Showing posts with label control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label control. Show all posts

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Announce & Wait, part 2, or Why it does not work for all kids


Announce & Wait – a Caveat: 
                                            it takes a minute or so. . .

The feedback on the post Announce & Wait has made me realize that not all people are starting this kind of parenting thing from the earliest days of their parenting life, and many people have a history of not-this-kind-of-parenting … which makes some of the suggestions look like they don’t ‘work’.

In case you don’t feel like wandering over and reading the related piece, that post is essentially a suggestion for how to have more peaceful cooperation with things like toothbrushing, diaper changes and getting ready to leave the building when it’s -73°C outside: gather everything you need, go to where you need to do it (at the door, on the floor near the changing pad, or on the way to the washroom with the toothbrushes in it) saying --to someone whose full attention you actually have--‘I’m going to brush your teeth [or whatever] now…’ and wait. Stay still, don’t say anything, and really don’t say it again. Just wait. Meditate. Everyone needs more opportunities to focus on staying in the moment. Every parent I have ever met wishes for more uninterrupted time to be themselves in … what a wonderful free moment you are being given, until the little one processes the information, sorts out what they want to do, and comes to go along with your plans.
"https://www.flickr.com/photos/donnieray/16280303709/"

That is the suggestion in that post. It works.

However . . .

Think of all the other ways people are told to ‘encourage’ kids to do things the kids don’t necessarily want to do or agree are very important. Toddlers don’t understand ‘cavities in 18 months’ or ‘frozen flesh warnings.’ Parents do, which is why they get to be in charge of the hygiene and safety stuff.

https://bit.ly/2yYlPrY
When you’re just entering the ‘I don’t want to do what you want to do because you want to do it’ stage with, say, a 14- or 18-month-old child, starting with this approach before any other approach is attempted makes it ‘work’ –peacefully, and at least as effectively as anything else anyone suggests, but again: peacefully, which isn’t how most command-and-control, coercion, or orders –sorry ‘opportunities for cooperation’—usually turn out.

How Orders [ahem . . . opportunities to cooperate] Turn Out

Even if they work, there are natural responses to ordering people around, and pretty much every parent looking for ideas for how to make their days go more smoothly have ample evidence of what those responses look like:

https://bit.ly/2qyr8diIs my child deaf? I swear she could hear a moment ago when I unwrapped a chocolate bar… three rooms away behind a door. . .

          I am SO tired of the word ‘no,’ it is              all the kids ever say. . .

I don’t have the energy to chase the child around the house every time we need to do something. . .

Oh, great, I don’t have time for another temper tantrum right now, we need to GOooooo!

Sometimes people think I’m talking about kids’ reactions.  

Kids’ reactions are just their response to what is happening around them, to them, and within themselves. That’s all perfectly natural. It’s also inevitable and unchangeable from the outside.

The reactions that aren’t ‘working’ for the parents are the parent’s: impatience, frustration, irritation, martyrdom, hopelessness, exasperation, desperation, depletion and burnout.

Often parents see the kids’ behaviour as the driving force causing these responses, which is pretty usual in a culture that shames anyone responsible for anything, and encourages people to evade blame at all costs.

However. . .

https://bit.ly/15QQq9E
A great friend who has renamed herself Talloolah in the tradition of Wise Women everywhere who step outside the mainstream, says ‘expectations are just planned disappointments.’ 

Another friend, who proudly calls herself a Crone, says ‘that’s not just asking for frustration, that’s ordering it.’

I segued away there to pave the way to say something rather counter-culture:

choose your action, choose your response

Am I saying that parents are asking for frustration and irritation and burnout on purpose? Absolutely not. Am I saying that they are doing it without realizing it, and often without any awareness of what is happening? You bet!

