by James Dobson
Now let me say the obvious. I can easily see how the same setting could have represented profound rejection and hostil- ity of the first order. If I had not known I was loved . . . if I had not deserved the punishment . . . if I had been frequently and unjustly struck for minor offenses . . . I would have suffered serious damage from the same whirring girdle. The minor pain was not the critical variable. The meaning of the event is what mattered.
This single episode illustrates why it is so difficult to conduct definitive research on child-rearing practices. The critical factors are too subjective to be randomized and analyzed. That complexity also explains why social workers seeking to rescue children from abusive homes often have such problems being fair. Many good parents in loving homes have lost custody of their sons and daughters because of evidence that is misinterpreted. For example, a dime-sized bruise on the buttocks of a fair-skinned child may or may not indicate an abusive situation. It all depends. In an otherwise secure and loving home, that bruise may have had no greater psychological impact than a skinned knee or a stubbed toe. Again, the significant issue is not the small abrasion; it is the meaning behind it—the way it occurred and the overall tone of the relationship. Nevertheless, grief-stricken parents have lost their children on the basis of a single piece of evidence of that nature. We call it parent abuse.
Please don’t write and accuse me of defending parents who routinely bruise and harm their children even in a minor way. It is wrong. It should not happen. But someone should have the courage to say we must look at the total relationship before removing a child from the security of a good home and not base a life-changing decision on a single bit of evidence.
Getting back to our theme of respect, let me emphasize that it will not work properly as a unilateral affair; it must run both ways. Parents cannot require their children to treat them with dignity if they will not do the same in return. Parents should be gentle with their child’s ego, never belittling or embarrassing him or her in front of friends. Discipline should usually be administered away from the curious eyes of gloating onlookers. Children should not be laughed at if it makes them uncomfortable. Their strong feelings and requests, even if foolish, should be given an honest appraisal. They should feel that their parents “really do care about me.” Self-esteem is the most fragile attribute in human nature. It can be damaged by very minor incidents, and its reconstruction is often difficult to engineer.
Thus, a father who is sarcastic and biting in his criticism of children cannot expect to receive genuine respect in return. His offspring might fear him enough to conceal their contempt. But revenge will often be sought in adolescence. Children know the wisdom of the old axiom, “Don’t mock the alligator until you are across the stream.” Thus, a vicious, toothy father may intimidate his household for a time, but if he does not demonstrate respect for its inhabitants, they may return his hostility when they reach the safety of early adulthood.
FULL-BLOWN TODDLERHOOD
Before leaving the topic of respect, let’s say a few words about that marvelous time of life known as toddlerhood. It begins with a bang (like the crash of a lamp or a porcelain vase) at about eighteen months of age and runs hot and heavy until about the third birthday. A toddler is the most hard- nosed opponent of law and order, and he honestly believes the universe circles around him. In his cute little way, he is curious and charming and funny and lovable and exciting . . . and selfish and demanding, and rebellious and destructive. Comedian Bill Cosby must have had some personal losses at the hands of toddlers, for he is quoted as saying, “Give me two hundred active two-year-olds and I could conquer the world.”
Children between fifteen and thirty-six months of age do not want to be restricted or inhibited in any manner, nor are they inclined to conceal their viewpoint. They resent every nap imposed on them, and bedtime becomes an exhausting, dreaded ordeal each night. They want to play with everything in reach, particularly fragile and expensive ornaments. They prefer using their pants rather than the potty, and insist on eating with their hands. And need I remind you that most of what goes in their mouths is not food. When they break loose in a store, they run as fast as their fat little legs will carry them. They pick up the kitty by its ears and then scream bloody murder when scratched. They want mommy within three feet of them all day, preferably in the role of their full-time playmate. Truly, the toddler is a tiger!
Parents who do everything right in managing these precious babies still are likely to find them hard to control. For this reason, moms and dads should not hope to make their two-year-olds act like more mature children. A controlling but patient hand will eventually succeed in settling the little anarchist, but probably not until he is between three and four. Unfortunately, however, the child’s attitude toward authority can be severely damaged during his toddler years. Parents who love their cute little butterball so much that they cannot risk antagonizing him may lose and never regain his control. This is the time to establish themselves, gently but persistently, as the bosses to be reckoned with.
I once dealt with a mother of a rebellious thirteen-year-old boy who snubbed every hint of parental authority. He would not come home until at least two o’clock in the morning, and deliberately disobeyed every request she made of him. Assuming that her lack of control was a long-standing difficulty, I asked if she could tell me the history of this problem. She clearly remembered when it all started: Her son was less than three at the time. She carried him to his room and placed him in his crib, and he spit in her face.
She explained the importance of not spitting in mommy’s face, but was interrupted by another moist missile. This mother had been told that all confrontations could be resolved by love, understanding, and discussion. So she wiped her face and began again, at which point she was hit with another well-aimed blast. Growing increasingly frustrated, she shook him . . . but not hard enough to disrupt his aim with the next wad.
