Long Term Effects

When I was young, the typical response to a quarrel between children was that we had to do a chore together. If we could not do it without fighting (or even bickering, depending on which adult was supervising), we had to do another. For all we knew, it might go on all night. Maybe even forever. I don’t recall that this settled so many arguments between us children.

What it did do was force us to keep our disagreements to ourselves, or at least out of sight of the adults. Many were the times we whispered threats about what we would do to each other later, after the chore was successfully completed. And don’t think just because we were being forced to cooperate we meant any of it. Because we didn’t.

Oddly enough, we rarely followed through with any of those threats. Mostly because by the time we were finished, the life had somehow gone out of the thing and it just didn’t seem that important anymore. There was always something that looked better to do.

One might suggest that this old-fashioned form of correction was stifling to our individual personalities. Maybe even damaging to our psyches. Well, it was. It wreaked havoc on our tempers. Practically devastated our selfishness, and almost did away completely with the temptation to argue in public places. The fact that – to this day – I rarely lose my temper, dislike arguing in public, and have a rather high tolerance for working with difficult people is purely a coincidence. Really.

Life Lessons

Both my wife and I have over twenty years of working with kids on all levels. In the early days, while I was going to college, we had three children of our own and loved parenting. So, when we needed some extra money, I signed up to be an assistant at a state facility for child psychology. I was to be an observer, and my job was simply to record behavior.

Every ten minutes I had to write down if a particular child was doing what they were asked to do. The teachers that worked with them called it “being on task.” I was immediately amazed at what those teachers could get the children to do. Within days they were not only doing whatever was asked of them, but they had also become adept at such social skills as looking you in the eye when speaking to you, and even being polite. Then and there, I was hooked on learning how to do what they did. Throughout the many years that followed, those methods have been a benefit to both my career, and my own home-life, as well.

However, one of the biggest eye-openers of those early lessons was to notice how when the kids would return to their homes, many of them would almost immediately revert to their old behaviors. I realized then that it was the parents-- not the kids-- who were triggering a lot of those unwanted behaviors without even realizing it. And so the battles began. In the end, the families who were helped most with that program were the ones who took it upon themselves to learn the best methods for dealing with their children.

I have found the same situations to be true today. A surprising number of parents do not think they are responsible for their children's behavior: as if behavior is something that belongs wholly to the child. They see their role as simply teaching their children how to behave. Yet, so much more could be accomplished if only parents would agree to be learners, too. To this day, I am amazed at how much I am still learning about parent/child behaviors, even from my own grown children. I guess it's because learning is a lifetime thing.

No matter how old you are.

Red Lights

Often the fighting kids do is a red light for parents. Many times they are simply not involved in anything better at the moment and they are bored. Parents can change these situations by making better efforts to structure their kids' day to include a certain amount of stimulation. Take some time to find out what things your children respond to, and then set them up to encounter those things during their day. You'll be surprised at how much this automatically cuts down on the fighting just because the kids have something better to do.

In the long run, the ability to recognize and respond to red lights in parenting (stop and do something about it) is much easier than dealing with the crashes that result from running them through or ignoring them all the time. Especially since parenting is for the long run, anyway. It's one of the longest forms of commitment there is, and too many crashes along the way can damage relationships. The parent road isn't really that much different than any other road...

Red means stop.

Three Nice Things

One of the positive (and most productive) methods we came up with when our kids were caught arguing or fighting, was to say three nice things to each other. Doing that seemed to break the anger emotion. However they felt about each other at the moment didn't matter, we parents wouldn't listen to “sides” until each of them had fulfilled this little obligation. It was a family rule. We called it “putting on the face.”

To do this, they had to pretend to like their brother or sister, and say three nice things about them before reporting anything negative. By the time they got through, most of the fight was gone and the disagreement had been deflated to a more manageable size. I think the important ingredient in doing that was not trying so hard to solve a particular problem, but requiring that it be dealt with at a less emotional time.

Which is just about how long it takes to think up three nice things about someone.

How is that working for you?

I love the phrase, "How is that working for you?"

There is a certain family I know that has three children, ages one, three, and five. The sibling rivalry in that family is intense, so, at the dinner table things can get ugly. The parents are constantly correcting the kids, asking them not to fight at the table. But the same negative behavior keeps repeating isself, day after day, week after week, and months on end. I wonder why they don't try something different? This is where my question, "How is that working for you?" comes in.

If those parents would take a closer look, they would realize that their approach is not changing the way the kids interact at the table. Maybe then they would decide to experiment with a different approach. If they did try other approaches, I bet they would come up with a good one.

Have a recurring problem at your house? Then don’t keep doing the same things to solve it. Try something different next time. If you need ideas, then go to the many child rearing books available today and get some new ones. Any number of those will work for you if you consistently try their methods. If they don’t, stop doing it and try another one. Sooner or later you will find things that work for your family.

Just keep asking yourself ,”How is that working for you?”