By choosing your action, you are choosing your response

If you order another human being to do your bidding, you are choosing resistance. It’s basic human nature, and while there are unicorns in the world who might comply instantly for fun or because the sun is up, the chances of you having given birth to one (or adopted one, or had one assigned to your classroom or sign up for your daycare services) are kind of remote. They aren’t called unicorns because they are everyday horses –or because they are people.
https://bit.ly/2QoUDtl

If you nag a human being to do what you want when they clearly are doing something else, you are choosing frustration AND resistance. It’s basic human nature. Humans do not like being told what to do, and when the resistance to being ordered around becomes second-nature, humans will not do what they want to do if they think it aligns with what the authority wants them to do. This is the basis of a lot of ‘forgetting’ and procrastination. Repeating the order is just irritating to everyone.

If you interrupt a human being with what you believe is more important (to you) than what is important to them, you are choosing exasperation. It is basic human nature. People of all ages naturally resist having other people choose their priorities.

The Long Way to Say: announce and wait ‘works’
. . .when the person involved trusts your motives

It is hard to hear that the reason your child does not respond to your communication openly and eagerly . . .

. . . it is hard to hear that this is about trust and connection.

https://bit.ly/2D6xyYs
Resistance to you and your words is not built on trust, it’s built on command-and-control parenting styles. Even ‘peaceful’ command-and-control styles. The thing about human nature is that the words don’t matter. At all. Call is ‘peaceful’ if you want to, if it is coercive, command-and-control, the resistance you encounter will be the truth of the situation. Call it ‘attachment’ when you leave the baby with a total stranger for something ‘important’ and the baby will still be freaked out by the stranger. Call it ‘logical consequences’ and the child will perceive it as the punishment that it is, because it is imposed in response to ‘poor choices’ (read: adult-determined ‘bad behaviour’) and never to ‘good choices.’ That is how you can always tell it is not ‘natural’ consequences, because the universe supplies those quite without fear or favour, regardless of what anyone ‘meant.’

This is not about ‘bad’ parenting. That’s a value judgement that people take personally, naturally resist, and isn’t helpful in any context.

It is about taking bad advice –sometimes without thinking about it at all, sometimes because of where it came from (our own childhoods, often) and sometimes because of how delightfully convenient and simple it would be if it did work.

Bad advice is the kind that can’t work because it fails to accept reality as a premise. Coercive, command-and-control parenting advice is like that: it can’t work because: people.

https://bit.ly/2JJAg7EThis is about the problem with following age-old (and sometimes new-sounding) advice that disregards basic human nature because … well, I don’t really know why it disregards basic human nature.

Maybe because for a really long time, kids have not been thought of as really human.

Maybe because it sounds like it should work.

Maybe because it feels like it would be faster if you could just activate the Voice Command Software and have a smooth-running, adults-deferred-to, convenient ‘the Queen is in charge of the Universe and the time at which other people wash their faces’ house…

I don’t really know what is the impetus behind disregarding basic human nature in favour of the stories around ‘you should be able to control your kid’ and all the advice that sounds like that … but I do know it is fantasy fiction.

Sure, if people weren’t people, maybe it would work.

If kids weren’t people, maybe it would work.

It doesn’t work.
https://bit.ly/2JK37sj

Because: people.


And the length of time the sun is visible in the sky does not change based on the number humans decide to put on their clocks, and there is no ‘daylight’ to ‘save’ by changing them. Not sure why that bit of weirdness ever took hold, either, but here we are: daylight hours in the Northern hemisphere shorten through October and November, just as they are lengthening in the Southern hemisphere and staying completely the same at the equator –let’s all change the clocks and pretend something else is happening because … then children will have Voice Command Software and they will magically stop being human and stop resisting being controlled by … um … nah.

It’ll never work.

What is the Caveat?

The caveat to Announce-and-Wait is that in a place where kids are used to being, expecting to be, and have a lot of experience being ordered around (sorry I meant so say: motivated to comply / encouraged to listen… but really: ordered around), they will absolutely not magically ‘perform’ differently in the face of one simple change of a parent’s behaviour in this instance. It will ‘work’ –just not right away, and maybe not at all today.

