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 children's 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 children's future first and their children's 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 children's discipline in the most consistent way possible is the most loving and caring way to do as much as they possibly can.