What could she do then? Her philosophy offered no honorable solution to this embarrassing challenge. Finally, she rushed from the room in utter exasperation, and her little conqueror spat on the back of the door as it shut. She lost; he won! This exasperated mother told me she never had the upper hand with her child after that night!
When parents lose these early confrontations, the later conflicts become harder to win. Parents who are too weak or tired or busy to win make a costly mistake that will haunt them during their child’s adolescence. If you can’t make a five-year-old pick up his toys, it is unlikely you will exercise much control during his most defiant time of life.
It is important to understand that adolescence is a condensation or composite of all the training and behavior that have gone before. Any unsettled matter in the first twelve years is likely to fester and erupt during adolescence. The proper time to begin disarming the teenage time-bomb, then, is twelve years before it arrives. As Dr. Bill Slonecker, a Nashville pediatrician and very good friend, said on a “Focus on the Family” radio broadcast, “If discipline begins on the second day of life, you’re one day late.”
Dr. Slonecker wasn’t referring to spanking a baby or any other physical discipline per se. Rather, he was speaking of parents being in charge—loving the child enough to establish control. All too often he saw mothers in his private practice who were afraid to lead their infants. They would call his office and frantically huff, “My six-month old baby is crying and seems very hot.” He would ask the women if the child had a fever, to which they would reply, “I don’t know. He won’t let me take his temperature.” Those mothers had already yielded some of their authority to their infants. They would live to regret it.
I must point out that some rebellious behavior is distinctly different in origin from the “challenging” defiance I’ve been describing. A child’s antagonism and sjpg-lipped negativism may emanate from frustration, disappointment, or rejection, and must be interpreted as a warning signal to be heeded. Perhaps the toughest task in parenthood is recognizing the difference between these two dis
tinct motives.
A child’s resistant behavior always contains a message to his parents, which they must decode before responding. That message is often phrased in the form of a question: “Are you in charge or am I?” A distinct reply is appropriate to discourage future attempts to overthrow constituted government in the home. On the other hand, Junior’s antagonism may be his way of saying, “I feel unloved now that I’m stuck with a yelling baby brother. Mom used to care for me; now nobody wants me. I hate everybody.” When this kind of meaning underlies the rebellion, parents should move quickly to pacify its cause.
The most effective parents are those who have the skill to get behind the eyes of their child, seeing what he sees, thinking what he thinks, feeling what he feels. For example, when a two-year-old screams and cries at bedtime, one must ascertain what he is communicating. If he is genuinely frightened by the blackness of his room, the appropriate response should be quite different than if he is merely protesting about having to go nighty-night. The art of good parenthood revolves around the interpretation of meaning behind behavior.
If parents intuitively know their child, they will be able to watch and discern what is going on in his little head. The child will tell them what he is thinking if they learn to listen carefully. Unless they can master this ability, however, they will continually fumble in the dark in search of a proper response.
Repeating the first point, the most vital objective of disciplining a child is to gain and maintain his respect. If the parents fail in this task, life becomes uncomfortable indeed. We’ll move on now to the other four elements of a traditional approach to child rearing, discussed in the next chapter.
THREE
More
Common Sense
about
Children
I indicated in the first chapter that there were certain risks associated with my being a young father and simultaneously choosing to write and speak about the discipline of children. That placed enormous pressure on our imperfect family in those days. But God gave me good kids and we handled the fishbowl experience rather well. There were a few tough moments, however, that proved to be quite embar rassing.
One of those nightmares occurred on a Sunday evening in 1974, when Danae was nine and Ryan nearly five. I was asked to speak on that occasion in a church service near our home. As it turned out, I made two big mistakes that night. First, I decided to speak on the discipline of children, and second, I brought my kids to the church with me. I should have known better.
After I had delivered my thought-provoking, witty, charming, and informative message that evening, I stood at the front of the sanctuary to talk to parents who sought more advice. Perhaps twenty-five mothers and fathers gathered around, each asking specific questions in turn. There I was, dispensing profound child-rearing wisdom like a vending machine, when suddenly we all heard a loud crash in the balcony. I looked up in horror to see Danae chasing Ryan over the seats, giggling and stumbling and running through the upper deck. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I could hardly go on telling the lady in front of me how to manage her children when mine were going crazy in the balcony; nor could I easily get my hands on them. I finally caught Shirley’s eye and motioned for her to launch a seek-and- destroy mission on the second tier. Never again did I speak on that subject with our kids in tow.
I share that story to clarify the goal of proper child rearing. It is not to produce perfect kids. Even if you implement a flawless system of discipline at home, which no one in history has done, your children will be children. At times they will be silly, destructive, lazy, selfish, and—yes—disrespectful. Such is the nature of humanity. We as adults have the same problems. Furthermore, when it comes to kids, that’s the way it should be. Boys and girls are like clocks; you have to let them run. My point is that the principles in this book are not designed to produce perfect little robots who can sit with their hands folded in the parlor thinking patriotic and noble thoughts! Even if we could pull that off, it wouldn’t be wise to try.
