LEAKS IN DISCIPLINE
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
If you really think about it, there are only two reasons why our children
do not behave in accordance with our standards. These two reasons are 1.
inconsistency and 2. undermining. Really, undermining is just a subset of
inconsistency. If parents are consistent and do not undermine one another,
children will have to do whatever their parents expect of them (as long as it’s
possible). If parents are kind-hearted and fair-minded people (who generally
want to do as much as they can for their children) their children truly should
meet their expectations. In fact, if the parents are, indeed, kind-hearted and
fair-minded people, meeting their expectations will lead to the greatest
possible success for their children.
Consistency
The fact is, most parents provide everything children want, limited only
by their own resources. Parents provide shelter. More often than not that
shelter is far better than the minimum required by law, right? Parents also
provide food, and more often than not they provide foods kids love, which
goes well beyond what is necessary for nutritional standards or sustenance.
Isn’t that true? If their children are to have any fun that requires
transportation or money, parents have to take part in planning that fun, don’t
they? Even the toys kids already have around the house, regardless of
where they came from, require some kind of parental involvement since so
many of those toys run on the electricity the parents pay for monthly. When
you stop to think about it, kids can’t have anything they want without their
parents’ involvement.
So, if kids depend on their parents' good will for everything they want,
how does it happen that so many parents have trouble with disciplining their
children? Simply put, parents are inconsistent. We give warnings and make
threats, but often we do not follow through. Due to that lack of follow
through, our kids come to understand that we don’t really mean it when we
warn or threaten. Most of us have experienced what happens when our kids
do know we’re serious. Suddenly we find our previously stubborn child
doing what they’re supposed to do. If our kids really find that they lose a
prized privilege when they fail to do what we ask, most of them tend to learn
their lessons quite quickly.
While it is difficult to be consistent, the need for consistency can be
stated and understood quite clearly. So, why is it so difficult to carry out our
desire to be consistent? Simply put, love gets in the way. Most reasonable
parents of adequate resources want so badly for their children to know they’
re loved that they can’t stand it when their kids have to go without. It’s as if
we think going without television or snacks is sheer torture for our children.
When we stand by a consequence, it's too easy to feel as though we are
responsible for depriving them. Of course, we know the truth. Our children
are responsible for their behavior, and thus they must suffer the
consequences of their misdeeds.
In fact, not only are we not responsible for their feeling deprived, we
are 100% absolutely responsible for making sure they understand the
importance of being well-behaved. Until they connect our dissatisfaction
with their behavior to the reason for their consequences, they will not
change. If they don’t get real consequences, it’s as if we are expecting them
to grow up on their own, independent of parenting. If we don’t discipline
them, when will they learn to be civilized? How will they act when they’re
out on their own? The truth of the matter is that our interest in their future
should be by far the most significant motivation for us toward making sure
they do behave. We are desperate to ensure they have a good future, aren't
we? The way we connect our interest in their future to their bad behavior is
by making sure that they have consequences for their actions.
Undermining
Consistency and its relation to consequences is relatively easy to
understand, but a particular kind of inconsistency, known as “undermining,”
is a far more complicated human process. When parents do not agree and
the kids know it, especially when parents contradict one another directly in
front of their children, it isn’t even reasonable to expect kids to listen. It
would be like having two ostensibly equal bosses on one job each who
wanted completely different tasks completed, but you only had enough time
to please one of them. It would be impossible. The boss you fail to please
would surely fire you, unless the other boss saves you, which leads to a
whole different level of undermining. When parents do not agree with one
another, kids have no idea what to do. We don’t fire our kids, but we sure
can frustrate the heck out of them. Because we don’t fire them, we
inevitably do something worse. We actually make them take sides. It's as if
the parent whose directions have been followed has saved the child from the
other parent. Thus, the parent who is perceived to be the savior becomes
the one to whom the child will listen in the future.
