This week, I’m taking a slightly different approach. I’ve prepared a series of shareable graphics around a concept that I’ve been grappling with as my children have gotten older and their troubles are more developed than the need to nurse and have a diaper change. Truth be told, I flew into an angry outburst this past weekend and had to do a whole lot of apologizing and reconnecting.
I’m currently in physical therapy for a back injury (a large part of why I’m having difficulty maintaining my composure) and my physical therapist told me something really interesting about the body’s healing process. She said that healing is not linear. What happens is that we’ll have higher pain days and lower pain days. Over time, the higher pain days decrease and the lower pain days increase. I find that’s very similar to how I’ve experienced healing from childhood trauma. When I started out with peaceful parenting, I had a lot of angry days. I tried to avoid directing my anger at my children but I failed a lot. As time has gone by, the better days have become far more numerous. I still have emotional explosions and meltdowns, but they’re cropping up less frequently and I’m able to recover more quickly.
I think a lot of us have really rough days and we feel like we’re failing as peaceful parents, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are HEALING. We are doing the best we can. And, through this work, we are equipping ourselves with tools that help us see our children in a more positive light, find avenues of connection, and protect our kids from the things we experienced as children.
I hope this snapshot series will be helpful to you as you work toward a renewed mindset around becoming the parent you want to be.
Text: If you’ve had any encounters within the world of gentle, conscious parenting, you’ve probably heard the mantra, “kids do well if they can.”
Text: While the idea is ancient, Ross Greene brought modern attention to it as a key theme in his Collaborative Problem Solving model.
Text: When we say, “kids do well if they can” what we mean is that children WANT to do well. They WANT to be an integral and accepted part of their social structure, whether that’s family, school, teams, etc.
Text: In other words, when children “misbehave,” it is not because they are manipulative, devious, or bratty.
Text: Rather, children behave in a way that reflects how well their needs are being met, how connected they feel, and how adequately their brains are able to manage their particular circumstances.
Text: This mantra, “children do well if they can,” is pivotal to allowing our adult minds to shift into an anti-childist, respectful worldview around child rearing and discipline.
Text: When we recognize that, every time a child does something we don’t want them to do, it’s because they CANNOT manage otherwise on their own, we can begin thinking in terms of problem-solving with them as opposed to punishing their childlikeness.
Text: And, when we get to the point where our first instinct is to help our kids when their behavior upsets us, it becomes a lot easier to stop yelling, threatening, and hurting them.
Text: Our children will grow in wisdom over time. They will become more and more able to handle difficult circumstances with grace and self-assurance, and we can help them get there.
Text: By modeling gentleness, curiosity, and helpfulness in the face of difficulty, we can help our kids develop the tools they need to operate from a growth mindset wherein flexibility, empowerment, and hope prevail. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort.
It’s another versus post! Y’all know I love these. I see it all the time in gentle parenting groups… people asking what the gentle response might be toward disrespectful attitudes. These questions can’t be answered without first considering what disrespect from children looks like in the context of peaceful parenting. What is disrespect in the first place? I think many parents might say things like:
Backtalk
Defiance
Destructiveness
Name-calling
Sarcasm
Insults
Cussing
Refusal to cooperate
Crossing personal boundaries
Not doing what they’re told
Eyerolling
Aggression
Raising their voice/Yelling
Mocking/making fun of
Where do these reactions come from though? Having done all of these things myself at one time or another both as a child and as an adult, I can tell you exactly how I was feeling: like my own boundaries were being ignored; like I wasn’t being heard; like I was being pushed past my ability to cope; like I was having a trauma response; like I genuinely couldn’t come up with another way to communicate how terrible I was feeling; like it was the best I could do in the moment. Can you relate? Have there been times in your adult life when you said something unkind because you weren’t in a great frame of mind? Have you ever thrown or broken something in an emotional moment? Have you ever yelled or given someone the silent treatment because you were fuming mad? In any of these circumstances, were you in a state of emotional regulation? I doubt it.
I’m going to say something that’s probably going to feel wrong to a lot of people, but I don’t think anyone – adult or child – chooses disrespect outside of a state of dysregulation. And, given what we know about how children develop self-control, we have to acknowledge that children are even less able to overcome dysregulation than adults are. I’d go so far as to say that children probably don’t have the capacity to be disrespectful with intent to harm. Rather, they are lashing out with what they know will communicate the most hurt in an effort to ask for our help in the most basic way.
When we talk about disrespect, what we’re referring to is the way other people make us feel about ourselves. For a lot of adults, the intoxicating power of authority can make us forget that children are not inferior to us. When children do something that makes us feel bad, we can still achieve the presence of mind to know why they’ve done what they’ve done. And, for those of us who are peaceful parents, the response is the same as it would be in any other encounter where our children have behaved in a way that defies our family values: we extend compassion and grace. See, kids can’t make us feel any sort of way. We receive their behavior through the lens of our own pain, from how we were treated as children to the state of our ongoing mental health. Plus, we have to consider how we have been treating our children. Have we created a situation where their reaction to our behavior has generated dysregulation to the point that they’re prompted to shift into a space of disrespect?
If we perceive that our kids are being disrespectful, it’s time to connect! First, stop what you’re doing, take a personal inventory of how your body is feeling, and do some square breathing.
This is not the moment to lecture or correct. It’s the time to let them know they’re loved and accepted; let them know that we see their feelings exploding.; and let them know that they can let us know what’s wrong without fear of retribution. A phrase I try to remember is, “You must be feeling pretty bad to [insert behavior]. How can I help?” My hope here is that you will work toward jumping to empathy and curiosity instead of anger and control. I’ll be working toward the exact same thing myself.
It seems to be a given in USian culture that a parent’s duty is to see that their children are prepared to be independent on or soon after they turn 18. Our kids are meant to be able to look after their own hygiene, find and maintain a job, live alone in a house or an apartment (or negotiate a roommate arrangement), and so forth. To these ends, many caregivers of disabled children feel intense pressure to seek out therapies that will allow their children to approach independence by the allotted deadline. They post in parenting groups asking how best to potty train their children, teach them to dress themselves and how to make their own breakfast. They agonize over the timing of developmental milestones and push down their anxiety to support their kids as best they can. But, why?
Take a breath. Slow down. Listen.
Very few people are fully independent, living off the grid, and singlehandedly hunting or growing everything they eat. Humans aren’t built that way in the first place. We are social creatures. We’re meant to live in community with each other. Unfortunately, our consumerist, ableist, White Supremacy Culture has convinced too many of us that our worth is tied up in what we can produce through performance. If we don’t operate in a typical way, we are the weakest link, and we don’t deserve to be included. Absurd. Absolutely absurd. No, we are worthy simply because we are and it is morally incumbent upon other members of our culture to make sure we are safe and cared for.
Independence seems reasonable in a scenario where asking for help is regarded as weak and burdensome to others. I get it. So, reject that mentality. You don’t have to participate. Opt out and teach your kids to do the same. And, when you’re ready, embrace interdependence as a much worthier alternative to independence.
Plug your children into their community and model qualities like empathy, helpfulness, partnership, and justice. Investigate why our culture so prizes isolationism and individualism above cooperation and community, and then help your kids understand. On your way, consider other goals that will serve your children better than independence to the extent that they are able, such as:
Unabashedly asking for help when it’s needed.
Locating, navigating, and securing resources.
Learning how to find the decision-makers.
Practicing how to ask effective questions and listen actively.
Becoming powerful self-advocates who will not be pushed to the side.
Understanding policies and procedures.
Recognizing and defending their rights.
I’m not saying that our kids shouldn’t be receiving support for self-care and daily living. Not at all. I think children should be given opportunities to gain autonomy and agency. I do not, however, believe that a caregiver choosing independence as a goal for a child is respectful or helpful. No person should be in training to become entirely self-sufficient without their explicit consent. We are an interdependent people. Teach into that reality.