The objective, as I see it, is to take the raw material with which our babies arrive on this earth, and then gradually mold it into mature, responsible, and God-fearing adults. It is a twenty-year process that will bring progress, setbacks, successes, and failures. When the child turns thirteen, you’ll swear for a time that he’s missed everything you thought you had taught . . . manners, kindness, grace, and style. But then, maturity begins to take over and the little green shoots from former plantings start to emerge. It is one of the richest experiences in living to watch that progression from infancy to adulthood in the span of two dynamic decades.
Let’s move on now to discuss the remaining four principles in the commonsense approach to child rearing.
2. The best opportunity to communicate often occurs after a disciplinary event. Nothing brings a parent and child closer together than for the mother or father to win decisively after being defiantly challenged. This is particularly true if the child was “asking for it,” knowing full well he deserved what he got. The parents’ demonstration of their authority builds respect like no other process, and the child will often reveal his affection after the initial tears have dried.
For this reason, parents should not dread or shrink back from confrontations with their children. These occasions should be anticipated as important events, because they provide the opportunity to convey verbal and nonverbal messages to the boy or girl that cannot be expressed at other times. Let me again stress that I am not suggesting that parents use excessive punishment in these encounters. To the contrary, a small amount of discomfort goes a long way toward softening a child’s rebellious spirit. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause genuine tears.
After emotional ventilation, the child will often want to crumple to the breast of his parent, and he should be welcomed with open, warm, loving arms. At that moment you can talk heart to heart. You can tell him how much you love him, and how important he is to you. You can explain why he was disciplined and how he can avoid the difficulty next time. This kind of communication is often impossible with other disciplinary measures . . . such as standing the youngster in the corner or taking away his favorite toy. A resentful child usually does not want to talk.
A confrontation my wife once had with our daughter, Danae, can illustrate the point. Back when Danae was but a fifteen-month-old ankle-biter, Shirley wanted to build a fire in the fireplace and needed to go out behind the garage to get some wood. It was raining, so she told Danae, who was barefoot, to wait in the doorway. Having learned to talk quite early, Danae knew the meaning of the command. Nevertheless, she suddenly came skipping across the wet patio. Shirley caught her and took her back, repeating the order more sternly. But as soon as Shirley’s back was turned, Danae scooted out again. It was an unmistakable act of disobedience to a clear set of instructions. Then, on the third trip, Shirley stung Danae’s little legs a few times with a switch.
After her tears had subsided, the toddler came to Shirley by the fireplace and reached out her arms, saying “Love, Mommy.” Shirley gathered Danae tenderly in her arms and rocked her for fifteen minutes. During those loving moments, she talked softly with her about the importance of obedience.
Parental warmth after such discipline is essential to demonstrate that it is the behavior—not the child himself—that the parent rejects. William Glasser, the father of Reality Therapy, made this distinction very clear when he described the difference between discipline and punishment. “Discipline” is directed at the objectional behavior, and the child will accept its consequence without resentment. He defined “punishment” as a response that is directed at the individual. It represents a desire of one person to hurt another; and it is expression of hostility rather than corrective love. As such, it is often deeply resented by the child.
Although I sometimes use these terms interchangeably, I agree with Glasser’s basic premise. Unquestionably, there is a wrong way to correct a child that can m
ake him or her feel unloved, unwanted, and insecure. One of the best guarantees against this happening is a loving conclusion to the disciplinary encounter.
3. Control without nagging (it is possible). Yelling and nagging at children can become a habit, and an ineffectual one at that! Have you ever screamed at your child, “This is the last time I’m telling you for the last time!” Parents often use anger to get action instead of using action to get action. It is exhausting and it doesn’t work! Trying to control children by screaming is as utterly futile as trying to steer a car by honking the horn.
Let’s consider an illustration that could represent any one of a million homes at the end of a long, intense, whirlwind day. Dead-tired, Mom feels her head pounding like a bass drum as she contemplates getting her son to take a bath and go to bed. But eight-year-old Henry does not want to go to bed and knows from experience that it will take his harassed mother at least thirty minutes to get him there.
Henry is sitting on the floor, playing with his games. Mom looks at her watch and says, “Henry, it’s nearly nine o’clock (a thirty-minute exaggeration), so gather up your toys and go take your bath.” Now Henry and Mom both know that she didn’t mean for him to immediately take a bath. She merely wanted him to start thinking about taking his bath. She would have fainted dead away if he had responded to her empty command.
Approximately ten minutes later, Mom speaks again. “Now, Henry, it’s getting later and you have school tomorrow; I want those toys picked up and then I want you in that tub!” She still does not intend for Henry to obey, and he knows it. Her real message is, “We’re getting closer, Hank.” Henry shuffles around and stacks a box or two to demonstrate that he heard her. Then he settles down for a few more minutes of play.