So, with undermining occurring between parents, how would we expect
children to act? Typically, kids follow the instructions of the parent they
perceive to be more powerful. That makes the other parent feel crazy. In
most cases, it even makes the two parents become more polarized in their
parenting styles. One parent sees the other act strictly, and they become
especially lenient. One parent sees the other discipline too leniently, and that
parent becomes especially strict. In most cases, kids can even tolerate two
completely different styles of parenting as long as only one parent is present
at any given time, and as long as neither parent comments negatively on how
the kids should react to the other parent when they’re not around. When the
two parents are together, however, the direction of the less dominant parent
will be generally discounted if the views of the two parents seem
contradictory. Alternately, often kids will simply behave in a confused
manner, and sometimes they'll act almost as if they’re paralyzed with an
inability to take appropriate action.
The fact that undermining is such a problem does not mean that
parents have to completely agree on discipline practices. What it does mean,
however, is that they must aim to never contradict one another in front of
the children (with the one exception being if one parent perceives the other
one to be abusing a child). Each parent must have enough self-control to put
their own directions on hold if those directions contradict the directions the
other parent has already given. Of course, if parents disagree on how things
should be done, it does necessitate a discussion on the topic between the
parents when the children are not around. Parents do have to come to some
consensus about how things should be handled the next time or they will be
destined to repeating the same unresolved feelings into eternity. If people do
work things out this way, of course most disagreements slowly dissipate and
parents start acting much more consistently. There are only so many
different kinds of situations with kids, and most will fall into patterns where
the parents know they have already agreed on how to handle that particular
kind of situation. But so many people seem to continuously lack agreement
on how to handle situations, regardless of the amount of work that's gone
into finding consensus. Why might that happen?
Although love can get in the way of a parent reining in their desire to
undermine another parent (for example, “Oh, honey, let’s just let him do it
this one time”), competition for control is the primary factor underlying the
act of undermining our parenting partners. Time and time again parents will
undermine, even if they know it’s wrong to do so, just because it is so
uncomfortable for them to see the other parent parenting in a way that they
feel is “wrong.” Undermining will occur even after one has learned that
undermining is far more damaging to children than the actual parenting
technique they see being used, so it is clearly not their concern for the child
that is upper-most in their thoughts (even though they sometimes think it is).
In fact, quite often a parent can be observed to completely contradict their
own stated preference for how something should be done just because the
other parent is now using that same “preferred” technique. The repeated act
of undermining can only be explained in this context by the need to be the
parent in control.
To accomplish controlling the desire to undermine, parents need to see
that their childrens' perception of them as being a team is far more important
than either parent being “right” about how to discipline. Parents become far
too rapped up in the “right” way to parent, not realizing that disagreement
between them is more destructive than any possible positive that could come
from either parent using the “right” method. If parents can prevent their
own desire to be in control, if they can manage to control their impulse to
undermine or correct the other parent, if they can have the discipline to
discuss their different methods when the children are not present, then their
agreement on how to discipline, and a generally consistent pattern of
parenting overall, will develop naturally within the family. If a generally
consistent pattern does develop, children will have a chance to accomplish
the very best future imagined by their parents. Without such a pattern, the
parental team communicates a confused message about right and wrong, and
how people get along, which puts children at a distinct disadvantage in
dealing with the world and their future.
The answer to the riddle of why kids don’t behave seems to be simple,
but clearly it is not. Given how often kids misbehave, the answer to the
riddle of why, is clearly quite complicated. The answer not only involves
parents being consistent and not undermining each other, but also must
include an understanding of why that is so hard to accomplish. To be
consistent, parents need to put their childrens' future first and their childrens'
immediate gratification must be put on hold. Parents need to put their own
egos in check when deciding the “right” way to discipline, and they need to
recognize that consensus and consistency between them is far more correct
than any one approach to parenting. If parents are loving, caring,
individuals, who want nothing more than to do for their children, then
focusing on their childrens' discipline in the most consistent way possible is
the most loving and caring way to do as much as they possibly can.