Well, this is a conundrum. If we believe behavior is communication and we need to communicate with our kids to meet their needs, how does this work exactly? Here’s how the process usually goes down within traditional parenting:
Child misbehaves
Parent reacts
Parent punishes
Child gets quiet
Parent lectures
Part of the trouble with addressing needs in the midst of undesirable behavior may be, in part, a struggle to break free from traditional parenting. We can’t “let” a child “misbehave”, right? Wait… can we? Can we give our children space to behave in ways that would have gotten us whooped? I believe so. That’s how we get a pulse on how our kids are feeling when other forms of communication escape them. And, it means that #1 in the process above is bunk.
How about #2? As peaceful parents, our goal is to respond, not react, so that won’t work. #3? That’s a big problem since we don’t punish either. #4 sounds nice, in theory, but shutting our kids down is the last thing we want to do when we need their input, so that’s also a no. And, then #5? I’m sure you can understand why lecturing children is pointless when what they need is understanding and a few new skills.
Let’s recreate that process for the peaceful parent:
Child indicates distress through behavior
Parent responds gently, halting destructive behavior and offering empathy
Parent helps child re-center, giving space for upset and voice to emotions
Child self-regulates
Parent and child get to the bottom of the problem and find a way through
I try to become curious and invested rather than ignoring or controlling when I see my children behaving in a way that does harm, and I will tell you, it’s hard for me. It’s hard to manage my own emotions when I feel like my children aren’t heeding my words. I feel disrespected sometimes as they have such leeway to process their feelings in the way that works best for them. I wasn’t granted that kind of generosity of spirit as a child. I was parented in a harsh and traditional manner. Sure, I shut my mouth and appeared to obey, but my heart grew darker every time I was coerced, manipulated, or otherwise psychologically manhandled. It became so easy to lie to my parents as I got older. I knew that if I fell in line and acted like I was doing what they wanted from me, they’d eventually leave me alone.
Today, I am an adult who pushes everyone away when I’m feeling emotional. Anger is my predominant feeling too. Peaceful parenting tends to churn up all the old junk I was never allowed to process and it hurts so much. I often feel a tremendous urge to hit and slap my children when they’re doing things I don’t like. It would come so naturally. But, I don’t, because I don’t want my children to go through what I’m going through.
I want them to feel heard, supported, and loved. I want them to learn what they need most to find equilibrium when life gets hard. I want them to find solutions to their problems that do the least possible harm to anyone, including them. And, I know that affection and gentleness do not reinforce “bad” behavior. They comfort the human behind the behavior and sooth troubled hearts.
A few days ago, I received a compliment about my children from someone I pass by every week on the way to one of the many therapies that my family members attend. I was at our local medical center by myself for an appointment and the person checking me in told me that my children are always quiet and calm when they walk through the building. I was immediately reminded that my babies are growing up and beginning to recognize social expectations. Of course, I do not want them to abide by expectations without considering the implications, but I do want them to learn to “play the game” so to speak. My children and I do not pick up social cues easily. It takes a lot of thinking, planning, and mimicking what other people do, so this compliment was particularly celebratory in that sense. When I mentioned what happened to my friends, one asked me how I got my children to be quiet and calm in public. After I answered, I realized that my approach might be helpful to even more people. So, here are some of the things I try to do consistently in order to set my kids up for success.
Create a low demand, no punishment/no rewards household. It starts at home. I put in work daily to reduce the need to place expectations or demands on my children. I try to establish routines that become second-nature, so they don’t have to think about what’s coming next. And, when things are off-kilter and my children make choices that do not correspond with our family values, I do not coerce them into compliance with punishments or rewards. If I need for them to stop doing something, I gently stop them. Then, we reset together and find emotional balance. And, then they are free to go back to what they were doing. My goal is not to control them, but to help them self-regulate and learn, through doing, how to live in community with others. So, I intervene as much as I can before something upsetting happens rather than waiting for the kids to make a mistake so I can jump on them about being bad.
Offer high responsiveness to needs. My children don’t have to wait long to have their needs met. If they are hungry, I feed them. I don’t use food as a bargaining tool. If they are tired, they sleep. I don’t fuss at them that they should wait until night time to sleep. If they need to go outside and run, we do that. And, we do it no matter what their behavior has been otherwise. I do not take away the opportunity to run outside, because I don’t like what they’ve been doing inside. If anything, I’m encouraging them to go play and get that energy out! So, when we leave to go somewhere, they aren’t generally hungry, thirsty, tired, emotionally overwhelmed, etc.
Work on emotion coaching. Speaking of being emotionally overwhelmed, we don’t really do that here. All emotions are always welcome and affirmed. I do not tell my children to stop crying. I don’t tell them to calm down when they are clearly having big feelings. Whether at home or away from home, we practice emotion coaching. I’m tuned into them, so I know when something isn’t quite right. I view emotional moments as an opportunity to connect with them; not to get frustrated with them. I listen to them and help them identify what they’re feeling and why they’re feeling it. I affirm their emotions and tell them “It’s ok to feel {emotion}.” And, then I work with them to rectify the situation they’ve found themselves in. For example, if my child sees a toy they like in the store and it’s not in our budget to get, I will gently stay with them as they experience the frustration, anger, and grief at having their plan to play with that toy derailed. I let them know, “It’s ok to be upset. You really wanted that toy!” I offer affection and let them know we can go when they’re ready. When we hear and connect with our kids, they can work through the biggest of feelings.
Plan and prepare. Before we go anywhere, I explain where we’re going and what we’ll be doing. I also tell my kids what I need for them to do. Children do not inherently know how to behave in different circumstances. And, frankly, neither do adults! We all have to learn how to navigate unknown environments. So, when it’s time for a new experience, I explain the expectations, such as “Please use walking feet and quiet mouths,” and ask my children to tell me what they’ve understood me to be saying. Getting that confirmation helps me know if they’ve heard me and if there are any gaps in knowledge.
Listen actively. Especially when we’re out and about, I am listening for my children’s needs. When something is wrong, I stop what I’m doing and pay close attention. Then, I repeat back what I hear them saying, and we make a plan to help resolve the issue. For instance, if my child gets hungry while we’re out, we make a plan for when we’ll get a snack and what we’ll have. I try to avoid quick retorts like “Not right now” in favor of problem solving.
Organize time with first, then. This one is very helpful for us. Younger children may not grasp the concept of time yet, but they usually understand sequence. I’ll say something like “First, we’re going to pick up medicine at the pharmacy, then we’ll return our library books, then we’ll play at the park for a little while, and then we’ll go home.” If at any point during the trip, they ask what we’re doing, I can quickly run back through the list of destinations, so they can get an idea of where we are in the schedule.
Plan fun activities. This may well be the most powerful tip I’ve got. I try to add fun things into our schedule when we have to be away from home. Being in the car, walking around different places, waiting, being bored… it’s all a lot for kids. They’d much rather be playing and having fun, and it makes sense. They’re built to play! So, if we have to be out, we might as well enjoy ourselves. It might look like getting some play time in at the park or another location of their choice. We might stop for ice cream or visit a friend. It’s simply baked into the way we do things as a little unit. I make no promises that we’ll do something exciting as a reward for cooperation. Rather, I look for things to do that will be fun and try to make them happen. On days when I’m in a hurry and have to say no to the things my children want to do, I can confidently tell them that we’ll do it next time, because it’s how we operate.