Because this is about trust.

Trust is messy, because people want to control what other people think and feel … and that urge alone damages trust.

Wanting other people to trust you feels controlling to them, and that damages their ability to trust you.

This Relationship Thing is COMPLICATED!
https://bit.ly/2QtSpZO

As much as we want to feel capable and in control, the simple reality of relationships is phrased the way a late friend put it:

               This is me
               That is you

All the ‘this is me’ stuff we are in control of is:
     1.       our words and,
     2.        our actions.

We don’t control our thoughts, emotions, the world around us, the weather on Europa or what other people think of us or what they think about what we do.

All the ‘that is you’ stuff we are in control of is this list here:
      1.
        . . . 

Even in our own very young children, we cannot control the impact we have on them, what they think about what we do or say, how they understand what we do or say, what they think our actions and words mean about them and their value as people, or how much they trust or respect us.

One more time for the people in the back: we do not get to decide what impact our actions and words have on other people.

We do not control what they think about us, or about themselves when we are affecting them.

When we make changes, of any kind really, we are not the people who get to decide how those changes will be perceived by others. We don’t get to decide that we have sufficient authority for others to go along with those changes instantly, or to respond to those changes immediately the way we expect them to or how we hope they will.

Announce-and-wait is not magically different.

It takes time to make changes that matter.

It takes patience, to allow the other people to see that you really mean it, and this isn’t some new trick you’ve discovered to make them compliant a new way.

It takes time to rebuild trust that you really are not trying to control them, that they really are free and that you really will wait for them to be ready to do that thing you want them to do.

As I said: change is hard. It works, but not instantly like a Polaroid picture (which also takes a minute…)




Friday 24 April 2015

What I “Allow” My Child to Say to an Adult

 

3775284087_08cc0f2d0d_oFuck off, Fuck you, Fuck me, Fuck it.

A recently circulating blog post 'Six things my kids are not allowed to say to adults,' lists all the reasons why some intensely prim mother will not allow her children to say atrocious things like 'no' and 'yeah' and 'just a minute' and 'I don't want to.'

There is even a great rebuttal, called 'Six things my kids are allowed to say to adults', which explains why every single one of those words and phrases is completely fine.

And here is my initial response to both: no mention of 'fuck' at all?

Seriously?

2332181561_a457f41213_oSo, I suggest to the author of the original: not allowed to say 'no' but 'fuck off' is totally fine? Or beyond your ability to imagine any child actually saying? Or perhaps you are completely deaf in that sound range?

Because dad's a sailor, and mom's a pragmatist, both our children explored the wacky and wonderful world of obscenities off and on throughout their childhoods. I'm not sure they had any nuns to shock, but I can tell you absolutely: kids whose parents have potty mouths don't swear as teens. At least not to their parents...

Whenever parents are suggesting they are in total control of their children's mouths, and have every right and responsibility to control what their children think and say, I think of two words:

humour and mercy

Humour, because really: get a grip, it's not that big a deal.

Some words (which mean the same things as other completely acceptable-for-company words) raise eyebrows because ... why? Because, frankly, when the court languages were Latin and French, the Anglo-Saxon words for excrement and fornication were 'coarse and common.' Ooh, our poor delicate ears can only hear Latin and French words for excrement, female body parts or sexual intercourse without causing fainting.

Right.

That is totally related to modern English in the Western world. Of course. That makes... absolutely no sense at all.

Fine. Let's go with that then.

And why not?

3072394014_454338f2fb_oIn an unrelated note, I can't tell you how disappointed and disgusted I was with modern English when I discovered that there has not been a new swear coined since the 1600s. Appalling lack of creativity here, people!

And, mercy, because: oh for crying out loud, they're children.

Children are (this is not allowed to be a surprise to anyone) immature. Their communication style is, concomitant to their immaturity, also (this is not allowed to be a surprise, either) immature.

Yes, really.

