a good thing. Look at what blind respect for authority has done for the likes of thousands of altar boys, various students of unscrupulous teachers, neighbourhood kids “helping a grownup to look for a dog”, or “taking candy from that friendly guy in the panel van”.
Don’t forget, there are at least two definitions of authority. The first is the kind we most often use and that is the authority based on position. Kids are told that if someone wears a badge, wimple, roman collar, stands in the front of the class, or in many cases is just older than they are, they are to be respected and obeyed. This is, of course, absurd and not often the case.
The second definition of authority is the only one, in my opinion, worthy of respect. This is often used in phrases like “Susan is an authority on the subject of Quantum Physics.” In other words, our friend Susan has demonstrated that after tons of hard work and study she is pretty likely to have something worthwhile to offer on the subject of quantum physics. The same can be said for “our elders”. There are many people older than I am that I respect greatly for the experience and knowledge they gained having lived on this planet longer than I have. I don’t respect them because they have more grey hair than I do, or were born in an earlier decade, which is often encouraged. I respect them because they have demonstrated to me their authority on life.
So getting back to “ordering” Paul to question authority. This is exactly what I mean. Respect everyone, but do not revere or blindly obey someone more than with basic courtesy until they’ve proven themselves. In our day to day life this has proven to be pretty useful information. The simplest example would be in our own interactions. There have been occasions where I’ve been hungry, impatient, and grumpy, and more like the woman in Paxye’s entry than I’d like to admit. We’ve encouraged Paul to feel comfortable calling us on that, and it does a great job of bringing us out of that crazy state we’re in.
Another nice side effect of being the authority who is questioned is that I learn a bit about myself and my motivations instead of blindly following whatever my feelings might be. Another real-lilfe example has to do with dressing warmly for winter. Years ago in Bethlehem when Paul was a baby he HATED being hot with a passion to the point where he wanted to be barefoot indoors and eventually we started actually getting his feet dressed outdoors. One cold day as Sage and Kite left a store and started putting on Paul’s socks and shoes outside a horrified woman came over and threatened to call social services because the baby didn’t leave the store properly dressed. Thus did the phrase “the sock police” enter our family vernacular to describe obnoxious people who feel it is their right, no their duty to call you on improperly dressing your kid.
Anyway, one of Paul’s (and hell, probably everyone’s kid’s) first efforts at questioning authority was questioning why it was that despite his being comfortable in a coat only, we were asking him to put on hat, gloves, and scarf. Answers of “Because it’s cold outside” did not satisfy him because he wasn’t cold. And so we told the story of the sock police. And he got it, and now all we need to tell him is that we need him to find his gloves and hat when we go out to satisfy the sock police. And he often puts them on outside the building and happily complies.
In other words, while it may seem like a time saver “Because I said so” doesn’t really help a parent out in the long run.
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