And, most important of all, I understand that this is a process. My children are growing up. They’re doing the best they can with the life experience they have so far. If something isn’t working for them, it’s my responsibility to help guide them to a solution. I’m the adult in the situation. That one’s hard to remember sometimes when I’m frustrated too, but it’s the reality. So, if your kids have trouble managing their energy levels and their emotions when your family is away from home, be curious and investigate what’s happening. Children succeed when their needs are met in a way that is tailored to their unique selves.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “Are You Raising An Entitled Child?” in which I looked at the qualities that trigger adults to label children “entitled” and the reasons such a position is ill-informed. Today, I’m going to talk about another dimension to the problem of misperceiving children’s motivations. I’m sure you’ve heard people speak of certain children as needing to “get their own way” in order to be happy, though I daresay we all know how nice it feels for things to go our way. That should be the first signal that there’s a problem. We know it’s lovely to have things go the way that makes us feel best, yet we criticize children for their very same, very normal, human desire.
This is childism, plain and simple, and it’s a paradox. On one hand, we won’t acknowledge children’s right to autonomy and agency. On the other hand, we expect more of children than we expect of ourselves. We place them in this impossible position, because we have relegated them to a position beneath us such that we don’t want them to be our equals and we also don’t want them to bother us. But, we can’t have it both ways. We have a couple choices. Either we pour goodness and gentleness into them when they’re little, so that they can gain wisdom, resilience, and empathy as they get older. Or, we order them around and hold them accountable to our impossible standards, preparing them for little more than compliance with an authority figure. Children can succeed because of our approach or in spite of it. The choice lies with us as caregivers.
Recently, in a group for caregivers of Autistic people, and I saw a brilliant commenter explain that the behaviors we’ve come to expect from children “not getting their way” are actually evidence of a difficult transition. The child meets a barrier to the thing they desire and they struggle with the change as well as the disappointment around it. What a wonderful insight! Children who are upset at “not getting their way” are, in fact, experiencing dysregulation due to a transition they were neither anticipating nor inviting. They simply weren’t ready. And, then, an adult effectively places the responsibility onto the child to self-regulate during and expertly navigate the upheaval of these moments of disappointment. Why not become part of the solution instead?
When children begin to demand that we bend to their desires, we need to listen. What are they asking for? Is it something we can provide? Have we been unreasonable in our expectations of them? Are we saying no because we don’t want to be bothered or is there a reason we have to say no that we can help our child understand? How can we respond empathetically whatever our decision might be?
Take this scenario for example.
Child: “I want another cupcake, please!”
Caregiver: “Not right now. We’ll have more tonight.”
*Child begins to dysregulate*
Child: *screaming and stomping* “I want another cupcake!!!”
If we view children as demanding, annoying underlings, the child in this scenario might look combative, entitled, even ridiculous. But, if we see what’s really happening, that the child met an unexpected barrier and does not have the tools to work through it, we can offer real, lasting help.
Caregiver: “Oh! I can see how much you want another cupcake! They are yummy. It’s really hard to wait when you see some cupcakes left over and you want one of them.”
*Caregiver might offer a hug, deep breaths, some time outside, or other calming strategy*
Caregiver: “Since there are just enough left for our family to share this evening at suppertime, I was hoping to put them aside until then. Would you like to have your cupcake now or would you like to have it with us later on?”
It doesn’t matter how the child responds here. That’s really the point. Children have a right to input on decisions that affect them. There will be times when the answer is simply no and we will need to stay with our children to offer empathy and support. But, the reality is that no is all too often our kneejerk reaction to a question from a child, any child really. We come up with all sorts of reasons to deny children even the simplest choices. If we can make these difficult transitions easier, especially when we can yield control over a child’s decisions to that child, why not go for it? We’d all be better off if we trusted each other to make age-appropriate decisions and jumped to empathy before judgment.
What is an entitled child in the first place? In an article by the same title as mine, Molly Lopez of Highlights.com asks that question. She posed it to a panel of experts and received this reply:
“Typically, entitled kids believe the world revolves around them, that things should be done for them, and that paths should be cleared for them without them putting in much effort. Signs of entitlement include not taking ‘no’ for an answer and acting helpless when they’re not. When an entitled kid messes up, he expects to be rescued. He tends to not be grateful for what he has, and he finds it difficult to be content. Also, he requires constant entertainment. Any child on the planet will exhibit these characteristics from time to time, but if you’re seeing them as a regular pattern, you should ask, ‘Is this an entitlement issue?’”—Ms. McCready “The entitled child feels that she deserves what she wants at all times—financially and/or emotionally. This is very common and normal for very young children. Toddler entitlement is a natural part of growing, but there are limits.”—Dr. Milanaik
Ok, pause. If we genuinely believe that behavior is communication, what might “entitled” behavior be communicating? What I’m seeing is a child who a) is craving meaningful connection, b) struggles with intrinsic motivation likely due to excessive rewards, c) has not been guided in perspective taking and emotional regulation, d) has not had an opportunity to feel bored or disappointed, and e) has not had their competencies respected. Children cannot learn how to meet these needs on their own.
I propose that entitled children do not exist to begin with and urge my readers to reconsider using such stigmatizing, childist terminology against children.
Any time we’re invited to classify children by their outward behavior, I will always have concerns. Labels do save lives when they are adopted by people who can use them to lean into their identities and find community. But, at the same time, when labels are imposed upon marginalized groups by marginalizing people, we need to stop and question what the motivation might be. In this case, it seems to me that adults label children “entitled” to avoid admitting that these same children are not being treated well by adults or guided appropriately. This is not to say that so-called “entitled” behavior is the “fault” of a parent, but there are certainly ways parents can help children not have to rely on uncomfortable behaviors to get their needs met. Here are some ways to help.
Meaningful Connection
Children are full and complete human beings at birth. They desire to be accepted into the social circles they’re born into and those their paths bring them into. Connection doesn’t have to be complicated to be meaningful. It’s choosing our kids over and over, day in and day out, especially when life tries to distract us from our role as caregivers. Some of the simple ways we can connect with our kids, with their consent of course, include:
Reading to your children
Playing with them
Physical affection
Investing in their interests
One-on-one conversations
Helping them with chores and projects
Doing fun activities away from home
A child who is firmly connected to a caregiver tends to be less driven to seek out attention and approval from other sources.
Intrinsic Motivation vs Rewards
Arbitrary rewards are the flip-side of punishments when they are used to coercively modify the behavior of children. They are harmful and unhelpful. So, when a child who is desperately seeking meaningful connection receives rewards in place of connection, they will become demotivated to seek out connection in a healthy way. In other words, if we meet a child’s desires without meeting their needs, we will contribute to intense connection- and reward-seeking behavior as an undesirable substitute.
The easy fix is to avoid punishing or rewarding children in order to change their behavior. Kids don’t need sticker charts or ice cream to encourage them to do what we ask them to do. That’s manipulation. Instead, foster a relationship with your child. Establish family expectations and teach them how to meet those expectations in developmentally-appropriate ways. Use connection and limits to gently guide and encourage them.
Perspective-Taking and Emotional Regulation
Perspective-taking refers to the ability to see a situation from someone else’s point of view. It is a skill that cannot be rushed through the stages of development. There are a few schools of thought on how perspective-taking fleshes out in humans, but generally speaking, here’s where we stand.
1-year-olds can match the emotions they see in others
2-year-olds will try to help if they see another person is unhappy
3- to 6-year-olds start to recognize that other people have different emotions than they do and express empathy
7- to 12-year-olds can understand that emotions are complex and may not derive from the immediate circumstances
10- to 15-year-olds can hold multiple perspectives at once and form a big picture
14- to 18-year-olds can begin to investigate social systems and their influences on others
While we can’t rush development, we can certainly support it through emotion coaching in which we help our children name their emotions, notice how others are feeling, work through what has brought the emotions up, affirm their feelings, and help them problem solve. Children who have been labeled “entitled” by-and-large will have not been given opportunities to develop these skills, which is pretty obvious when we consider what an “entitled” child looks like.