Surely, some mature and reasonably intelligent adult has it within their ability to understand the limitations of childhood and crank back the expectations for perfect, enlightened and mature communication skills at least until the child has most of the adult parts of their brain grown in... say, 16 or 18 years of age.

Maybe instead of attempting to control a child's mouth and all that comes out of it, the prissy mommy-blogger could try being the bigger person, grasping the immaturity of her children's verbal expressions, and understand them from a more forgiving mindset, like 'I know you're tired and hungry sweetie, and I know you don't want to clean up the toys you were playing with at Auntie Jeannie's. I wish we had a robot to do all the tidying, and a teleporter and be at our favourite buffet right now! I'm sorry, it's my fault we stayed past when we are tired and haven't had enough to eat yet.'

449123752_3ac94e3086_oThe child made a sound intended to communicate a message that was important to the child. If mommy 'gets it' why pretend she doesn't? Why be appalled at the immaturity of the method, when she could be instructive, supportive, helpful, kind, informative or, frankly, respond to the fucking need the child has expressed and grow up about expecting wise, mature and pristine communication from tiny, inexperienced people?

Why does mom get to be a big baby about how people say things to her, but expect the kids to be mature adults in all of their communication?

Friday 26 April 2013

Addiction and Choice

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Recommended reading: Addiction, a disorder of choice, by Gene M. Heyman

When we subject children to anti-drug propaganda* we may be taking for granted a few propositions that have not been established outside the ‘my pappy tol’ me so’ and ‘some dude in a pub said’ frames.

As Heyman’s thesis valiantly proves, addiction is absolutely a voluntary choice and is absolutely not a disease.

I’ll summarize the argument for the second claim first, because it’s so universally accepted today. If alcoholism, smoking, heavy drug use and oxycodone abuse were diseases, it would not be possible to ‘quit.’ Not with a change of attitude, not with rehab and not with meetings –all of which can and do end addiction in real life. More than 80% of heavy, chronic drug users quit on their own, by choice, most of them before they’re 30 (they also typically start at 18.) If the disease model made sense, then MS and diabetes could be ‘quit’ with the help of rehab or meetings, which is a ridiculous suggestion.

On to the voluntary choice aspect. Because a lot of the research on the subject tends to be done by economists, rather than mothers of 14-year-old boys, they often take it as read that people do not voluntarily choose self-destructive options. Anyone who has ever seen Jackass or its many imitators can snort at that idea. Clearly, people do, rather more often than most parents are comfortable, make choices that are not in the best interest of anyone, including themselves.

What’s going on?

It turns out that one other things economists get wrong is the frame in which the decisions are being made. Economists look at ‘market baskets’ –like a collection of possible spending choices for someone’s discretionary income, and see that overall people tend to make reasonably sensible choices: the ‘best interest’ model. Yet people have rationally pointed out that there are a great many people who are bankrupt –or being evicted for non-payment of rent, with big screen tvs and smartphones—that rather argues against the theory. The frame economists use, in Heyman’s terminology, is a global framework for decision making, and it does tend away from self-destructive and toward best interest. In drug use, this means that when someone frames the ‘will I use cocaine now?’ question in terms of ‘is this the best use of the next $150 and 4 hours of my time, considering my life goals?’ the answer is very, very different from a ‘local’ viewpoint.

The local view is ‘will I suffer through the craving now?’ In short-term decision-making, people will very often make self-destructive and even openly suicidal choices. In my post about lacking resources (Anti-Resourceful), I described one such devastating decision from my hometown. It is not irrational, from a ‘this moment’s pleasure’ standpoint, to use drugs instead of living through withdrawal.

So, to drug education

What do we tell the children, and what ‘works’ for avoiding hard core drug addiction?

As much as we don’t really believe it will work (hence the propaganda*) the answer is: The Truth.

The truth includes the fact that drugs use money, energy, resources and time in a way that does not get anyone closer to their personal goals in life. It’s uncommon knowledge, but you only get to spend this dollar, this bit of energy and this minute once.

