Chapter 17
Rewarding "bad" behaviour - Two Targets
If parents have created a 'scapegoat' in the home they need and that their responses to their child's 'bad' behaviour are unfair their next task appears contradictory. They now need to accept that these same responses consistently reward the 'bad' behaviour and maintain it. How can this be? How can something that that has a sanctioning effect on a child's self-esteem also be a 'reward' for their bad behaviour? The answer stems from the fact that parents are presented with two targets in their attempts to bring about change when they think there is only one. The first target is the child himself; who he is; who they perceive him to be; who he perceives himself to be; and so on. The second target is simpler it is the behaviour the child decides to enact and his decision to enact it.
Interpersonal sanctions hit the first target but act like a reward for the second. It is enough for parents accept that this distinction and that these two distinct targets exists on a practical level. In other words their success in changing serious 'bad' behaviour depends on their using this as a working hypothesis to guide their responses. However, there is a virtually watertight case that this distinction actually exists in children and that the second target, what they do, by virtue of their immaturity and the influence that their parents, has little connection to the first target of who they are and even less on who they will become. When we attempt to decide the point at which the second target - the behaviour a person decides to enact and their decision to enact it - starts to illustrate who they actually are it becomes more difficult. There is, I believe, a strong case to be made that this distinction remains true whilst parents continue to define the child in the ways we have described and whilst the child continues to care enough about the parents definition to want to 'win' the battle their parents wage to control them and also to punish parents for their view of them and the insecurity created by parental weakness. It certainly remains true for teenagers.
The problem for parents is that the first target must not be handled negatively even when the parent is suffering the full force of the negative behaviour that emanates from the second target. Parental responses that damage the first target - their interpersonal sanctions - act just like a reward on the second target - and the 'bad' behaviour the child decides to enact and his decision to enact it is encouraged. The interpersonal sanctions of dissatisfaction, blame, anger and despair each creates a corresponding emotion in the child. Dissatisfaction creates fatalism; blame and anger create their mirror images and all four signal parental impotence and increase the child's sense of power.
Sanctions require positiveness
So tangible sanctions are required yet, if these tangible and practical sanctions are mixed with, or delivered in a climate coloured by negative emotions they will be equally ineffective. Consequences are vital, but they need to be 'pure' in the sense that they are clearly deployed because a specific 'bad' behaviour was enacted, and not tainted by enmity. Training that negative consequences follow negative choices is essential for children. The child needs consequences to establish the parent's standard of normal behaviour and also to help train them not to over-react to disappointment. When children are trained to accept small consequences for their own inappropriate behaviour they are being trained to accept - not dwell on - the natural disappointments that life brings. But this aim is tainted by overt expressions of the parents emotionally based need to get their own way. Even with a good sanction the child will still copy - and reflect back - the parents emotionally based determination to get their own way. Yes parents need to be determined but because the change is beneficial to their child not because of their own need to win. Without the positive loving application of consequences their children will continue to get angry and blame others for even trivial disappointments including those stemming from their own "bad behaviour". They will revert to - or fail to leave - their Primary Mode behaviour and may continue to say right on into their teenage years and beyond "I do not feel good-I demand-make me feel better." 'Bad' behaviour is always an interactive problem that is created in the vacuum left by the lack of tangible consequences. Children need a parent-figure to interact with to enable them to behave badly. Children need their parents as a foil, an audience, and a reward for their "bad behaviour". All "bad behaviour" is essentially Primary Mode behaviour, with the child interacting with the parent in a way that was once perfectly natural but is now out of place.
The concept of 'no' - Two polarised mistakes
Parents do not reward 'bad' behaviour by comforting a distressed baby. Giving this comfort is always right - this does not always mean picking the baby up; in fact holding a very tired baby is often a bad idea as the increase in sensation often makes them more uncomfortable - clever, calm parents use their voices or motion or music or even vacuum cleaner or a hairdryer to distract soothe and calm. By giving the baby what it wants we strive to control the interactions so that the baby will become less demanding. We may wait to see if the baby will "cry itself to sleep" but, if it is distressed or in pain, it will need our comfort. Allowing a baby to show distress past a certain point, to scream, is to risk the baby choking or holding its breath - going blue - to force us to respond. We will just end up rewarding an escalation in their distressed behaviour and setting the pattern for future temper tantrums.
When babies eventually become mobile they still need, whenever possible, to be given what they want but they no longer need us to bring it to them. They can now move and touch things for themselves. It is at this point that the parents of Mercury's Child often make one of two polarised mistakes. They either leave the toddlers space full of "no" responses and expect a child used to immediate gratification to be able to function with constant refusals, or they attempt to supply or appease and replace 100% of the toddlers requests. Overloading a toddler with the "no" word just encourages the child to ignore it but constantly trying to trick the child into wanting something else, not the thing they asked for, is eventually more frustrating for the child than saying "no". Rooms need to be child toddler proofed before the child is put into them. One or two "no's" in a room should be the aim.
