Basic Triage: deal with the victim's injuries first

More on anti-punishment in a pro-punish world...

We live in a punishment-happy world, where people's response to everything from one child grabbing a toy from another to serial rapists is some kind of revenge fantasy. Hit them back, abuse them back, get them back: tit for tat, at its finest.

This is not functional.

It is dysfunctional, but probably not how you think it is...

Basic triage of, say, a car accident with multiple injuries does not start with finding out who to blame and running them over with a bigger vehicle to 'teach' them that they made a mistake. First aid is given in order of the seriousness of the injury, not in order of who is the least to blame.

When this protocol is followed for other mistakes and injuries, a kind of miracle occurs... the perpetrator (whoever is to blame) can see clearly the result of their error without being distracted from what happened to defend themselves against an attack from an authority figure. Or, as a reader put it, in response to my last post:

YES. And adding extra to the natural reaction following a mistake means that the natural reaction is metaphorically (or literally) shouted over and the additional extra becomes the focus of the child's attention. Thereby muffling the natural learning reaction.

One instance where this was really clear to me was when our elder daughter locked the keys in the car, just as we were about to leave my grandparents' house to come home from a camping trip. She came into their house, her face white in horror, and cried as she blurted out what had happened. Her dad started shouting at her and I stopped him: 'she already clearly feels terrible, what are you shouting for? It won't get the keys out of the car...'

Punishment doesn't solve problems. Punishment doesn't 'teach' people to notice the results of their behaviour, or even to feel bad about what they did. Punishment shows people that the authority is not on their side, and will gleefully add to how bad they already feel about themselves and their actions.

Punishment teaches people to evade blame and to argue against the authority's assertion that their action was intentional or malicious, in order to avoid feeling worse than they already do about the mistake. Punishment takes people's minds off the results and focuses their attention on protecting themselves from an attack...

... exactly the opposite of 'teaching' them to take responsibility for their actions.

Focusing on the victim first, treating the injury and helping restore their sense of safety, gives the perpetrator an unobstructed view of the results of their action and space to think for themselves about what they really wanted to achieve. It helps them save face while also giving them time to take calm down and take in new information... the conditions necessary to learn anything.

Anti-Punishment in a Pro-Punish World

The long-tail from childrearing in a punishment-happy world is adults who believe that whenever they make a mistake, damage anything or get anything wrong, they must be punished: made to feel bad about what they’ve done.

Again.

Yes, that’s what I said: again.

You see, the natural result of doing something wrong, making a mistake, hurting others, doing damage or creating unnecessary costs is to feel bad. Even really little kids get upset when the item breaks, or the baby cries, the dog runs away. I am convinced that this is not something that needs to be ‘taught.’ The natural result of making mistakes or doing damage is self-recrimination, shame, guilt and a loss of self-esteem, and to know that one is capable of harming others (and stuff.)

Yet it is an article of faith among the pro-punishment that in order for people to ‘learn’ they must have some kind of personal harm applied: public censure, fines, thrashings, withdrawal of affection, restriction of privileges, dragging it up in every tangentially-related discussion to keep scraping the scab off to keep the wound perpetually at the top of the victim’s mind.

Perpetrator’s mind.

Hang on… this is one of the things I find to be problematic about the application of additional punishment: the scale.

Punishment can very rapidly go from ‘harming the perpetrator just enough to match the offense’ to ‘harming the perpetrator so much more than makes sense that the perpetrator is now the victim.’ It is a delicate balance that requires understanding of just how bad the perpetrator already feels, so the additional harm inflicted doesn’t tip the overall experience of the perpetrator into the victim category.

But, wait… if the perpetrator already feels bad, what is the purpose of additional punishment?


I honestly have absolutely no idea.

Parenting is Hard, resisting makes it harder

The child is standing screaming hateful words, throwing things, biting, scratching, kicking, hitting… totally gone ‘feral,’ as a friend calls it.

Everyone who has ever seen one will recognize this as an extreme temper tantrum, and just what they look like in a child older than about 3 (and adults.)

There are a lot of theories about how to handle a child whose brain has gone offline, and who is now fully out of control of all higher level brain functions. My personal favourite means is ‘don’t get there in the first place,’ but sometimes shit happens.

When it happens, it is popular to try to ‘stop it’ by doing common things.

Like the withdrawal of support and affection (sending to rooms, etc.) until the emotional expressions are all happy. Yay drugs! Choose uppers.

