|
|
A Delivery Mechanism with Attitude
|
In many ways the techniques we use to influence the behaviour of our children is similar to the training of animals. But there is one crucial difference. Experiments in the 1930's proved that if you reward or punish an animal with food or pain when it performs a particular action, like pressing a lever, it will repeat or avoid that action. With these animals the method of delivery of the reward or the sanction is neutral. In other words the lever does not, itself, whilst delivering a sanction have the ability to change it into a reward. And this is a crucial difference. For us, as parents, how we deliver sanctions and rewards can completely reverse their effect.
The singer is the message not the song. Lack of control over our own feelings is the single largest cause of cronic bad behaviour. We can completely reverse the effects of our sanctions and rewards by the emotions we allow to be associated with them. If there is any conflict between what we say and what we do children will copy what we do.
When we threaten to punish our children we tell them what the sanction will be and what they need to do to avoid it. But this information is always given in conjunction with an emotional message that tells our child how we are feeling about them. This emotional message tends to be taken up, mirrored or copied by the child and reflected back to the parent.
So if the parent giving the sanction is angry the child will be angry back and - less inclined - to be influenced by the thought of the impending sanction. This is the reverse of what parents think. We think that if we are angry we are showing our determination to get our own way. In reality we are just watering down the effectiveness of our sanction.
Anger is not a Sanction (punishment)
|
Our anger may be negative - just like our sanction - but it does not function like a sanction because its negative effect is on the child's self-esteem rather than behaviour. It effectively functions like a reward for the bad behaviour and makes its intensity and frequency increase. Anger is an example of what I call an "interpersonal" sanction and is the most common emotion-generated unhelpful messages that parents give. When it is combined with a concrete sanction it will often reverse its effect.
|
Since the death of my wife I have been the sole parent for my 10 year old daughter Sally. She is a delightful child in many ways, but over the last two years she has become much more confrontational. She seems to be pushing me to the limits daily, is openly rude in front of others and to a certain extent, seems to me, to be trying to gain equal decision making status. She will not seem to accept that a 10 year old has not the maturity to contribute positively to the kind of day to day decisions she is seeking to influence. The reaction to being told to do something is extreme, frequently resulting in screaming at me that she hates me and that I am the worst father on earth. When this subsides, she is very clingy and tells me that she loves me.
I know that I must be at fault in some way, but can't see the wood for the trees. To try to drag her back onto a more disciplined course is however, proving to be the biggest challenge I have faced and I'm not sure I am up to it.
> I am mailing to ask for your advice as I have tried so many
different
> ways to make life better for me and my son.
>
From the moment he wakes up in the morning till he goes to bed at
>
night, the day is a constant battle.
> He never does what he is told, even
after I have asked 6/7/8 times
> over. When he does not get his own
way, its the end of his world,
> or so he thinks. he screams,
punches me and kicks things around him.
> Eating time is too a
battle, he never wants to sit up to the table
> and when i demand
that he stays put till he finished his food, he
> pulls a fierce angry
face and punches himself in the chest with anger.
> He never will do
something when I ask like, come to the bathroom and
> get washed and
brush teeth, come and get dressed, stand still
> so I can put shoes
on. I am sure that this is coming across so
> pathetically but
after weeks or argueing and shouting at each other
> (as when I ask nice
and calmly/rationally it falls on deaf ears) I
> have seen that my
patiece has long since gone and my poor son is
> developing
terrible anger in him.
>
> Please can you advise, either by way of
getting a book or seeing
> someone. Everytthing on a daily basis is
a constant battle and its not
> good for the pair of us.
>
>
Yours faithfully,
>
> MELANIE
>
> PS My son is 4 and a
half
>
>
>
Because of all the dialogue, the continual discussion, your child ends up doing a version of what they want with no consequences. Even if they eventually do what you have told them it is with such bad grace that you never feel each confrontation is actually resolved. You child never accepts This game can become so central for children that they move from just trying to get tangible results and get addicted to the process itself. I have know children fight for hours to get what they want only to immediately say they don't want it and demand something else.
This behaviour is very like the behaviour you would expect from a tired toddler, your child has either rediscovered it or never really left it behind.
This contest often drags on for years. For many children avoidance of losing becomes their mantra, they dedicate their lives to it.
"don't do anything that you even vaguely don't want to"
It's Not Your Job to Change your Child
|
Childrens behaviour is always provisional
|
Selfish, Rude, Demanding, Uncompromising?
If a child behaves in the same selfish, rude, demanding, uncompromising way each and every day, month after month or year after year, parents cannot be blamed for thinking that it is the child's personality that drives the behaviour.
|
Although the child's personality may have asked more questions of your parenting than your other children these questions still could have been, and still can be, answered if you have the correct techniques and enough resolve. Bad behaviour does NOT stem from personality.
It's not necessarily the
ADHD, Attachment Disorder, Tourettes Syndrome Either
|
When children have these conditions could it be that the extreme way they behave during interactions are not just the result of their disorder? Look at these extracts of letter from two parents with ADHD children.
