COMMON PARENTING TECHNIQUES THAT WORK AGAINST PARENTS

Effective gentle parenting is positive parenting, and as a gentle parenting advocate, one of the principles I adhere to is advising parents to help their children learn what they CAN do rather than just what they cannot. However, in this article let’s talk about some of the common parenting techniques that I do not advocate and why I suggest not using them.

One of the biggest drivers of parents’ reactivity is the belief that their children are “misbehaving” and need to be taught not to misbehave. This includes all the button-pushing behaviors that children commonly do: back-talking, not listening, tantrums, lying, refusing to cooperate or participate, fighting with siblings, whining, having a poor attitude, just to name a few. Many adults believe that children do these things intentionally and with malfeasance, and they believe if the adult could just come up with some kind of effective punishment or consequence, that would be enough to deter the child from ever doing that again.

So, parents through the ages have employed tactics, like spanking, yelling, isolating, revoking privileges, lecturing, shaming, and otherwise marginalizing the child who behaves in ways that push the parents’ buttons, to “teach” the child not to misbehave. We don’t need to look too far to find evidence that disproves the efficacy of these punitive approaches to button-pushing behaviors. As countless gentle-parenting thinkers and writers have pointed out, trying to force a child do well by causing them to feel bad is doomed from the start.

Briefly, the reason many people have recommended these coercive tactics has to do with a belief in “behaviorism,” a psychological perspective that held that people could be conditioned by positive reinforcement to behave in desirable ways and by negative reinforcement to cease undesirable behaviors. This theory was furthered by psychologist B.F. Skinner, who used animal experiments to prove his theories, teaching pigeons to play ping pong and lab rats to pull the right lever and stay away from the wrong lever. He extended his theory to include the control of children’s behavior using positive reinforcement (praise, rewards, stickers, privileges) to get kids to behave in desirable ways and punishments (time-outs, yelling, grounding, revoking privileges, loss of status/points) to get kids to stop poor behavior.

Dr. Skinner’s theory, however, is not all it's cracked up to be in practical terms. Many parents come to me feeling exhausted and defeated because they have tried and tried to use coercive approaches and their kids still behaved in ways that defied their expectations. These parents are tired of yelling, spanking, ineffectual time-outs, revoking privileges, etc., only to find that their children are STILL misbehaving, still pushing their buttons, still fighting with their siblings, still lying, still not cooperating.

Parents discover that they cannot control their children, despite being sold a lie that they would be able to control them if they just create a consequence that’s painful enough or a reward that’s compelling and juicy enough.

There are a few problems with the behaviorism theory.

1. People don’t like to be controlled.

2. Children behave the way they behave (for better and for worse) out of a need or to communicate a need.

3. Coercion promotes self-interest, which could interfere (unintentionally) with a child’s development of compassion and empathy. Coercion can skew the development of the child’s moral compass, which can be very hard to get back into alignment.

So, let’s talk about some of the coercive approaches that parents use and why they don’t work:

1. Spanking. Many people see a light pop on the bum or the hand as an effective means for getting kids to do what we want them to do or stop doing what we don't want them to do. And, let’s be honest, it sometimes works! But, it’s expensive and ineffective in the long run. . Using violent force to coerce a child costs in a deteriorating connection and trust bond—those things are important in gaining cooperation. Kids who feel connected to their parents are more cooperative (in general) than kids who feel disconnected from their parents. Spanking hurts and breaks connection instantly. It causes a loss of dignity, which hurts. It causes a break in trust, which hurts. It promotes sneakiness and thoughts of revenge. And, importantly, when a child is hurt, they go into fight-or-flight mode, and their thinking and ability to learn shut down.