Like yelling. Yes, because yelling is going to calm anyone’s brain down.

Spanking has its advocates, because that won’t further overload anyone’s sensory input channels. It may push their brain into a traumatized fugue state, which probably looks like ‘it worked’ to some people who don’t know what that brain state means…

Counter-intuitively, what actually works is describing what is going on, in words.

You are really frustrated because that didn’t go your way.

How infuriating! You just want it to not have broken.

It is really important to you to get the red cup!

It feels like this method will ‘give permission’ for horrible behaviour. Kids don’t think that way, so that can be dismissed without really being addressed.

It also feels like this will amplify the feelings instead of eradicate them (the goal of the three options most often recommended by ‘experts,’ as listed above) It won’t, and I can tell you why:

When you have room in your world for the expression and understanding of emotions, they don’t hang around. Emotions are like hunger: feel and understand the message of the emotion and it dissipates, just as hunger dissipates with feeding.

So, instead of leaning away from emotions hoping they’ll just go away (or trying to shout them away, ‘cause really: how can that work?) stop resisting.

The emotion is the whole reality for this child right now, with absolutely no room for the child’s tiny body to hold anything else: learning, ‘getting it,’ the message behind punishment, ‘thinking about it,’ or ‘their attention’ to be on anything but this huge emotional reality.

Yes, even if it is something ‘silly’ like the colour of the cup.

It’s not about the colour of the cup, it’s about the feelings provoked by not getting the colour right, by not being able to decide which colour is right or not being allowed or able to pick the right colour, by frustration, disappointment, rage, grief, sadness, fury, and even by simply being totally overwhelmed by having to make a decision that doesn’t matter –again—about an issue that doesn’t matter but that stops the flow of everything until it’s decided.

It’s not about the cup, it’s about the feelings.

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

 

Fuck 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?

So, 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?

In 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.'

The 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?

How I Feel, What They’re Saying

 

Chatting with a friend today, I mentioned some of Don C. Dinkmeyer’s work, from Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, thus:

One of the tools I've found helpful is 'parent reaction'...to discover the probable underlying need expressed through [a child’s] intense behaviour.

When you are irritated or annoyed, it's probably attention the child is seeking... When you're angry or want revenge, it's probably power. When you give up and feel despondent, it's a mirror of the child having given up on ever feeling successful.

Or, as she rephrased it:

when your child does x, and you feel __________, the child needs __________.

I like it when people sort out my thoughts more clearly than I can.

What I like about this tool is that it stops asking the child the horrible question ‘why?’ Kids don’t have a clue what they’re not successfully getting that they need, whether it be attention or power or a feeling of capability.

The other thing I like about this tool is its inherent respect for the sanity and needs of the child. A misbehaving child is not insane, bad or wrong … but struggling to meet needs and attempting creative means to accomplish their valid goals.

It is valid to need attention, power and a sense of being capable. The naturally immature methods use in their bids to get what they sense they need are information and communication –not misbehaviour.

Humiliating Children as a Teaching Tool

 

'Other people are mean, children need to learn to handle it.'

Okay, that might be true –in fact, it probably is. But how is that related to the people closest to them, who are supposed to cherish and nurture them, being mean? Intentionally being mean!

Who are supposed to protect children from unnecessary injury and harm?

It is ironic that today it is just as popular to think kids need to be kept indoors, stopped from sledding or skating on the local pond, and kept rear-facing in car seats until they're 7 or 9 'for safety reasons' as it is for parents to publicly humiliate and shame children.

Why is the only perceived protection or safety children need physical? Do they have no need at all for emotional or psychological safety?

And, seriously people! Is there no way to teach a child how to handle the viciousness of strangers other than through the viciousness of loved ones?

There is a police initiative to combat bullying is called WITS. Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, Seek help. When the parents are the ones being mean, children are supposed to Walk away? Ignore it? Talk it out (seriously, in conflict with their parents!?) or Seek help? From whom, precisely?

When their protectors and closest family are causing the hurt, who are kids supposed to go to? When it is parents hurting children's feelings, intentionally, how will a child learn to assess 'who to trust' in seeking help?

So much of this comes to the point of 'teaching' through punishment, hurt and humiliation, when one of the basic realities of learning is that in order to develop and thrive, humans must first feel safe and secure, then they can expand and try and risk. When they're hurting, protecting themselves from further harm and pulling away from the world, they are only learning that the people of the world—even the ones who 'love' them-- seek to injure them. The only thing they wonder and want to learn is 'why me?'