Parents one
We have a 6 year old boy - we have been to Dr. Xxxxxxx - who diagnosed ADHD with extreme anxiousness. His behaviour can be clearly broken into two main elements: At home - typical ADHD - whole household at each others throats by end of evening!
At school - extremely nervous, sad and anxious - described as "quiet - sad boy".
Parent two
"I can’t take it any more!! We scream all morning to get out of the house. Homework takes hours. If I don’t help him with his work, he’s so disorganized that he’ll never do well. If I do help him, he screams at me. Since he never finishes anything, everyone thinks he doesn’t care. No matter how much we beg or punish, he keeps doing the same stupid things over and over again. He never considers the consequences of his actions, and doesn’t seem to care if they hurt me. It’s so easy for him to get overwhelmed. Sometimes, he just wants to ‘turn the noise off.’ He is so inflexible, and then blows up over anything. It gets me so angry that I scream back, which makes everything even worse. Now that he’s getting older, the lies and the cursing is getting worse, too. I know he has trouble paying attention, but why does he have all of these other problems as well?"
This is fairly typical of the of the comments made by many of the parents I have worked with over the years. What the mothers are doing here would be counter-productive and cause major problems for any child. But these children have ADHD and need to learn to function in a world where their control of behaviour will determine their happiness and success. Are these mothers reactions helping this learning process? It is clear that they need help with the key principles involved in changing behaviour. Parents are told that they need to "understand" their child's disorder and the difficulties the child has in controlling their behaviour. But what does this advice mean for them? Yes, it is good advice if it means keeping calm and not blaming your child, but NO, it is terrible advice if it precludes sound behaviour management techniques.
Parents often believe they should handle interactions with their children in a different way if they have a behaviour disorders. But these different techniques are never actually specified. The truth is that for most parents none actually exist.
Could they ever be developed? If they were would they be different from the very precise behaviour management techniques described in this book? This is for others to judge. My view is that the real world is based on a system of rewards and sanctions and that parents of behaviour disordered children should be attempting to train them to function in the real world. If they wait, the world will teach lessons without care or compassion. In any case there is no way they can avoid attempting to teach so their attempts need to be informed and their rewards and sanctions given carefully. How can a child with a disorder who is struggling to control his behaviour be helped by a mother who is also failing to control hers? The real extremes with all the behaviour disorders and even mental illness are usually seen in interactions with parents. Parental skill must be a factor.
Traumatic interactions with children are always associated with the poor choice and deployment of consequences. Not, as many parents believe, the child not understanding or not caring about consequences. It is a great tragedy for the child when parents have not been given the skills to train them calmly and carefully.
But the the good news is that with precise training interactions as traumatic as the ones these parents describe become the key time for training. This training will usually work well regardless of how long the child has behaved badly and often regardless of their behaviour disorder.
Consequence-Starved Children
|
As we have said (this section has been used before at the start of "what spock forgot")
We are searching for a the strategy that parents need to prevent their children dragging them into endless discussion about what they are told to do. We are also searching to identify the flaw in our handling of our children's behaviour that creates children with apparently contradictory qualities. On one hand strong willed and "can't lose" but on the other seemingly very insecure.
It would be reasonable to guess that the preventative stategey that prevents endless discussing may also be the missing factor that children need for healthy self-esteem to develop. Experience shows that one particular stratagy, unsurprising in itself, does solve both these problems.
It is the consistent application of consequences.
Children, it would seem, actually need the consistent application of consequences for their emotional growth. Yet many children make it impossible for us to supply them. They behave badly but find ways to prevent us sanctioning (punishing) them or get us so angry that we cancel out our sanction with loads of negative attention.
Are you clear in your own mind
exactly what is non-negotiable?
|
The father of the son with the homework problem quotes his son's remarks and you sense that he secretly thinks that his son has a point. And of course he does, from his point of view his arguments have genuine validity. But does this mean that his fathers categorical - "Johnny it's 6 o'clock it's time to do your homework now" is any less categorial? If it does then all is already lost.
There can be only two modes within the family and no grey areas. Either the child has a genuine choice and the parent accepts their choice happily or the parent's view is 100% categorical and unchangeable. No grey areas. Disputes within families repeat so think things through thouroughly beforehand. Any doubts about your own position are completely unfair to your child. Some parents actually use their interactions with their children to make up their minds. If you do this then every decision, not just the current one, is "up for grabs".
So you have drawn your circle and you have discussed what should go in it. You are now absolutely clear what is non-negotiable in your family. You know the precise areas where your categorical statement need to be made and where you will never be drawn into discussion. You give your reasons once without expecting your child to accept them. You have completely put out of your mind all thought of explaining your reasons or supporting them.
Give them what they want but under your terms
|
How to avoid pointless discussion
and provide consequences
|
First we need to be clear exactly what is non-negotiable. I ask parents to draw a circle and write inside those things that they know 100% there child should not decide. What parents put inside their circle is personel to them but the lists usually look the same. Parents are always surprised how short the list is.