Boredom and Disappointment
I firmly believe children have a right to experience boredom and disappointment without an adult swooping in to make it all better. That drive to keep our children impossibly happy is an unfortunate side effect of toxic positivity and a compulsion toward perfectionism, neither of which is healthy or helpful. We can bear with our kids as they get bored or feel disappointed. We can empathize and express solidarity. We can do these things without creating conditions where our children lose the ability to tolerate discomfort.
Assuming Competence Without Breaking Spirits
I once wrote about the adage that we should “never do for a child what he can do for himself. A ‘dependent’ child is a demanding child… Children become irresponsible only when we fail to give them opportunities to take on.” I cannot adequately convey how horrible this idea is to me. It’s probably one of the driving forces behind the overall concept of “entitled” children and it is utterly childist. Yes, absolutely, we should assume children are able to do the things they want to do until they show us they need help. And, we should give them space to try. However, letting children fail without support is not the answer. The description of “entitled” children seems to point to kids who have been treated as incompetent and that needs to change. By the same token, proponents for pushing kids farther than they’re able to manage on their own is equally troubling. I’ve found a middle ground that has been helpful for me as a parent:
A little failure is good. Letting kids figure things out on their own is crucial for their development.
A lot of failure is bad. Leaving kids to become helpless in the face of challenge does no one any good.
Our responsibility as parents is to help our children learn from failure without losing hope.
So, Should We Give In When Our Children Make Demands?
In a word, yes. I believe we should always give children what they’re asking for if is reasonably within our power. And, we absolutely do not need to manufacture opportunities not to give things to our kids. “Entitled” behavior does not derive from loving treatment by adults. I recently wrote about the power of “giving in” which explains my position:
Experts have lots of ideas for how to curtail “entitlement” in children, but I see so few acknowledging that “entitled” behavior is protective for children whose needs aren’t being met. Meet the needs, build the relationship, address any underlying mental health concerns, and stop labeling kids “entitled.”
“Entitled” children are children whose desires have been granted in place of meeting their needs.
A few days ago, I shared a story told to me by a fellow Autistic mom friend (see Facebook post below). I’ve been wanting to write about children and lying for a long time now and just never had the inspiration. That all changed when I learned what my friend had done. It was beautiful! I’m so pleased to get moving on this topic and offer some education and guidance I’ve learned along the way. Let’s get right into it!
1. Our Children Are Not Manipulating Us
According to the word experts, deception involves convincing someone of something that is not consistent with the facts and manipulation involves controlling someone without their knowledge to one’s own benefit. Can children really do these things? Adults often assume children are capable of behaviors that are beyond them. The Zero to Three Foundation found the following in a survey they conducted:
About half of parents believe that children are capable of self-control and other developmental milestones much earlier than they actually are.
43% of parents think children can share and take turns with other children before age 2, and 71% believe children have this ability before age 3. In fact, this skill develops between 3 to 4 years.
36% of parents surveyed said that children under age 2 have enough impulse control to resist the desire to do something forbidden, and 56% said this happens before age 3. In fact, most children are not able to master this until between 3.5 to 4 years of age.
While children may be capable of the cognitive and social process that results in deception, manipulation requires skill, scheming, and intent. To manipulate, children must:
Understand the intent of someone else’s behavior or actions. In neurotypical children, this ability begins around 15 months.
Know that what they want is, in fact, different from the person they’re addressing.
Develop an alternative version of the facts that they will use to convince someone of their perspective.
Convincingly present the narrative.
Avoid revealing the facts they are concealing.
These skills grow with age, of course. In children, what we often read as manipulation is an effort to address unmet needs. Children get our attention however they can, and they communicate through behavior. By the technical definition, sure, children can demonstrate many of the qualities needed for manipulation, but it is both childist and ableist to respond to a child’s behavioral communication with such an accusation. We can advance anti-childist aims by using different words. Our children aren’t manipulating us. They are seeking connection and support.
2. Lying is Developmentally Appropriate
The ability to deceive marks an important point in development where children begin to understand that reality involves different experiences. The flip side of deception is a child who is better able to empathize because they start to understand that experiences vary, even within the same life circumstances.
Younger children are also apt to make-believe both out of a need for fun and also when they want to escape their experience (or the consequences of it). Their imaginations run wild and they dream up an outcome that they like better. We should want our children to do this! The ability to see a better way is the basis for all true justice.
And, then, of course, is the fact that little kids do not deceive very effectively, because they are simply not yet sophisticated enough to understand practical neuroscience the way adults can through instinct and observation. While they are still in this stage, we can model honesty and talk about what it means to tell the truth. We can explain the difference between truth and accuracy and help our kids see truth from many perspectives. We can talk about the (life) consequences of lying versus telling the truth, because telling the truth can be hurtful. They need parameters and examples and, above all, acceptance and understanding from us.
Our response is never more important than it is with our neurodivergent children. Keep in mind that children with ADHD face lots of memory scrambling and disorganization as a result of their neurology. They may not remember with great accuracy and their brains may simply be moving too fast to catch all the details they need. Likewise, Autistic children are often known as being very honest, but this may not actually be the case. Many Autistic children are comfortable with the facts; so comfortable, in fact, that they can make the facts work to their advantage in a way that is deceptive. They may stick to the letter of the law, even when they know a spirit of the law exists. It’s all part of negotiating a typical world with a divergent mind.
3. Lying Actually Has Some Benefits
Author Michael Lewis wrote a fascinating piece for the American Scientist called The Origins of Lying and Deception in Everyday Life. In it, he proposes a taxonomy of lying and deception that can help us parse out the motivations and intentions of our children when they lie. I’ve touched on a couple of these already in this piece, and I will include them here to provide a complete picture of his ideological framework. He names four types of lies:
Lying to protect the feelings of another
Lying for self-protection to avoid punishment
Lying to the self, or self-deception
Lying to hurt others
The first three relate to cognitive skills that we (should) want our children to develop. Consider the following instances:
Lying to protect the feelings of another
Many of us tell our children to smile and be “gracious” when we receive a gift of an item we already have. I know I was given this directive as a child. And, I know that it did not come naturally to me to tell a so-called little white lie to protect the feelings of the people who gave me gifts because they loved me.
How many of us are completely honest in our relationships? How many of us have lost relationships because we we revealed just a little too much? Children as young as 3 may be able to discern the trajectory of a question and spare someone’s feelings by adjusting the truth. This skill is an early one for neurotypical humans, which leads me to wonder if it is an aspect of social survival that is built into children’s natural development. In that case, a nuanced and developmentally sensitive approach to talking about lying is certainly warranted.
Lying for self-protection to avoid punishment
Lying to avoid harm is a very early development for humans. Children as young as two-and-a-half will try to deceive their parents to avoid an uncomfortable punishment. And, frankly, this is also something we should want our children to be able to do.
This form of self-preservation extends beyond the safety of the parent-child relationship. Think about how we’d hope our children would address predators who mean them harm. Would we affirm our children for lying to a potential kidnapper if it meant keeping them safe? I daresay we would! Yes, I’d want my children to say whatever they needed to say in order to escape harm. This kind of lying also requires a nuanced approach.
Lying to the self, or self-deception
Self-deception is one way we preserve our mental health. We can come up with reasons to accept a hard reality, such as being rejected from a job, that may or may not be accurate for the situation. A lot of people simply call this positive thinking and it can be both helpful and harmful.
As it applies to children, giving them hope is helpful. Encouraging them not to dwell on painful things, but rather to work through them can keep their mental health intact. However, they can also self-deceive in a direction that causes them hurt, such as a teenager not being able to admit a substance abuse struggle. Again, nuanced is most certainly called for here.
Lying to Hurt Others
Now, the one type of lying that has no real social or personal benefit. If you see a pattern where your child does lie simply to inflict pain or shame onto someone else, please keep the option open to call on a mental health professional.
