More parenting...

I'm looking some more at the "Beyond Consequences..." book and trying to integrate the philosophy.

Forbes writes about parenting out of love, rather than fear. I've written about this before, but it is hard to grasp. I thought maybe if I wrote about it some more, I'd understand it better, so here goes.

We generally believe that the techniques we use ARE out of love rather than fear.

But any system of rewards/consequences has an element of fear attached to it. You are telling the child that they need to behave in a certain way in order to gain certain rewards and avoid certain consequences. You are introducing some degree of fear, either of losing the reward, or of receiving the consequence. The behavior becomes externally controlled, rather than an internal motivation.

How is it different when you are parenting out of love? I'm trying to understand this well enough to describe it.

Love involves a two part focus. The first is loving yourself and the second is loving your child. The two have to be balanced in order to parent in a loving manner.

Loving yourself...
You are secure enough in your own abilities that you don't see your child's behavior as a reflection on you. You know that you are a good parent and that you are doing good things for your child, so when they are misbehaving, it is because there is something keeping them from being themselves.

If you don't love yourself in this way, you will feel threatened by misbehavior rather than empathetic or understanding.

Loving your child...
This involves being able to set aside your agenda in order to understand your child. It also involves seeing your child as someone basically good.

Now for a little bit of brain discussion. According to the book, our ability to use logic and think through behaviors in order to make good choices is one of the highest functions of the brain. When we are stressed, or feel threatened, or fearful, etc., we lose some of our ability to use logic and make good decisions. We back up to more basic survival mode.

Consequently, when our kids are stressed or threatened or afraid, or even hungry or tired, logic takes a back seat to the other things that are going on. When we approach them with logic, or a consequence, or a reward, their ability to respond to that is limited. The more upset they are, the less they can think logically. And actually, since consequences and rewards are based on pushing them toward a certain behavior, the consequences and rewards actually add more stress, making it less likely that they will be able to use logic.

So what do you do? If their physical needs are not the problem then their emotional needs are the focus. The goal is to lower their stress by validating their emotions. This gets dicey sometimes because their emotions may be based on faulty perceptions. But since their logic is gone, you won't get anywhere by correcting the perceptions. You have to validate the emotions first.

One of the tougher ones is if a child is acting out because they believe something isn't fair. How do you empathize and validate their outrage without agreeing with them that things are not fair---or that YOU are not fair?

Somehow you have to come to the point where you can honestly see that if you believed what they believe about an incident, you would probably be feeling the same emotions they are feeling. Then you reflect that back to them without saying that the things they believe are wrong. First you talk about how awful it feels when things aren't fair. You empathize with how angry and hurt they feel when it looks like they are being slighted. You continue to reflect back the emotions until they relax and show that they feel understood.

Doing this already demonstrates your love for this child. And after the child is calm and relaxed, they are much more likely to be able to discuss their perceptions logically.

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