Parents, searching for what works, oscillate between the poles of disciplinarian and 'keep them happy regardless' both approaches dismally fail to introduce the toddler to the vital concept of 'no'. It does not matter how old a child gets this concept has to be taught. None of my client's children accept that key parent statements are categorical; this is one of the defining characteristics of Mercury's Child, but it is also inevitable because in most cases their parents are themselves systematically undermining these statements. Being firm with children is mistakenly thought by many parents to be about presentation, how you stand, using a determined and strong tone of voice. This is dangerously false. What determines whether parents are firm or not depends entirely on outcomes, on what follows their categorical statements. If the child does not do what was required and receives no tangible sanction as a consequence then the instruction is proved not to be categorical in the first place. Children copy parents who use presentational firmness without consequences or think that vocal firmness is itself a sanction, and they begin to use aggression to show their own determination.
Changing behaviour should be so simple
- -+ +
bad behaviour is followed by something the child does not like whereas good behaviour can be followed by something the child likes.
For Mercury's Child the norm is minuses followed by pluses, "bad behaviour" followed by a reward.
Look closely at what this parent says:
Most situations at home are usually overcome with some sort of reward, i.e. a trip to MacDonald's, etc. School seems to be the main area for his "bad behaviour" . Perhaps this is because we have just learned to be extremely patient parents dealing with a wilful child and become used to his behaviour at home. We have always been firm with him and will not 'give in' to him.
It is not mentioned here, but the "situations" that this mother is talking about occur when her son threatens a temper tantrum if he does not get his own way. His behaviour is calmed once a reward is offered. Again, this mother needs to ask, where is her son going to find a world where disappointments come with an immediate compensatory reward whenever you make a big fuss? This mother may be saying the right things to her son, but the real lesson she is teaching is, be rude-refuse-make a big fuss-and you get a reward.
Parents like this mother think that when they offer the reward and the child stops the "bad behaviour" they are rewarding the child stopping, but the child cannot get this reward unless he first starts behaving badly and this is what the parent will end up rewarding. This fundamental difference turns a reward into a bribe. A bribe is a reward delivered at the wrong time - i.e., when the child is already behaving badly. For this parent to offer a reward for what should be ordinary behaviour is already a bad idea but what is really crazy here is that if this child had been behaving well his mother would not even have thought of the reward. Parents may miss the significance of this; their children won't. Behave badly and you are rewarded for it. The child will soon learn to devise all manner of new negative behaviours for the parent to placate. The reward may solve the immediate problem, but the frequency of the "bad" behaviour will soar.
When not to Make Your Child Feel Better
Can you help with advice on books or procedures to follow concerning my 8-year-old son's behaviour. My son is an intelligent boy who is extremely well behaved at school and in other people's homes (unless those people are grandparents or close relatives occasionally). However at home he is very prone to tantrums, violent outbursts and aggressive behaviour, usually connected to either being told 'no' or being asked to go to bed. I Have tried giving my son extra attention, i.e. 20 minutes a couple of times a week with just myself doing an activity of his own choice, which he adores and responds very well to. However, if I am being perfectly honest I do find this hard too keep up on a regular basis. Last week he kept up screaming, throwing, hitting my husband & I, for a whole hour. After going through the whole range of emotions with our son, ignoring, losing our temper (never smacking but having to physically manhandle him), we eventually tried pinning him to his bed between us (mainly to stop him from throwing/damaging/hitting ). We tried to jolly him out of his temper by tickling him and he would start to laugh and then remember he was supposed to be being horrible and would start again. Finally I jokingly said 'perhaps we should put him in a cold bath to cool down'. In a playful way we did actually take him to the shower and put him in with his pyjamas on. My son was laughing the whole time and when he got out allowed me to wrap him up in a towel and carry him back to his bedroom. From then on he was totally calm and sweet and in fact my husband and I had a lengthy chat with him about his behaviour, trying to make him understand how special he was to us. It was a very loving moment for us all. The following day we suggested doing a 'star chart' to him, whereby he would get a star for having no tantrums and another star if he went to bed nicely. He did really well for a whole week, and then blew it totally, just at the point when he would have received his reward.
Parents like this one are very difficult to train. They are so chuffed with the creativity with which they do the wrong thing. Although this 'shower game' probably does lower the tension and decrease the 'interpersonal sanctions' this mother would otherwise use, its main effect is to introduce a big reward only because of her son is currently refusing to comply. It rewards the bad behaviour because of its timing, if she introduced the shower game as part of the morning routine, with the proviso that he goes to bed when asked, all would be well.