4. We Shouldn’t “Catch” Our Children in Lies
As with everything else we do, our response to lying must be conscious and connected. Loudly accusing a child of lying will get us nowhere and may, in fact, push the child to retreat further into the deception in hopes of avoiding more scary reactions from us.
You can help prepare yourself for the stages of development by doing some research and reading of your own. I’ll get you started by letting you know that most neurotypical children gain the ability to deceive around 2-years-old; they begin to be able to cover their tracks around 4-years-old; and, they can both understand different perspectives and hold onto a falsehood around 7-years-old. However, even at age seven, your child is very, very young and is still learning how their dishonesty lands. It will be many years more before they can effectively deceive and manipulate.
It is absolutely crucial that we, as peaceful parents, prioritize dialogue over coercion and control. The less we rely on rules to force our children into a mold of our making and, instead, get to know their hearts and fulfill their needs, the easier it will be for them to be honest with us. As you likely know by now, demanding a child to tell you why they’ve lied is usually fruitless. While they might seem calm, children who are found lying are often in a state of distress. So, we can start by letting our children know we love them and we want to help them. The next step is to ask the right questions to get the dialogue going. Here are some prompts to try:
If your child is very young and first exploring these limits, be invested. For instance, if a child claims that an imaginary friend did the thing that the child did, ask about it. “Hmm… I wonder why [friend] did that?” Taking an inquisitive approach and investing in the story can help draw out the truth.
If it’s an easy fix, be helpful. “I see that [state what you see]. May I help you [state resolution]?” Immediately offering to help without first scolding or accusing will build trust with your child.
If you know the truth, be curious. “I see that [state what you see]. What were you hoping to do?” You’ll give your child an opportunity to explain themself, so that you’ll have the information you need to help rectify what’s happened.
If you can see that your child is afraid of the consequences, be loving. “Is that what you wish happened?” This one is a beautiful way to connect with a child’s heart and let them know you receive their intent and will honor it.
If you notice that your child keeps lying about the same thing, be proactive. “I know you want to [state desire]. I get it! Next time, please come tell me first and I will help you.”
I encourage you also to work toward an environment where deception is received neutrally and resolutions are always accessible. Give your child less reason to deceive by avoiding punishment at all times, guarding their vulnerability, not harping on past deceptions, and helping your child see a way out of a tough situation. And, of course, think about how you will impart your family’s values around the types of lying that are socially acceptable, and even prescribed. Particularly for neurodivergent children, the boundaries and expectations around “little white lies” must be directly indicated.
A final note: There may be cases when children doggedly hold onto a lie. While deception from children is completely normal and expected, extreme commitment to a lie could be a sign that your child is going through something they can’t manage on their own, such as declining mental health or abuse. It’s so important to pay attention and keep the dialogue open.
If you suspect abuse, you can make a report to your state to get the process started on an investigation. If your child reports abuse, it’s important that you receive what they’re saying without suggesting that you don’t believe. Limit questions to what happened, where and when it happened, and by whom. Asking leading questions (such as suggesting a name of a potential culprit) could hinder the success of a future investigation. Check out a brochure for mandated reporters to understand how they handle cases of suspected abuse. And, see this site for a contact in your state (within the U.S.) for reporting child abuse and neglect.
As I lean into unschooling a little more bit by bit, I’ve started reading literature about the approach to better understand the lifestyle. I recently picked up Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Learning by Sara McGrath. It’s not a long book, but it’s rich with experience and insight that one can put into practice immediately. McGrath’s book did more than educate me on unschooling, though. She also introduced me to some concepts that I knew innately, but had not yet spelled out. In particular, she touched on the Continuum Concept from Jean Liedloff from her 1975 book of the same name. Liedloff developed the concept after observing the differences in the way Indigenous South American Ye’kuana mothers treated their children in contrast to what she had become accustomed to in her white western upbringing. On the site continuum-concept.org, a description of the Continuum Concept makes clear the expectations of both parent and child. I will post the description here in full so as not to lose anything in translation. (Content Warning: Jean Liedloff’s work contains references to harmful conceptions of what constitutes “civilized” culture.)
According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings — especially babies — require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as…
• constant physical contact with his mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth; • sleeping in his parents’ bed, in constant physical contact, until he leaves of his own volition; • breastfeeding “on cue” — nursing in response to his own body’s signals; • being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually his mother, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business — until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his own impulse, usually at six to eight months; • having caregivers immediately respond to his signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of his needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making him the constant center of attention; • sensing (and fulfilling) his elders’ expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.
In contrast, a baby subjected to modern Western childbirth and child-care practices often experiences…
• traumatic separation from his mother at birth due to medical intervention and placement in maternity wards, in physical isolation except for the sound of other crying newborns, with the majority of male babies further traumatized by medically unnecessary circumcision surgery; • at home, sleeping alone and isolated, often after “crying himself to sleep”; • scheduled feeding, with his natural nursing impulses often ignored or “pacified”; • being excluded and separated from normal adult activities, relegated for hours on end to a nursery, crib or playpen where he is inadequately stimulated by toys and other inanimate objects; • caregivers often ignoring, discouraging, belittling or even punishing him when he cries or otherwise signals his needs; or else responding with excessive concern and anxiety, making him the center of attention; • sensing (and conforming to) his caregivers’ expectations that he is incapable of self-preservation, is innately antisocial, and cannot learn correct behavior without strict controls, threats and a variety of manipulative “parenting techniques” that undermine his exquisitely evolved learning process.
Evolution has not prepared the human infant for this kind of experience. He cannot comprehend why his desperate cries for the fulfillment of his innate expectations go unanswered, and he develops a sense of wrongness and shame about himself and his desires. If, however, his continuum expectations are fulfilled — precisely at first, with more variation possible as he matures — he will exhibit a natural state of self-assuredness, well-being and joy. Infants whose continuum needs are fulfilled during the early, in-arms phase grow up to have greater self-esteem and become more independent than those whose cries go unanswered for fear of “spoiling” them or making them too dependent.
Liedloff further explains that, as a child grows up in Ye’kuana culture, they become integrated into the lives of the people. Ye’kuana adults do not center or dote on children. Instead, adults focus on adult activities, pausing as needed to connect with their children. As a result, children gain autonomy, self-reliance, and intrinsic motivation. Indigenous cultures consistently emerge as the originators of responsive, respectful parenting. Stories from around the world tell of communities where young children do not cry, because the adults immediately meet their needs. In the west, we believed we knew better and we sought to overwhelm evolution toward a more efficient society. In doing so, we have lost sight of our humanity.
Such a lifestyle evades many USAian parents who find themselves forced into a multiple income scenario due to the greed of the billionaires who control the means of production. We can choose to care for our children or we can starve, but choose we must. In my family, we choose responsiveness. In doing so, our children do not fall to the ground at toy stores kicking and screaming in frustration and not because we don’t allow it. To the contrary, we acknowledge and validate all expressions of emotion in our family. My children simply don’t tantrum, because it doesn’t occur to them to do so. They know we value and accept their perspectives, thus they needn’t get loud for us to hear them.
I encourage you to find ways to choose responsiveness, patience, and belonging whenever possible in the spirit of Ye’kuana mothers who understand human development far better than our so-called learned experts.
Content Warning: Description of Animal Abuse in Historic Experiments
I recently ran across a meme with a troubling message. It said, Never do for a child what he can do for himself. A “dependent” child is a demanding child… Children become irresponsible only when we fail to give them opportunities to take on. I bristled immediately. “Never” do for a child? Absolute statements like this make me uncomfortable. I understand that the point is to be decisive and firm, but then there is no room for children to be imperfect or to have needs. Yes, giving children age-appropriate responsibilities builds competence and self-assurance. However, we should be open to children refusing responsibility in an effort to have their other needs met. Seems a lot of us misunderstand why children might be “irresponsible.” There’s a great fear that we’ll foster learned helplessness if we don’t demand that our kids fulfill their responsibilities. But, is that really true?