Too often, the conclusion kids come to is 'because I'm worthless.'

Please don't teach your children that they are worthless.

Can’t Get It All (or any of it) Done

A favourite joke about stay-at-home moms is the one about the dad who comes home after a long day of work, finds the kids outside covered in mud, still in their pyjamas, walks into the house which is a total disaster: food, clothes, dirt, toys everywhere … with increasing dread, he searches the house and finally finds his wife in an upstairs bedroom, surrounded by more mess. ‘Honey, what on earth happened here?’

‘You know that nothing I do all day? Today I didn’t do it.’

Life is like that with little kids.

It really does feel like it’s not possible to get it all done, and on a lot of days it doesn’t feel like it’s at all possible to get any of it done.
There are many ways to ‘get it all’ done, and more prolific writers than I have spent a lot of their time describing how… see Flylady, The I Hate to Housekeep Book, Sidetracked Home Executives, Superwoman, and Who Says It’s a Woman’s Job to Clean? for more …

But these are the small children at home, totally overwhelmed can’t get anything done suggestions I have:

Hire help

From a professional organizer and a cleaning lady (I wish) to the 12-year-old down the street, paid assistance is available in the oddest corners of the world, and don’t necessarily cost the kind of major-luxury money people might think. A 12-year-old mother’s helper will tidy the toys, fold the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep and vacuum for less than it costs to hire a babysitter to take the children away for a while so mom can do all that. I loved my mother’s helper –still do, although she’s already past the stage in her life now where she hired my children for the same work…

Ask for help

Strangely, this one comes with more barriers than hiring help. Hiring only requires money. Asking requires super-human courage… apparently. Here are a couple of ways of getting help:

Be kind and helpful to your friends and family by letting them feel good about making a meaningful contribution to your life. Too many people are stingy with their friends and family, stopping them from getting the warm, fuzzy feelings of being genuinely helpful to the people they love. 

Be nice: let them help. In fact, make a list with the stuff that’s driving you nuts at the top and ask them to do anything off the list that they want to, the higher up the list the better…

Start a co-op with friends in the same position, spending three or four days a week (depends on how many friends you have) at each house in turn. The host gets to pick what’s driving her (or him) nuts this week and everyone works on that, plus dinner with enough for all to take away, so everyone can head home without more to do when they get there. 

Shared projects, from making Christmas presents to sorting all the kids’ clothes, baking or decluttering the whole house, canning, or doing everyone’s taxes, can make the work easier and keep the children content longer than at home. Even just one friend, one day a week, will help you (and your friend) with day-to-day life.

Simplify the List

Cut things off the list, and do most of it far less frequently.

Dusting is, in my view, a complete waste of time, not the least because it takes the same amount of time to do it daily as it does weekly or even monthly –so why spend thirty-one times as long doing the job than you have to? 

Let the silver go black for a few years, no one will die or need therapy. Concentrate on hygiene, not optics: if it isn’t used as a food preparation surface, it probably doesn’t need to be sterile. Pick your battles with your housework, too.

Declutter and remove duplicates. If you only have one pair of scissors and it has one place to belong you’ll never have to search for one of the twelve pairs. It will also be easier to keep them out of the hands of the little weirdos who are inclined to do home hairstyling on themselves and their siblings.

Simplicity Parenting suggests having only as many toys as can be easily cleaned up within five minutes. No one needs 13 pairs of jeans… but if you keep all of them because you have to have them, you’ll have a lot more laundry to do than I do. When kids only have three pairs of pants, you will never be faced with a pile of 31 that need washing at once. Or drying. Or folding. Or putting away… Consider how you would live on a 40’ sailboat, and re-think exactly how much of the stuff in your house you actually need to get through a week.

Make a list of what’s bugging you and do just one thing every day. If the windows are making you crazy, wash one on Monday and one on Tuesday and one on Thursday… until they’re all done. Eventually, you’ll have everything done, with much of it not needing to be re-done for months.

Pick out the valuables from the piles and put everything else into boxes or trash bags and call the local removal company to take the rest away. 

Few people whose homes have burned down ever regret not rescuing the 11th unread magazine or all of the black shoes from the blaze. There will forever be more stuff coming into your home: make some room for the people to live in ease and comfort instead of snowed under even before one more item crosses the threshold. For $60, you could live in the delight of never having to put that away ever again.