The truth includes the fact that most people who experiment with drugs have their own very good reasons for not becoming habitual users, and it’s probably worth forty minutes of your life to figure out what yours are.

The truth includes the fact that there are many potentially-devastating side effects from most potent drugs, and in spite of the fact that the odds of ending up with any or all of them are really pretty small, without the drug use the odds are much nearer to zero.

The truth includes the fact that drug use has some real attractions that are genuinely hard to beat with anything else in the world, but none of those eradicate any of the other truths, including the fact that quitting is filled with suffering, often for a good long time.

The truth includes the fact that the majority of successful people look down on both the effects and the users of mood-altering substances particularly when the use can no longer be easily contained to non-productive hours, or when the urge to use spills out into criminal and anti-social behaviour. All people need the respect and goodwill of their friends and neighbours and while you’ll certainly be popular with your dealer/supplier and your buddy users, you will also certainly be restricting your social circle dramatically.

Do we have to get into dire threats and fictional statistics? I don’t think so. In fact, it would be ever so much better if we didn’t.

___

* Propaganda defined: amplified, simplified and vilified info-tainment designed to coerce underlings into believing whatever overlings have determined to be ‘best’ for them, regardless of any accuracy of statements…

Friday 3 August 2012

To ‘Make Sure’

 

Ran across a great ‘zen’ quote while stumbling yesterday:

Let go… or be dragged

Then, it came up in a conversation about ‘making sure’ –with teenagers.

‘Making sure’ is probably the most alluring, and least effective, form of security a parent can seek.

No parent wants to face the reality of the terrors of freeing a child to the world. As possibly-Phyllis Diller said:

having a child is giving your heart permission to walk around by itself for the rest of your life

Parenting is terrifying, and letting go is even more terrifying. It’s hard to do when a two-year-old wants to wear all their favourite clothes at once…

… without thinking about what they’re allowed to do with a computer.

When a 15-year-old struggles for independence and liberty, it’s not easier to let go. It’s particularly not easier than it would have been when the child was three. But that’s water under the bridge and time can’t flow backwards.

But ‘making sure’ has a synonym. That is: ‘making a mess.’

Trying to control the thoughts, feelings, goals and preferences of a child (especially a teenage child) is pretty much guaranteed to get messy. Some kids can withstand a lot of it, without it affecting who they are, or what they choose, very much… but those kids are rare (and it’s inherently disrespectful to them, too… they just don’t mind so much that their parents are.)

For most kids, the lack of faith in them that this ‘making sure’ demonstrates does real damage to their stability. They react in ways that are surprising even to them: they vandalize things, they sneak out at night, they make cavalier choices with their lives and bodies, they check-out of things they once cared about, they disconnect from the people they need…

Yes, trusting that the world is a safe-enough place for our precious teens is hard. Trust anyhow.

Yes, trusting teens out in the world is hard. Trust anyhow.

Yes, trusting that we’ve been ‘good enough’ parents to this point, so our kids will be able to cope (and maybe even thrive) is hard. Trust anyhow.

Yes, letting go is hard. Let go anyhow.

Let go… or be dragged.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Chores & Underlings: Obedience


Question 1. How can I make my child listen?
Answer 1. You mean 'obey.'
Question 1.a. No, no, no, not at all.
Answer 1.a. Oh, yes, you do. You just shy from the word 'obey.' You still mean 'how can I make my kid do what I want my kid to do?
Question 1.b. Well, okay... maybe. But how?
Answer 1.b.  Go back to the beginning and order a child with the Voice Command Software pre-installed. Sorry, it is not available aftermarket. There is no app for that.

Question 2. 


Why do my kids do what the teacher (scout leader, neighbours, etc.) tell them to do and it never works for me?
Answer 2. Because your kid trusts you. You can destroy that, if obedience is more important...
Question 2.a. No, no, I don't want obedience, I just want them to _______________[fill in blank]
Answer 2.a. Yes: you want them to obey orders.