It is far easier to inadvertently reward "bad behaviour" than patents think. We do it
· Whenever, like this parent, we introduce a reward when the child is already behaving badly
· whenever we try to make our children feel better when the reason for their feeling bad is their own "bad" behaviour
· whenever we try to make our children feel better when their way of showing us they are not feeling good is itself "bad" or unwanted behaviour (whining, rudeness and aggression are obvious examples)
· whenever we "reset" our relationship ("make up") too soon, i.e., when the child is still being rude or still sulking or is glib or manipulative
We must constantly watch what we are really rewarding even when we are following professional advice. A child psychologist explains to parents that it's advisable to put children in "time out" for the number of minutes that corresponds to their age. Thus four minutes if the child is four years old and five minutes if the child is five, and so on. This advice is presumably designed to prevent young children being put in isolation for too long. But since time, not behaviour, dictates when the child is allowed to leave, it is entirely possible that when the parent goes to get the child out the child will have begun screaming in temper in an attempt to force their parents to let them out. The child will assume that angry rather than calm behaviour is the reason for his or her release. If this "time out" ends at the wrong time it rewards the wrong behaviour and the ferocity of tantrum behaviour will probably increase.
Never protect them from their own behaviour
Parents reward 'bad' behaviour when they continue to unsuccessfully use talk, reason, logic, persuasion and all other forms of attention following inappropriate behaviour or when they think it is their job to make their child feel better regardless of the reason for their distress or way they express or it. The natural instinct of a loving parent to protect a child from harm is healthy and necessary, we protect our child from illness, danger, physical harm, but we must never - within reason of course - protect them from the consequences of their own poor behaviour. Comforting a child that is clearly disappointed and accepting it well is very different from comforting a child that is shouting and stamping.
I have a seven year old daughter who his having problems in school. The teacher sends her to the office for being disruptive in the classroom. She interrupts the teacher and when told to stop, she continues. She distracts the other kids in the same manner and becomes defiant when told to stop. At home she is somewhat the same, but we distract her either by reading books, printing, colouring or watching a movie. At school she has to follow their curriculum and there is no other way they say they can stop this other than sending her out of the classroom
Distracting a child away from the pain of a hurt knee is very different from distracting them away from their anger at not getting their own way. Finding a way to make anger better rewards it and increases its frequency so that it comes back time and time again to torment us. Children need to learn to accept disappointment, not to avoid it, calm acceptance of minor disappointment cannot be learnt without the parent allowing the child to feel disappointed.
Make me feel better
When our child first arrives from Mercury it uses emotion to communicate because it is its only method available. We do our best to do everything that we can think of to make sure the baby is contented. If it is quiet, showing no overt emotion, we are happy. Perhaps it could be argued that at this early developmental stage the parents job description should read "keep the baby happy; stop the baby being upset; change the baby's negative emotions to positive ones; even that the parent is "responsible" for how the baby feels. Some parents might want to argue that once the child begins to be able to supply some of its own needs this still remains true. What is certain is that we should not allow any child to believe this. It is vital that children learn that, together with what they think, how they feel is also their own responsibility. Children will not learn to accept even the smallest disappointment if they believe it is their parents' job to make them feel better. The process is simple, they transfer the emotion of disappointment into frustration and then anger and blame. If we allow them to transfer away from themselves the emotion of disappointment and transfer it into anger and 'blame' it switches the focus from themselves to their parents. Focused here, on their parents, they will never learn how insignificant most of the triggers for disappointment are.
We cannot afford for children to feel that they can change a "no" into a "yes," or that parents will attempt to "make up for" an unavoidable disappointment or not provide sanctions for their tantrums. Without consequences we train them that our job as parents remains the primary one of making them feel better. We teach them to blame us and others for any negative consequence or feeling, even those created by their own behaviour. Mercury's Children believe that their parents are 'responsible' for how they feel because parents are influenced by the intensity their child shows. Initially they allow how much the child wants something to be a factor in their decision-making. Later, as the child gets older and bigger, like the parent in the third scenario in chapter one, they are also influenced by a sense of threat or intimidation. Parents are often scathing about this aspect of their child's behaviour being completely unaware that they continually allow it to succeed and therefore reward it. Only they can prove to their children that intensity does not increase the likelihood of getting what you want, that anger or covert or overt threats never work.
Not your job to get them to do what you want
If parents' display their own emotional need to get their own way their child will just copy. The strength of this need in parents and their lack of control when they are frustrated are often based on a fundamental misconception about their job description. They feel that when they are confronted by a child that is not accepting a categorical their job is to get them to comply. They want to force them but they don't want to use force. Very frustrating; but their job is a much simpler and less emotionally dangerous one. Their job is to provide consequences if the child does not comply.
The later
CHAPTERS
of MERCURY'S CHILD
will be ready for publication in 2009/10
If you would like to buy the original version you can do so below.
|
|