2. Yelling. If we were yelled at when we were kids, we are very likely to have been programmed to react with yelling when we get angry, frightened or feel frustrated or powerless. Yelling hurts children’s feelings, erodes their self-worth and self-esteem, and immediately severs the parent-child connection. Yelling is also frightening to children, which sends them into a fight, flight or freeze response. So, when a parent yells at a child, some children will defend themselves by fighting back, some will defend themselves by retreating (escaping either emotionally or physically), and some will defend themselves by freezing in place. Sadly, even while children are trying to defend themselves, they also very likely believe on some level that they deserve the treatment they’re receiving, which causes a major hit to their self-esteem and self-worth. But, even more disturbingly, then they may act in ways to confirm their poor opinion of themselves, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. Time-outs. Many parents and adults believe that isolating a child in a time-out will be effective in getting the child to regulate their behavior, believing that isolation will give the child time and space to think about the crime they committed and will feel bad enough that they won’t repeat the infraction. But, when a child is forced into isolation, their behavior usually deteriorates rather than improves. How many parents have reported that they have had to block the door while the screaming child destroys their own possessions during a time-out? How many parents have reported having to place their child in time-out again and again for the same offense? Time-outs don’t work because isolation is not necessarily what the child needs. Time-outs don’t work because you cannot make a child do better by making them feel worse. And, forced isolation feels bad. It’s humiliating for one thing. But, if a child’s misbehavior is caused by their attempt to communicate a need, time-out does nothing to address that need. And, parents need to understand that a need remains a need until it is met. Children who are behaving poorly need more from their parents, not less.

4. Logical consequences. Logical or imposed consequences is something a person of power cooks up in an attempt to control someone who wields less power. We know that children behave in a certain way for a particular reason. Often, that reason has to do with a child’s attempt to communicate or meet an unmet need (need for connection, autonomy, inquisitiveness, healing from pain, etc.). One of our many jobs as parents is to *help* our kids get their physical and emotional needs met. The tricky part about all this is that kids are newbies when it comes to communicating. They’re not so adept at identifying what their unmet need is and then relating that information to us in our preferred communication style a/k/a “words.” Even verbal kids struggle with this kind of communication. So, they act it out. We have come to call this “acting out” behavior, which is accurate. If I see my kid acting out and then impose a consequence (logical or otherwise) on them for their behavior, I will have missed an opportunity to interpret the behavior and get to the underlying issue—the unmet need. Not only will I have missed that opportunity, but I will have heaped at least two more hurts upon my already hurting child:

• The humiliation of the imposed consequence, and

• The break in our connection from the imposed consequence.

Alfie Kohn (author of Unconditional Parenting, Punished by Rewards, and The Myth of the Spoiled Child, among others) talks about “doing-to” strategies versus “working-with” strategies. A “doing-to” approach, which includes imposed consequences and other forms of coercion, undermines parent-child connection, reducing a child’s willingness and ability to listen and cooperate, sends kids into fight-or-flight, further negatively impacting their willingness and even ability to listen and learn. Imposed consequences may yield short-term results, but usually at the expense of the long-term relationship and the all-important trust bond that is necessary for a healthy relationship.

5. Rewards, praise, sticker charts, etc. We all make the choices we make for a particular reason. To illustrate this, let’s say I choose a food to eat, not because I’m hungry and not because I even like the food, but because I know that there will be a prize at the end if I eat the food someone else wants me to eat. The best reason for choosing a particular food and eating it is nourishment and enjoyment, not prizes. But, if I am a child who has a prize dangled in front of them, I will not learn to make food choices for the “right” reasons, which are reasons of my own. Let’s say I am a child who has been struggling in some area (maybe being bullied or teased or feeling bad or sad about something) and my behavior is my little “release valve” and I’m not behaving as well as the adults would like me to behave. Maybe I’m a little rude or I snap at someone. If I feel I am being judged for my behavior (rather than having someone understand that behind all behavior is a need and helping me make sense of that), then some unintended consequences may occur:

• One may be that I learn not to feel my feelings. That’s not good.

• Another may be that I learn that the adults around me cannot be trusted to help me with my challenging feelings. That’s really not good.

• Another may be that I learn to lie and be inauthentic and say things I don’t mean just because someone is dangling a reward in front of me. That can wreak havoc in a child’s life as they transfer their need for acceptance from parents (who have the child’s best interests in mind) to other powerful people who may not have the child’s best interests in mind. .

These are just some of the unintended consequences of behaviors charts and rewards systems. They may work in the short term in getting compliance, but they can be VERY expensive in that they may defeat our long-term goals for our kids’ development of intrinsic motivation and a sound moral compass as well as our strong connection with them.

Coercion is just not necessary. There are better ways to help children do the right thing, and these involve connection with kids rather than disconnection. There are much better tools that parents can easily learn about to help children cooperate and function well in the family and out in the world. A nonviolent, gentle approach may take a little more thought and time. But, for parents who use coercion, they’re already taking a lot of time and strife to deal with the maladaptive behaviors caused by an eroded connection. .

Marji Zintz, The Peaceful Parenting Whisperer​, ©2019