Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘behavior / discipline’

Matt was a troublemaker. He disturbed the class, made lots of noises and fought with the other kids in class. It was unbearable. His teacher tried different methods to stop this behavior, but nothing helped, so he invited Matt’s presents for a talk.

Matt’s parents came to see the teacher and he told them about his failed attempts to calm him down and keep the order in class.

“I’ve tried everything I could and exhausted my options”, said the teacher and asked Matt’s parents about his behavior at home.

Matt’s dad said, “We’ve tried everything ourselves. We punish him, we bribe him, but nothing helps”.

“Have you tried diagnosing him?” asked the teacher.

“I don’t believe in diagnosing. It won’t help. It’s not practical,” said Matt’s mom.

“Well, how about giving him Ritalin?” suggested the teacher, “It will calm him down”.

“Where do we get Ritalin?” Matt’s dad asked.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll arrange this for you. Matt will take one tablet every day before he comes to school and everything will be OK”, said the teacher.

“Well, that won’t work”, said Matt’s mom, “Our mornings are very hectic. My husband leaves home early and I rush the kids to school. Who’s going to make sure he takes his tablet?”

“OK, then I can help you with this”, said the teacher, “I will give him the tablet myself when he gets to school”.

All men are created … innocent. Women too, of course. Kids start their life trusting their parents completely and following in their footsteps, which is very reassuring, but as soon as they become teenagers, critical thinking kicks in and they start to “see the cracks” and question everything.

Most parents find this annoying and challenging and resent their budding grownups for “bugging” them with their doubts and endless second-guessing. Those same parents typically frowned at them when they were 1 year old and walked around, pointing at things and asking, “What’s this?” When they were 2 years old, their parents became frustrated that they wanted to do everything themselves, and when they were 4, the parents were upset because no matter what happened, they kept asking, “Why?”

But these tender ages, along with the rest of childhood, are a time of discovery, and questions keep our kids’ mind sharp, teaching them about the world at their own pace and according to their own interests. In short, questions are good.

There are several types of questions, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and all very useful in parenting and generally in life.

Last week, Ronit and I saw a movie that made me think there are some people with no love in their heart. Then, we attended a wedding ceremony that was all about love, and that got me thinking about parents’ role in making the world a more loving place for their children. Since Christmas is coming and we will have a lot more time with our kids, the timing is perfect.

The film we saw was called The Whistleblower. It is a story of an American police officer who works for the United Nations’ peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and uncovers a women trafficking operation. We sat on big, soft cushions on the grass at a park by the Brisbane River, the weather was perfect, the atmosphere was magical, we were happy for the chance to get away for a bit in each other’s company.

Then, the movie started.

The level of brutality shown on the screen by the traffickers towards the women, the complete disregard for the law and the strong violation of every moral system I could think of disturbed me to the core. I had to struggle to keep watching some scenes and felt terrible for poor Ronit who is generally more sensitive than I am.

When we talked about the movie in the car on the way home, we both wondered what would compel anyone to abuse another person in such a way. Our conclusion was that these people had no love in their hearts. Not romantic love. Kindness, compassion, empathy, tenderness, comradery, friendship and understanding towards another human being.

Our world today is a stressful place, full of pressure from every direction. That much is obvious. In fact, there are many things designed specifically to put pressure on us and keep us feeling stressed, and they are getting stronger and stronger over time.

Being a parent and having to raise kids adds another dimension to the pressure, because we not only have to stay calm ourselves, we also have to help our children relax and teach them how to handle pressure or everyone will go nuts.

I was unlucky in that respect.

My dad was raised by a very strict father, who taught him there was a “right” way to do everything – eat, dress, shave, speak, study, work and behave. Every other way was “wrong”. This was not a matter of personal preference but of “general consensus” and he treated any deviation from propriety with the same high severity.

There were things my dad decided not to do to me, like using physical violence. I was not beaten as a child, although my dad was beaten when he was little. That was a good thing. However, I grew up with strict rules I was expected to follow and not many things were open for discussion.

But I have come a long way since then and you can too.

As hard as it is for parents to imagine, one day, their baby is going to sign their own declaration, leave home and be independent. Kids strive for independence from the age of 1½ to 2 years old, when you try to dress them and they say, “No, no, me”, and keep trying to do things themselves.

Much like many countries around the world, kids can get their independence after war and “bloodshed” or after signing a “peace treaty” with the society around them. And much like the independence of countries is mainly the result of what their leaders do, with kids, it is a mainly the result of what their parents do.

Do you feel it is a heavy responsibility? Well, it is! But if you think deeply about it, you will find that power goes hand in hand with responsibility. Parents have lots of power in leading their kids to design their declaration of independence and sign it.

If you talk to most parents (when they are calm), they will tell you that independence is very important. Yet when I ask them how if they teach independence, they talk about chores. My mom did the same. She said, “If you do the dishes from the age of 10, when you live in your own home, you will be able to do the dishes”. We told her, “No, Mom. If I wash the dishes from the age of 10, by the time I am grown up, I will hate and resent it so much I will avoid washing the dishes”.

Even though my mom did not think that fun and motivation had anything to do with the kind of grownups we would become, she still wanted us to be independent. I think that much like many other parents, she confused doing chores with independence.

