Today’s blog is a little on the serious side, but its
something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Its about parenting, a
journey that I have yet to embark on myself but one that is very intertwined in
my life both through work and my personal life. I am a great advocate of choice
when it comes to raising children; every child and every parent is different
and there is a horrendous amount of pressure on parents to parent in a way that is
deemed acceptable by others. What I have discovered is that no matter what
choice you make regarding your children, you’ll probably receive criticism from
someone at some point down the line; put simply, parents can’t win when it
comes to social acceptance.
I bought a book a while ago called ‘Out of Control, why
disciplining your child doesn’t work and what will’ by Shefali Tsabary, an
American clinical psychologist, which I have yet to read. I bought the book
after watching an interview on YouTube with actress Laura Prepon in which she
talked about growing up in a house with no rules. This resonated with me
because the idea of disciplining children is one that has never sat comfortably
with me. When I hear people tell children off, it is often followed by the
phrase ‘they have to learn!’. You’re right, they do, but why are we so
convinced that telling a child off is the only way to make them learn? I’m not
even talking about the parents you pass at the bus stop who you are scared to watch
but somehow can’t look away from as they yell expletives at their grubby kids.
I’m talking about close friends and family and average people who are by all
means wonderful parents. This is no criticism of them; we parent the way we
have learnt to parent from our own experiences and by watching those around us and there is no 'correct' way to parent. But for me personally, the concept of teaching your child to ‘behave’ by making
them feel shame and embarrassment just isn’t logical to me.
As adults we all have to exist and function in environments
where there are both written and unwritten rules, social conventions and
obligations that most of us abide by most of the time. But we’re all still
learning; new jobs and new hobbies require new skills that can take time to learn. We’re all battling
conflicting pressures; we want to go to our friend’s week night birthday party
but we still have to make it to work on time the next morning. We all get
overwhelmed; jobs can be stressful, families can be critical, friends can
be difficult and sometimes when it all gets too much we don’t function at our
best. And finally, we all fuck up; we all make bad decisions because we’re
human and we’re not perfect. For a child, life is no different; they have far
more to learn than us, their brains are less developed than ours and they too
battle conflicting pressures (I want those sweets…Mum said no),
they get overwhelmed and they too fuck up, because they’re human and they’re
still learning.
If we looked at adults in the same way we
look at children, we don’t assume that the best way to deal with those
situations are to tell each other off. I’ve never met an adult who said they
functioned best in a workplace in which they get yelled at and punished if they
do something wrong. From my experience, the workplaces in which I work and learn most effectively are the ones in which I feel supported. Effective managers treat their employees with respect; listen to
them, work through problems with them, try to understand their problems and
work to find solutions. If I fuck up at work, I can be honest with my boss
about it because I don’t fear her reaction; I know she’ll support me through
it. We don't learn effectively when we're afraid to try because we're afraid of the consequences of doing so. An environment
that harbours fear and threatens punishment as a consequence for mistakes is
not one that creates happy people that feel valued, who want to learn, work
hard and motivate others. It is the same for children; children learn and
behave best when they feel trusted, valued and able to make mistakes without
fear of punishment.
Of course, I’m not for a second suggesting that parents
shouldn’t have boundaries. Discipline and boundaries are two separate things
and saying ‘no’ is ok. But another part of this is our perception of what is ‘naughty’.
The exploratory 18month old who pours sand in your hand bag isn’t necessarily
being naughty; they’re simply exploring and learning without the knowledge that
you didn’t really want to find sand in your handbag, purse, lipbalm and
umbrella for the next 6 months. It's ok to teach a child not to do something that
isn’t appropriate without ‘telling them off’. The two year old who cries
because he wanted jam sandwiches and not ham sandwiches is not being naughty;
he does not yet possess the skills to express his disappointment in an adult
way, particularly if he is tired and overwhelmed. The four year old who pushes
all the coasters off the coffee table despite the warning look you shoot them
from across the room is yes, attention seeking, and that’s not a bad thing. We
seek attention when we need attention, because we have unmet needs, because we
need someone to listen to us and understand us.
As adults when we feel overwhelmed, tired, stressed, when we
make mistakes, have decisions to make and when we fuck up, what we want and
what we need is understanding and support from those around us, so why don’t we
give our children the same thing? This is all strictly my opinion of course and in practice I realise this is probably easier
said than done; I'm sure I’ll face my own challenges with my own future
children. However the no-discipline method of parenting is one that intrigues
me and that I’d like to learn more about, so I’ll soon be finding out what Dr
Shafali Tsabary has to say on the matter and maybe one day find out whether it
really works.
