One of my favorite stories about the power of negative suggestion happened when my niece was 5 and playing with a dime. When her father said, “Jessica, don’t put the dime in your mouth, you’ll swallow it,” the dime was history and we were in the emergency room.
My granddaughter Isabel is my stepdaughter’s child, so I never experienced living with a two-year-old, especially in a situation where I was doing some of the parenting. When I teach parenting classes, I always feel a little sheepish, because it is much easier to teach the principles of good parenting than to live them. I have a great respect for parents hanging in there and doing what needs to be done for their kids. But when Isabel and her mother lived with me for two weeks, I got to walk the walk. And even though Isabel is younger than our clients, the principles of good parenting remain true, whatever the age of the child.
It is much easier to teach the principles of good parenting than to live them.
It was quite humbling to find myself doing things that I would caution a parent against. For example, I advise parents to acknowledge the child when they are doing behavior that you want to reinforce and to just give consequences with as little emotion as possible for behavior that you don’t want. And because I knew these principles, I was able to acknowledge Isabel when she did what I wanted. “You’re doing such a good job of sitting in your chair and eating your cereal.” Simple acknowledgment, making sure that she knew the specific behavior that I liked. With an older child it would go like this: “Johnny, I really like the way you are sitting at your desk and completing your arithmetic homework. Doing your homework will help you keep up with things at school.”
But when Isabel did something I didn’t like, things became much more “interesting,” especially when she was taking my vintage vinyl records off the shelves and playing with the knobs of my turntable. Here I also learned another valuable lesson. Kids, even toddlers, have radar for when you are tired or wanting to attend to something else, and this is the time they pick to act up, just to make sure that you’re still with them. You are their laboratory for learning about how the game of human relationships are played, and if you give them a big emotional response for behavior that you don’t want, even though you are telling them “no”, you are reinforcing that behavior.
All healthy children test the limits. With a seven year old, it could be doing things in slow motion when they are late for school. For a seventeen year old, it could be bringing home the car after curfew.
For a two year old, I tried to distract her with something else or tell her the behavior that I wanted her to do. “The turntable is Nana’s and it’s just for looking. Why don’t we play with your blocks over here?” For a seven year old it could be putting them on a point system and giving them extra points for getting ready on time or laying out their clothes the night before and reviewing what the morning routine will be like. For a seventeen year old it could be going over the responsibilities of using the car before they go out and giving them consequences for violating the rules. But going ballistic will either terrify the child so that they don’t feel safe exploring their environment, or, with a braver child, make the behavior that you don’t want more likely.
Another lesson that I learned is that when a child is tired, hungry or bored, those are the times that they are most likely to get into mischief.
It’s important to tell a child what you want them to do rather than what you don’t want them to do, but it’s so much easier to say “don’t” or “no.” When you say “don’t do this”, you are giving them the subtle suggestion to do it. And they respond to you. This is why when you say “don’t put your cereal on the floor” rather than “I need you to keep your cereal in your bowl or in your mouth” you get more cereal all over the floor. For an older child it would be the difference between saying, “Johnny, stop slapping your brother,” instead of “Johnny, please keep your hands to yourself.” And of course if you had noticed Johnny and his brother when they were playing nicely and commented on that , it would have been all the better.
I also noticed how many times I ended my sentences with “OK?” as in “You can have a cookie when you finish your supper, OK?” When you do this, you are actually making the child the parent, because the child gets to decide whether things are ok or not.
But even as I watched myself making mistakes, I was grateful that I knew the principles of positive parenting, because at least I could correct myself and get the behavior that was not only good for me, but good for my granddaughter.
When Isabel stayed with me I realized how wonderful it is to be with a child and to get to look at the world through their eyes. But I also learned what an awesome responsibility and opportunity it is to teach them how to interact in the world. This is the struggle and the gift of every parent. And the job never ends.
One night when I told Isabel what a good job she was doing of sitting quietly on my bed and playing with her toy and how much I appreciated that behavior, I got rewarded. Isabel told me she loved me! These are the moments that make all the work, the aggravation and the yogurt rubbed into your glass table worthwhile.
By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach
June 29th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I don’t know whether you’re “supposed” comment on your own blog, but I’m going for it.
They say that you can tell the birth order of a child from how the parents handle a swallowed dime. When the oldest child swallows a dime, the child gets x-rays. When the second child swallows the dime, you watch and make sure it goes through his system. When the third child swallows a dime, you deduct it from his allowance.