In the 1960s, psychologist Martin Seligman conducted a series of experiments to better understand why depression was so defeating. The first experiment involved three groups of restrained dogs. The first group was restrained and released. The second group included dogs who received an electric shock which they could stop by pressing a lever. Dogs in the third group were paired with dogs in the second group and also received an electric shock. However, their levers did not stop the pain. Instead, the paired dog from the second group controlled the only working lever, which meant that the dog in the third group had to suffer the pain with no control over it and, therefore, little hope of ending it.
In the second experiment, the dogs were presented with a similar scenario, except that Seligman introduced an escape option. The dogs in the first two groups, having either not experienced the shocks at all the first time around or having had access to a lever to stop the pain, fairly quickly escaped when the shocks began. However, the dogs in the third group made no effort and were able only to cry out pitifully when they were shocked. That presumed inability to take action is learned helplessness, and it results from hopelessness in the face of failure.
An especially important aspect of these experiments was the finding that “one cause of learned helplessness seems to be learning that reinforcers cannot be controlled” (409). For those who aren’t familiar with the term “reinforcer,” it means a punishment or a reward. So, the inability to control the punishment of these painful shocks directly contributed to the dogs’ acceptance that the pain was inescapable. No amount of punishments or rewards delivered after the learned helplessness had taken hold had any positive effect on the dogs’ behavior.
What you may find interesting is that Seligman did find a cure for the learned helplessness. He discovered that either picking up the dogs and moving them to safety or using a leash to drag them out of harm’s way provided enough motivation for them to take action. He called it “directive therapy” and it was simply an intervention wherein an outside participant showed each dog how to do what the dog didn’t realize was possible. He found that less and less force was required in pulling on the leash as the dogs began to realize that there was hope. The end result of this portion of the experiment was that all the dogs in group three fully recovered and were able to escape completely on their own (410).
…which brings us to helping. Put simply, learned helplessness is giving up because an obstacle is too insurmountable. For children, it may be sitting in the middle of their room unable to clean up, because they don’t know where to start. It may be accepting punishment for not getting dressed quickly enough because they feel that the punishment is inevitable, and they can’t do what’s expected of them to begin with. As noted in the experiment, the cure for learned helplessness is directive therapy, i.e. demonstrating a way to be successful. In other words, helping. When our children become overwhelmed with their messy rooms, we can intervene by helping them come up with a plan and working on the clean-up with them. Over time, they will gain more competence and the process will be less frustrating for them. When our children struggle to dress themselves, the easiest solution is to recognize that we need to take a few steps back and offer to help them dress. It may take a while for them to do things that seem simple to us, but the more we respond to their need for help, the more capable they will become.
There are three overarching lessons I learned from reading up on learned helplessness:
A little failure is good. Letting kids figure things out on their own is crucial for their development.
A lot of failure is bad. Leaving kids to become helpless in the face of challenge does no one any good.
Our responsibility as parents is to help our children learn from failure without losing hope.
Whether a child seeks our help because they don’t know how to do something or because they want to connect with us or because they are weary and need some support or for any other reason, we will always do right by them when we help them, especially when we don’t think they really need the help. In doing so, we invigorate qualities like learning, self-motivation, and confidence… the very things that combat learned helplessness. So, please, help your kids.
If you’re a visual learner, check out this video from therapist Kati Morton! Toward the end of the video, she provides some tools for helping ourselves (and our kids) release these thoughts of helplessness.
Rewards are an inherent feature of behaviorism, a school of thought which posits that we are influenced by our external environment alone. It does not take into account the inner life of kids. Their thoughts, their frustrations, their very identities are ignored. Behaviorism seeks to change children’s behavior through external forces, including various forms punishment and rewards. One of those forms (of punishment or rewards… depends on how it’s received) is praise. “Good job!” we might say to a child to push them toward a result we desire. I’m heavily conditioned to use praise by my culture here in the United States. It is a moment-by-moment battle to stop my mouth from dishing out quick and empty motivators. What’s so wrong with these phrases, though? Let’s look at a few.
I’m so proud of you!
Great work!
You can do it!
They all sound lovely and encouraging and the truth is they are. To a point. But, it’s the backside of these phrases that can harm our kids. I’m so proud of you! and Great work! communicate our excitement that our children have fulfilled our expectations of them. They are moral judgments that kids will continue to try to maintain to keep us happy. Well, that is, until they stop caring when the reward of praise becomes exhausting or demotivating. You can do it! looks harmless enough until you realize it represents a parent informing a child about their abilities. We can understand how dismissive it is to tell a crying child, “You’re ok,” rather than offering empathy. It erases the child’s inner feelings and minimizes their struggle. By the same token, while we may think You can do it! communicates our confidence in our child’s competence, in reality, it sets them up for an impossible outcome. If my child fails, does that mean I’ve lied to them? Does it mean I don’t respect them? What’s the end result?
The Power of Noticing
There is an alternative that works to foster intrinsic motivation: noticing. Noticing can be a simple thank you, It helps a lot when you carry groceries in with me. Thank you! Noticing can be paying attention to the simple, every day things, You’re working so hard on that drawing. I’d love to hear about it! Noticing can be empathetic support, Scoring a goal is really challenging. I am right here with you. Noticing is highlighting and acknowledging the values or the effort or the struggle without attributing a moral zero-sum game to them.
Now, when I’ve talked about praise as problematic before, I’ve gotten some pushback over our often involuntary responses to the happiness that flow from us when our children are succeeding at the things that are important to them. Do I think that smiling at a child or clapping in excitement or happily exclaiming Good job! is going to destroy our children’s intrinsic motivation? Absolutely not. When we talk about a “reward” in the context of peaceful parenting, what we mean is a reinforcer that artificially manipulates a child into behaving in a way we prefer. We run into trouble when the strategy we employ to motivate our children becomes a pattern of manipulation rather than genuine connection and the intent to notice.
I’m especially partial to the phrase, You did it!, to express my joy when my children accomplish goals they’ve set out from themselves. It’s my way of noticing their effort by stating a fact and leaving it at that.
The Power of Not Noticing
As we carefully and purposefully speak to our children’s intrinsic motivation, we have to know when enough is enough. Have you ever seen a child’s exuberance deflate when a parent comments on what they’re doing? I certainly have in my own children. When I overstep bounds and interject my thoughts onto my children, it can be an invasion into their bubble of privacy. Any time we interact with our children, we impose our own values. For better or worse, most of us adults value things like rightness, progress, and success. But, these values aren’t superior to wrongness, stopping, or failure. Think of all the wonderful things that happen in the space of wrongness, stopping, and failure. We learn by trial and error. We pause to rest and to reflect. We know when to move on because something isn’t working. These are also critical lessons children need to learn and they can’t do that when we compulsively push them away from the very spaces they need to reside in.
It’s very easy for us to jump in and teach. Although, often children need time to express their thoughts freely. It’s ok if they don’t know what to do and it’s ok for them to feel they need direction.
When we continually teach and correct children, they learn to always look for direction. The more children use their own thoughts, the more they build up their intrinsic motivation and self belief. Having time to be creative with no direction is such a healthy process and supports children’s emotional wellbeing.
For me, the simplest way to know when my comments are invited is to wait to be invited. When my children include me in their play and in their efforts in some way, those are the times I can be pretty sure it’s ok to share encouragement and love. I try to avoid interrupting my children to tell them what I think. Sometimes this method works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, I am quick to apologize and let them know I won’t interrupt again. See what happens there? I learn from my wrongness. Children have a way of enforcing their boundaries in a straightforward, genuine way when adults allow them to. So, let them, y’all.