I think there is a lot of confusion among parents between happy kids and spoiled kids. Sometimes, out of fear of spoiling our kids, we guarantee they will be miserable.

I heard about the fear of spoiling kids when my first daughter Eden was born. Everyone around me said, “Don’t hold her all day. You’ll spoil her”.

I never liked the word “spoil”. I did not understand how anyone could think of spoiling such a wonderful, perfect, divine creature. I always felt that hugging Eden and holding her was more for me than for her anyway.

As time passed, I realized they were trying to tell me to find the balance, to avoid creating a dependency, to give and get space and to provide and gain freedom. It is sad the only word that can include all those ideas was “spoil”.

I find the idea that showing love to our children is risky very disturbing. I talk to many parents at my parenting workshops and discover that this old fear is still there.

I think people came up with the idea to justify not being able to give their kids what they thought they should. For example, if they feel tired of holding a baby for a long time, they come up with the justification that holding a baby the whole day would spoil the baby. Why can we not just admit that part of what we do for our kids, we actually do for ourselves?

Last Sunday, Ronit ran a parenting workshop and I came in the afternoon to help her pack. When I arrived, she was still talking to the parents about rules and boundaries and mentioned the way she used “family rules” to avoid conflicts with the kids.

That reminded me of the time when I wanted to register for a software engineering course at the local university. The course I wanted was popular and all the places were taken, so I rang during my lunch break to ask to be put on the waiting list.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but you’ll have to come in person and fill out the waiting list form”, the administrator told me.

“Can you please just take my details and put me on the list?”

“I’m sorry, Sir, but it’s university policy”, she said.

Boy, was I pissed off at this. I was spewing for weeks afterwards. It may have even contributed to my later stomach ulcer. Or not.

Over the years that followed, more and more companies structured their operations in such a way that clients could not get their way. Not easily, anyway. When I rang Customer Service, I would bump into First Line staff who were basically trained parrots. The term “company policy” rang in my ears more and more often. It was infuriating.

But at some point, Ronit and I learned how to use the same trick to our advantage as parents. Oh, sweet revenge!

Modern people spend most of their time on “autopilot”. Too often, our responses are simply programmed by our past experiences, our education and the enormous pressures of our life. We travel along the same road to work and it just zooms past the car window, seemingly unchanged. We interact with the same people, repeat the same patterns and get the same feelings.

You could compare a modern person, at least in Western society, to a Jumbo Jet. Change starts for us by making a lot of noise, feeling heavy and hardly moving. Then, we start rolling forward and pick up speed for a long time until we finally take off. But as soon as we are in the air, we look for a nice “cruising altitude” and “switch to autopilot”.

When you are a parent, this matters a great deal, because you are “carrying passengers” and these passengers are very precious – your partner and your children. Where you take them is important and how comfortable they are during your “flight” is also important. So sometimes, you have to disengage your autopilot and pay attention.

If you think about it, this unaware “flight mode” is a coping mechanism. It is a result of the overwhelming demands on our time, mental power and emotional intelligence placed by modern technology, lots of people, ever-changing world around us and massive barrage of information. We need to protect ourselves from all this noise, so we build a quiet cocoon by filtering out as much as we can.

But it does not have to be like this.

If you ask people what success means, some will tell you it is a mindset and others will tell you it involves pure luck. When they lose in a battle, it is mainly because they believe life is all about luck. When they win in the battle of life, it is mainly because they believe they have control of their mindset. There are two kinds of people – those who win in life and those who whine about life. Which one are you?

Life is full of battles. From the first second we come into this world, we have challenges to conquer. Babies have the most challenges. Without the ability to speak, satisfy their own hunger, take care of a wet or smelly bum or change the temperature, they are fully dependent on others. Yet, although they lack the ability to satisfy their basic needs, they never consider quitting.

With crying as their only tool for communication, they win most of their battles by whining. Unfortunately, this is when they also develop the belief that whining is a good way to get things in life.

Whether this mindset will stay with them for life or change depends on the baby’s social agents, especially the parents. If they consider the crying baby to be a complainer (“What’s wrong? Why are you crying so much? It’s not the end of the world”), he or she will grow up to be a complainer. If they see crying as a form of communication (“Yes, Mommy is here. You’re right. You’re all wet and Mommy needs to change your diaper”), he or she will grow up to be a communicator. When those two babies grow, they will both have the desire to be successful, but one of them will go for it and the other one will complain about not having it.

The topic of disciplining kids is going to be forever hot for every parent. It is a hot topic because it bothers many parents and it is hot because too many parents find themselves in a huge conflict over it. Here is a question I got about discipline from a reader.

“Hi Ronit,

My husband and I do not agree on the right way to raise the kids. I spend most of the time with them and he works until late and on the weekends he needs to rest and goes out with his friends.

This week, he said to me that his job is to be the provider and my job is to discipline the kids and that I was failing as a parent. He said that if he was my boss, he would fire me. He thinks I am not objective towards my kids and I do not prepare them for real life.

What is your opinion about discipline?

Gina”

Dear Gina,

How to discipline kids, what is discipline and related issues are a source of friction almost in every home. I think your husband has expectations from you and your children that are probably based on his definition of good parenting and discipline, which I am not sure are healthy, although they were very typical 20 to 30 years ago when he was a child.