regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard) (02/07/85)
Our line on discipline with our 7 year old has, of policy, been "Unacceptable
behaviour = to your room". When she was much littler, and would lose her
temper at her inability to communicate, crying and yelling was considered
"unacceptable", therefore she would go to her room to cry. The crying
itself was not discouraged -- rather, we discouraged her visiting the noise
on other people. I was very concerned about giving signals that bottling
up emotion was the goal. I wanted to indicate emotion was fine, but some
was best expressed elsewhere.
Well, years later, she doesn't seem to be emotionally disturbed, and
crying has gone off the list of "unacceptable", since now in most cases she
cries from hurt or empathy, and therefore gets a cuddle instead. Striking
others is "unacceptable" now, but that may go off the list, too, and not
because she has stopped doing it. Unfortunately, as parents, we are not
the sole environmental influences. Kids who spend their days at school
spend their days among savages. It may be important for her to know
how and when to pop the local bully a good one, if for no other reason than
to keep the local bully away from her.
Generally, our attitude on violence has been that there are other ways of
dealing with a negative situation, i.e.:
(with a stern glare from under lowered brows):
"I do not find this (situation, behaviour) acceptable because
(state reason). Do you agree that is a good reason?"
"Yes."
"Then you will do something to change it?"
"Yes."
And I let her figure out what. She uses this very simple statement/reason/
gain-agreement method on her car-pool kids, and kids who come to visit at
the house and it seems to work o.k. The idea is to gain their agreement
that whatever situation is going on isn't optimal. Most kids don't want
to paint on the furniture once they learn that you are unhappy with that.
They would prefer paper in most cases. And it's good problem solving for
them to figure out what is better behaviour.
I can't claim to be completely free of guilt, however. I've swatted
her when I've lost my temper, which just goes to show were anger will
lead. That's something I've never been able to figure out, though. Do
you apologise? I mean, you probably lost your temper 'cause the kid did
something wrong, so you can hardly say "I'm sorry", can you? Yeh, I know
you can say "I'm sorry I hit you, but remember you were wrong", but I think
that puts the parent at a grave disadvantage.
I agree that all theory goes out the window when you actually have a kid,
and frankly I think it's a good thing. Instinct has served me much better
than any of my fine pre-child theories ever would have.
My question is this: what do you do about sex-differentiation? My kid gets
more "girls are pink, boys are smart" crap from the schools, the other kids
and TV than she would ever have had from the most reactionary of parents
(which we are not). Considering how much time she spends around school
and other kids (over which I have little control) and watching TV (over
which I do have control, and exercise it), I'm gravely concerned that she
will have some of the same psychological blocks I suffered from in early
twenties about my own abilities, mostly caused by being female in a mans
world. Any ideas on what to do?regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard) (02/07/85)
Oh, yeah, and addendum from a just remembered source -- course, I can't
remember the source. It was one of the many books I read during my
daughter's first two years.
Re doing dangerous things and not taking no for an answer -- the source
felt that the child was learning by your responses, but not quite in the
way you intended. When s/he puts a fork in the wall outlet and you say
no, s/he is the interested in that no. Does it mean no fork? Does it
mean no outlet? Does it mean no for today but not tomorrow? Does it
mean I shouldn't sit to poke the outlet with the fork, but stand in
stead? Consequently, as you have to repeat "no" over and over, as the
child continues to poke the outlet, s/he is learning the parameters
of "no" all the while.
This is a little risky in practice, and most folks get distressed enough
on the first poke to grab the kid and the fork and throw one across the
room while swatting the other. It was noted by my unreferenced source
that tribal children in Africa often handle knives at a very young age,
and from observation of parents, apparently did so very safely, whatever
that is worth. Better to have them learn about the dangers of life than
to protect them always from those dangers, since you can't in fact
protect them always.
Second point. When I was training horses, the idea was to put the horse
into a such a circumstance that his instinctual inclination was what you
really wanted him to do, and then you congratulated him. Kids are a little
bit more intelligent than horses, but they still like being congratulated,
even if they intended to go about their business anyway. My daughter is
never more willing than when her inclination matches the preferred behavior--
particularly when mom notices. That's one of the reasons I like her to
solve the big questions herself ("if this doesn't occur, what should your
punishment be?" "your friend is misbehaving in your house. What are you
going to do about it?"). It makes her consider her own preferences, and
alligns them with the preferred behaviour of the household. Now, she is
old enough to puzzle this out, but even a two year old will understand
"you don't really want to be bad, and have everybody upset -- what do you
really want instead?"pking@uiucuxc.UUCP (02/11/85)
As far as helping your daughter overcome the sex problem -- I have two daughters and one son -- my older girl (now 7) oftens states her desire to be a nurse (my mother was a nurse) I tell her she can be a doctor is she wants, and encourage her to at least think about the traditionally male dominated professions. I make a point of teling her there is absolutely no reason she can not be a doctor, or a lawyer or even an engineer if that's what she wants to do -- fortunately the school system we belong to is also helpful in this area-- however this child's interests are cooking, sewing (none of which she learned from her mother, domestic skills are not what I'm good at), which is also fine with me--she has a Aunt and a father to teach her the domestic skills and me to encourage her to broaden her horizons and enroll her in chess class, computer class and the like -- As an aside I once heard a story about a little girl (age 8 or so I believe) who told her family that she wanted to marry a doctor, because they made all the money, when it was suggested by a non-family member listening that she become a doctor herself the child was horrified as were the other members of the family-- girl's shouldn't be encouraged to become doctors, it was much easier for them to marry doctors -- a sad story in my opinion for current trends --