Inside their circles they usually put only four words, the first three are
Health - time of going to bed, eating appropriately, doctor and dentist decisions. Safety decisions about what is dangerous. The right to know (and decide about) where they go, what they do, who they are with the time they should return. Education Application at school, homework.
The forth word is one that I always insist parents include. In the early days of my work I felt a little quilty about it. I thought its inclusion was for subjective reasons more to do with my age, I thought that perhaps it was old fashioned and that it was not really as important for modern families. I soon realised that this word was actually so crucial that without its constant application to every single moment of the child's day NONE of the changes that parents craved are possible. This word is ....
Politeness is central because Rudenes is a public denial of your leadership and so actually challenges you for it. If your child is even slightly rude your efforts to change their behavioiur will take much longer and may not succeed at atll. If you were reluctant to dictate those few things that must happen to your child, your child will have not such reluctance in attempting to dictate almost everything to you.
I am the sole parent for my 10 year old daughter Sally. She is a delightful child in many ways, but over the last two years she has become much more confrontational. She seems to be pushing me to the limits daily, is openly rude in front of others and to a certain extent, seems to me, to be trying to gain equal decision making status. She will not seem to accept that a 10 year old has not the maturity to contribute positively to the kind of day to day decisions she is seeking to influence. The reaction to being told to do something is extreme, frequently resulting in screaming at me that she hates me and that I am the worst father on earth. When this subsides, she is very clingy and tells me that she loves me.
I know that I must be at fault in some way, but can't see the wood for the trees. To try to drag her back onto a more disciplined course is however, proving to be the biggest challenge I have faced and I'm not sure I am up to it.
This ten year old may strive for this power. She is testing her own sense of security as she tests her father. Even if she never achieves any power this constant striving will make her insecure. She knows that she is not really equiped to make adult decisions on her own. Deep down she misses the cosiness that her final few years of dependancy should bring. A dependancy from which her father should be carefully weaning her. He should be gradually giving power away not fighting her for it.
Children don't constantly need to be told what to do or what not to do. In fact they don't need to be told at all. All they need is to know the areas in which they don't, yet, have a say.
These challenges, in spite of the cleaver speeches, are emotionally driven. They are not intellectual disputes. We mis-read this at our peril. The resolution for an emotionally based challenge can only be found in stabiliy. It can never be found by supplying or discussing the change that the child is asking for.
The toddler uses baby language to tell you that he wants you to give him something on the shelf.
You pass him what you think he is pointing at, he gets more upset and he shakes his head "no". You try the item next to it, you give it to him - even more upset. "No". You hand him everything on the self in turn nothing satifies him. You cannot satisfy him. But even after you have handed him everything he continues to point. You cannot satisfy him by giving him what is on the shelf because what he wants is not on the shelf. This father could give his 10 year old what she wants, give her everything she askes him for but she will never be satisfied. The reasurance she seeks is not on the shelf.
There is a very good reason why children are rude. It has nothing to do with their personalities or their strong wills or their angry natures. Children are rude for a very simple reason. A reason that is very easy to put right. They are rude because without realising it we have trained them them that being rude works. They only become rude and only stay rude because they are more likely to get us to listen to them and respond to their comments if they are rude than if they are not.
As soon as parents train themselves to always listen for the "mode" the way something is said, before the content or what is being said then (using a small sanction) the rudeness disappears.
But doing this is a lot harder than it appears. What children say when they are rude is always very seductive. They wrongly accuse us rudely; deliberately misunderstand us rudely; challenge us rudely; contradict us rudely. There is every likelyhodd that we will immediately miss the way they say it and spring to our own defence or angrily give our own point of view.
Being Rude To You
undermines their own self esteem
|
Rude children always appear powerful, they appear too self-confident. It is difficult to realise that such extrovert behaviour is fueled by very low self esteem. It is not possible for your child to stop being rude. They are completely trapped into their rudeness and need training to stop. Of course they cannot train themselves. What not widely realised is that all the time they are being rude they are seriously undermining their own sense of self-worth. This is how it happens:-
rudeness creates continuous negative communication which suggests continually to your child that you don't like/love them (which threatens to become true)
rudeness challenges you for your leadership whilst deep down your child knows they are not equiped to lead
rudeness traps your child into emotional demands that mask real needs
rudeness undermines you in their eyes (even though they are the ones doing it) but you are their mother or father so it undermines to some extent their heritage - where they feel they they came from and their adult model - their view of who they feel they will be
if continuous rudeness undermines you in their eyes they may begin to feel that this is also the way others outside the home perceive you
Losses that we can't control
|
Some dissappontments are part of life and cannot be controlled. The sun goes down and the children's party has to come to an end. We have to go to bed. We have to get up to go to school. Other children's parents can afford things that ours can't. Not all our desires can be met.
Luckily training your child to accept loss as a consequence for their behaviour (i.e. sanctions) also appears to train them to accept these inevitable losses. What children cannot change they quickly learn to accept. Providing constant justification and explaination or compensatory rewards do not keep the issue alive.
Rewarding "Bad Behaviour"
|
Knowinglh rewardig not a good idea
|
- 25 -
|
|