My family has been going through it the past couple weeks. It’s just more of the same 2020 nonsense that everyone is experiencing, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve been thinking about a post on executive functioning, as I can imagine we’re all working a little harder on this skill of late, but also because I recently ran across something that might help our kids be a little more effectual with a lot less work and frustration.
Executive function is the term for the overall management of the brain. It is what allows us to prioritize tasks and get things done and it involves three overarching areas: working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control (including self-control). The eight executive functions are self-control, self-monitoring, emotional control, flexibility, task initiation, organization, working memory, and planning & time management.
There are many brain differences that impact executive functioning including things like autism, ADHD, depression, and trauma to the brain. And, if you’ve spent time around kids, you’ll recognize that their executive functioning is still under construction. In fact, executive function develops all the way into adulthood. Kids who are struggling with it might not be able to pay attention, hold onto a series of instructions, transition from one task to the next, or plan out action steps. As a child, I had many, many hours of therapy to help me improve my executive functioning skills, so I was intrigued when I recently ran across a strategy that promises improvements in executive function.
Kristen Jacobsen (MS CCC-SLP) and Sarah Ward (MS CCC-SLP) are two speech language pathologists who have been studying executive function for the past 20+ years and now co-direct Cognitive Connections, a specialty practice in Massachusetts. Together, they created the 360 Thinking™ Executive Function Program that includes a strategy developed by Sarah Ward called Get Ready, Do, Done. This strategy coaches children to identify what needs to be done at a future time, imagine what “done” looks like, work backward to plan out the steps to get there, and then collect needed materials to accomplish the task. It is a way to lay out each step for those whose brains don’t automatically do the planning for them. The model plans backward before taking steps forward.
What will it look like when I am done?
What steps do I need to take to be done? How long will each step take?
What do I need to get ready?
What materials do I need to do the steps?
Time to do the task. Create a timeline and time markers.
When I was little, I used to get frustrated to the point of shutting down when I was told to clean my room. In childist terms, I might have been called lazy or stubborn, but the problem I had was that I simply didn’t know what to do! I needed someone to show me my room clean and straight several times, so I’d have the picture in my mind. I needed to be walked around the room and shown where each item was supposed to go. I needed a step-by-step plan, like:
Get cleaning supplies.
Clear off and make the bed to use as a staging area if needed.
Pick up and put away items from the floor as follows: trash, dishes, clothes, toys, books, and everything else.
Organize wardrobe and trunk.
Wipe dust and grime from surfaces.
Clean glass.
Sweep floor.
That never happened for me. I stumbled through housework until well into adulthood when I came across the organizing and cleaning industries and learned how to properly do housework. Even with small children now, I’m able to keep my house nice and clean. I even put laundry away after it’s dried, which is something I never did as a young adult. Check out this quick video that uses cleaning a room to explain executive functioning:
If you’d like to give Get Ready, Do, Done a try, check out these free resources:
As peaceful parents, we recognize that rewards and punishment are tools of manipulation and they have no place alongside things like emotion coaching and relationship building. But, should we go so far as to call rewards a tool of abuse? That’s a heavy, heavy word and one I was reticent to use in describing punishments, like spanking, for a very long time. However, within the past year, I have come to realize just how destructive spanking really is. Now, I’m turning my attention to rewards to investigate their effects on children.
Rewards are an implement of a field of psychology called behaviorism. Put plainly, behaviorism is a psychological approach that assumes all behaviors are the result of conditioning and that behavior is always purposeful. It leaves no room for cognitive sources of behavior. So, where behavior is deemed a problem, the solution is not to resolve what is happening with the person internally, but to externally mold the person’s behavior into something the therapist considers more appropriate.
While behaviorism as a branch of psychology traces its roots back to 1913, the use of external manipulation is far, far older. It’s mentioned throughout the Bible, we see it in the form of punishment as marks cut deep on skeletal remains, and we all know it for the anxiety and fear it produces. Behaviorism has some practical applications, such as animal training and smoking cessation when used by choice. Consent is key, as behaviorism has such a substantial potential to be harmful. To understand how very undermining it can be, take this story as an example. I saw it in an autism-related facebook group and it is a fantastic illustration of what I mean.
My degree is on Cognitive Science, which included quite a bit on behaviorism. I was never aiming to be a therapist, and had no idea I was autistic when I was in college.One of the interesting things about behaviorism is that it works even on subjects who have no idea they’re being trained. You can train a grown adult into quite elaborate behaviors without them being aware they’re being trained, or sometimes that they’re even doing the behaviors. Case in point, my brother’s psychology class decided to try training their professor. They picked three behaviors they wanted: writing class notes more towards the middle of the board, using the word “I” more, and tucking his hand into his upper inside pocket a la Napoleon. They then chose three reinforcers: scribbling notes, looking up at the professor, and leaning forward interestedly.The professor was an excellent subject, and by the end of the semester was using “I” in virtually every sentence, had his hand tucked in the target pocket any time he wasn’t using it, and writing all his class notes in a 2 foot square box in the middle of the room-spanning chalkboard, all without realizing he was doing it. In fact when they fessed up at the end of the semester, he didn’t believe them until they turned him around and showed him 3 hours of notes crammed into a tiny invisible square for no good reason.How do you think the professor reacted to the revelation? If you guess “not well”, you’re right. If you ponder why that might be, even though he liked that class particularly (such attentive, responsive students!), and hadn’t minded the training process at all, you may have some insight on why so many autistic people dislike ABA, even in kinder, gentler forms.
Researcher Alfie Kohn suggests that rewards and punishments are two sides of the same coin. He wrote a book about his perspective called Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes. He explains that, “There are at least 70 studies showing that extrinsic motivators—including A’s, sometimes praise, and other rewards—are not merely ineffective over the long haul but counterproductive with respect to the things that concern us most: desire to learn, commitment to good values, and so on. Another group of studies shows that when people are offered a reward for doing a task that involves some degree of problem solving or creativity—or for doing it well—they will tend to do lower quality work than those offered no reward.”
So, rewards tend to be demotivators over time. They interfere with natural human curiosity and self-realization. They aren’t that different from using a treat to teach a dog to sit. After all, humans and dogs are both animals. Many of our innate, unconscious motivations are the same, such as seeking food and drink, and avoiding danger. Rewards offer temporary motivation, but it comes at a cost. However, there is a way to keep rewards fresh… and it’s enticing: intermittent reinforcement.
In practice, intermittent reinforcement involves rewarding a subject sporadically rather than continuously for a behavior deemed to be desired. For children, it might be a gold star for being kind to a classmate where the child has to be kind over and over before being noticed. The anticipation of the reward keeps the desired behavior front and center. But, intermittent reinforcement has a dark side. It is a preferred form of trauma bonding used by abusers in violent relationships.
Flowers after days of the silent treatment. Crocodile tears after weeks of brutal insults. An unexpected extravagant gift after a rage attack. A sudden moment of tenderness after hours of critical remarks. What do these all have in common? In the context of an abusive relationship, they are all demonstrations of intermittent reinforcement – a dangerous manipulation tactic used to keep you bonded to your abuser.
Psychologist B.F. Skinner (1956) discovered that while behavior is often influenced by rewards or punishment, there is a specific way rewards are doled out that can cause that behavior to persist over long periods of time, causing that behavior to become less vulnerable to extinction. Consistent rewards for a certain behavior actually produce less of that behavior over time than an inconsistent schedule of rewards. He discovered that rats pressed a lever for food more steadily when they did not know when the next food pellet was coming than when they always received the pellet after pressing (known as continuous reinforcement).
In laymen’s terms, when we know to expect the reward after taking a certain action, we tend to work less for it. Yet when the timing of the reward or the certainty that we’ll get it at all is unpredictable, we tend to repeat that behavior with even more enthusiasm, in hope for the end result. We relish the joy of a “hard-earned” reward that much more.
Intermittent reinforcement can trigger behavior that looks a lot of compulsion and obsession in humans, especially in the context of a toxic relationship. So, where does this leave us on the question of rewards being abusive or not?
Here is my perspective. The way we wield rewards is crucial. When we use rewards to manipulate our children into doing what we want, we have fallen into dangerous territory. The more we use rewards to coerce children, the more it begins to look like abuse. However, humans do crave social acceptance and recognition is an important part of that. Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Laura Markham, has some advice for how to incorporate recognition without falling back on rewards. She says,
The good news is that there are better ways to give our children encouragement. In fact, when children feel seen, accepted and appreciated for who they are, that becomes a super power, an internal source of affirmation that outweighs any external evaluation and gives them an internal compass to express their values, from compassion to hard work.
So when you find yourself starting to say “Good Job!” or “Good Sharing!” try these phrases instead.
1. Empathize with his excitement (instead of evaluating and telling him what you think about his accomplishment.)
“Yes! You’re pedaling all by yourself!”
2. Let her know you’re really seeing her (and let her evaluate whether what’s she’s doing is working.)
“I see that you’re doing the sides of the puzzle first.”
3. Empower him to choose how to behave in the future by pointing out the results of his behavior (so he develops his own moral compass.)
“Look how happy your friend is to have a turn with your toy.”
4. Encourage effort (because that’s what creates results.)
“You’re working so hard on that…. I think just a little more practice and you’ll nail it!”
5. Be specific in your description (so your child feels his accomplishment is seen, rather than just a global “good job.”)
“You counted from zero to twenty! Last week, you couldn’t count that far. I see that you’ve been working on learning those numbers!”
6. Ask questions to help your child reflect (so she begins to trust herself to be the arbiter of her own performance.)
“Do you like the way it came out? Why or why not?”
7. Express your own feelings, including gratitude.
“I love it when we work as a team like this! It makes the work so much faster! Thanks so much for helping me.”
Notice the difference? You’re not judging your child. You’re loving him. As Deepak Chopra says, “Love is attention without judgment. In its natural state, attention only appreciates.” That’s the kind of attention every child needs.
These words ring true for my own family. Peaceful Dad and I do not use rewards or punishments with our crew. And, this decision was recently affirmed when our new speech therapist remarked on our son’s ability to engage with her without the need for rewards. I took the opportunity to gush about peaceful parenting, intrinsic motivation, and emotion coaching. The reality is this: No rewards, no punishments, respectful, and connected discipline is not only possible, it’s also evidence-based and fruitful for all children. It’s achievable, but it does take a big shift in thinking on the part of us parents.
Many of y’all have probably figured out by now that I like to deep dive into some common concepts that we all know but, perhaps, haven’t thought about in terms of parenting. Recently, I’ve been thinking about independence versus autonomy and what the distinction means for our children.
‘Autonomous’ means ‘self-directed’. Auto – nomy. From the Greek ‘autos’ – self, and ‘nomos’ – law. It means that your drive to act comes from inside yourself.
‘Independent’ means ‘not influenced by outside forces’. It is from the french ‘in’ – not, and ‘dependant’ – hanging from. It means ‘not hanging from’ – or ‘not dependent on’ anything.
So although the meaning is similar, it is different, as you say.
Examples:
He is completely autonomous as a freelancer and defines his own programme.
The child is able to play autonomously – she makes up her own games.
The freelancer is independent of any company – no-one tells him what to do.
The child is able to play independently – without her parents’ supervision.
So:
Autonomous – self directed
Independent – not needing or not influenced by others
The sense of the words I had going into my deep dive was borne out in this explanation. I struggle to place significant value on independence as I do not believe it is a particularly important value. It is a very “American” value as this culture has come to believe any dependence on another person constitutes a moral failure, but I do not agree.
I think that we should aim to be interdependent. Not independent. Interdependence means not only that we rely on others, but they rely on us as well. It offers inherent motivation to care for both ourselves and for others. It does not shame us for our human needs and it does not present a moral high ground from which we can look down on those who have different intelligences and capacities.
Interdependence places responsibility on entire cultures rather than on individuals. It is something that is lacking in the United States where we allow our neighbors to go hungry, become victims of state violence, and be silenced by more powerful people. And, interdependence is probably better for our kids too. The push for independence is what leads parents to refuse to take forgotten lunches to school and lock children in their rooms until they clean up all on their own.
Are we putting value on the wrong thing? And, what of autonomy? Autonomy imbues children with power. It is the authority behind self-determined decisions, including how we choose to respond to difficult situations. Everyone reading this certainly wants their children to learn to do things for themselves, but on whose schedule? Is a child who can’t tie a shoe but can cook a full meal any less worthy? These are some of the many questions I have asked myself over these past weeks.
In my own little family, I do my best to ensure my children’s autonomy is as intact as possible. I try to leave decisions in their hands as much as I can without slipping into parentification. For instance, no one in my home is required or expected to clean alone. We all pitch in and the children learn through team involvement. I also don’t rush my children into developmental milestones. We don’t “potty train” kids in this house, for instance. We believe that our children will develop in their own time when given opportunities to try new things. And, that’s the key for us. If we never give the kids a chance to do something on their own, how will they ever know if they can do it? By the same token, if we force the kids to do something new, what are they learning from our coercion? And, what’s the use of teaching them to do something completely on their own without help rather than teaching them to advocate for themselves when they do need help? It all takes balance, which is something I’m learning how to do day to day. It requires deep respect for children and a willingness to actually listen. Not just hear our kids, but listen to what they are communicating in words or in behavior.
So, what’s your take? Do you value independence or autonomy? Do you prioritize one or both? How do you leverage your ability to support your children’s independence or autonomy toward fostering an anti-childist upbringing for them?
You know how, sometimes, you run across new information that leaves your mind spinning? That happened to me this past week when I read something about the difference between permission and consent, and immediately thought of my efforts toward anti-childism. It’s not something I’d really thought much on before, so I’ve been doing a little more reading and reflecting. To be clear, here’s the deal:
Permission means gaining approval from a superior whereas consent means coming to a mutual agreement that either party can say yes or no to.
I talk a lot about the need for consent on this blog, but there are also times when I’ve mentioned “allowing” and “letting” my kids do things. I’m realizing that my permission-based orientation is at odds with my efforts to elevate children. What I really want to do is flatten the traditional hierarchy parents and children tend to operate from, which means preferring agreement over commands wherever possible.
I’m sure many of y’all reading this will immediately question what this means in terms of safety issues. Children are a unique group of people. They are fully human and fully deserving of rights while also being newer to the world and in need of guidance. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what anti-childism really looks like when we, parents, are responsible for protecting our kids from danger, but I’m doing my best.
For instance, when a toddler breaks free and immediately bolts for the road, we must do whatever we can to save our child. Toddlers cannot manage the freedom to roam around a busy street unsupervised. So, what does consent look like with a two-year-old? Perhaps it looks like giving her the toothbrush when she demands it instead of brushing her teeth for her. Perhaps, it looks like sitting up with her for a while when she’s not ready to go to sleep yet. Perhaps, it looks like giving her full control over what she eats from her lunch plate. There are so many daily decisions where you can give your child the authority and autonomy she craves (something that wasn’t allowed when I was a child).
I’m reminded of a graphic I ran across some time ago by Kristin Wiens:
I’m challenging myself to rethink those moments when I want to use my adult authority to pressure my children into bending to my will. In those moments, it’s difficult to remember that sharing power ends up creating an environment of cooperation. I invite you to this challenge as well. Let’s see how often we can come to an agreement with our kids rather than lording over them. I bet it gets easier with time.
PEACE I GIVE 