Extreme Parenting – Part One

As a teacher and a parent, I have come to some conclusions about what can be taught and what cannot be taught. Feel free to disagree.

Teaching is, essentially, telling someone how to do something, or explaining to him/her what something is.

Skills and things that require physical action can be taught. For example, if a person doesn’t know how to change a tire on a car or a bike, you can tell him how to do it, walk him through the steps verbally while maybe giving him some physical assistance and he will learn how to change a tire. Maybe he will have to change two or three tires before he figures out how to do it on his own, and maybe you will have to explain the process again, but eventually he will figure it out, and your explanation will have, for the most part, taught him how to do it.

Abstract ideas and values cannot be taught in a similar way. You can tell a person what respect is, and you can tell a person that respect is important. You can even tell a person how to behave in a respectful way in specific situations, but you cannot teach a person what will become her own definition and valuation of respect. The meaning of abstract ideas and values are learned on an individual basis through observation and personal experience.

As a teacher and a parent, I can create environments that are better suited to helping my students and my children learn such ideas and values on their own. I can even do my best to guide them to the definition that I hold, but I don’t think that I can teach them the meaning of such things. That is for them to learn on their own.

In their early years, children learn a great deal from observing and mimicking their parents. As a result, parents can really help their children develop an understanding of and relationship with abstract ideas by talking to them about actions, consequences, and feelings.

I recently read the article The Way I Discipline My Son Makes A Lot Of People Uncomfortable. And I Don't Care. on the website Fatherly.com. The article is about ‘extreme parenting’. In it, the author talks about disciplining her son with actions that are equal to or more ‘extreme’ than her son’s initial behavior. Her defense for doing so is this:

Extreme Parenting is the result of desperation. It is the result of needing to ensure that my son learns boundaries, authority, and respect. He knows that when I tell him a consequence, that the consequence will occur. I do not threaten lightly. I do not ever threaten something I’m not willing to do. If there is one thing in 7 years that my son has learned, it is that when mom says she’s going to do A Thing, she does A Thing. For better or, in many cases, for worse.

As a parent and a teacher who has really struggled with the necessity of teaching boundaries, authority, and respect, and the best way of teaching these things, this quote really stands out to me. I was brought up to think that boundaries, authority, and respect must be taught to children and that the best way to teach children these things is through the display of power and authority and the enforcement of rules. I don’t know if my childhood upbringing was responsible for this, or if it was more a result of the societal and cultural pathos I was exposed to as a child. Either way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I used to think this kind of iron-fisted parenting was necessary, and now I don’t.

Here’s why. This kind of parenting is based on fear, fear of punishment and fear of anger. When a child learns to stop doing a certain behavior because he is afraid of his caregiver’s response to that behavior, he is not learning why that behavior is wrong. He is not developing a deep understanding of the abstract ideas and concepts surrounding that behavior. He is only learning that he doesn’t want to be punished.

Why is this significant? Look around you. The world is full of people who have been raised this way and who willingly break the ‘rules’ whenever they want to so long as they don’t think they will be punished. Maybe this is inevitable. Maybe it isn’t. The point is this, comprehension of values, values like respecting boundaries, respecting authority, and having respect for any number of things, values which are supposedly being taught by this kind of discipline-based parenting, does not occur on a deep level because that is not the purpose of this parenting style. The purpose of this parenting style is to change behavior, not promote and encourage cognitive growth. As a result, this kind of parenting creates a façade, a façade which displays the appearance of comprehension regarding where boundaries lie and what the concepts of authority and respect are. However, this apparent comprehension disappears when the threat of punishment disappears.

As an alternative, I believe that peaceful and communicative parenting is a much better way to not only handle ‘bad’ behavior but more importantly, help our children develop a solid understanding of the abstract ideas and morals that create the basis of what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behavior.

In the article that I quoted above, the author says extreme parenting is the result of desperation, and, indeed, it is. However, when you are desperate, and you don’t know what to do, you don’t have to dole out threats and punishments. You can talk your way through these situations too. A communicative solution won’t be as quick punishing your child. It will take time, maybe more time than you have available to you, and it will require patience, maybe more patience than you would like to use, but it can be done. And the more you choose to talk your way through these situations, the better both you and your children will get at it.

When you talk to your children, remember that they won’t always understand what you are saying. If you think they might not know the meaning of a word you are using, either ask them, or unpack the word. Explain the meaning of that word in a way you think will be easier for them to understand.

Use stories that your children know to help them relate to what you are talking about. Refer to books, TV shows, or movies. Help them visualize the emotions and/or effects their actions have caused. Tell them stories of your own childhood, stories about yourself or your siblings or your parents so that they can see a variety of examples of the behavior at hand and its effects.

Remember, while children may not be able to comprehend things now, they have great memories. When appropriate, remind them of the situation at hand. If your child seems like she is about to repeat the behavior that has already upset you, or even if your child is in the middle of repeating that behavior, remind her of the last time she behaved in such a way and the way it made you and others feel. If your child’s friend displays the same behavior, talk about it with your child. Ask her what she thinks of that behavior. Ask her if it is okay. Ask her how she would feel if she were the recipient of that behavior. Remind her of the time she acted in the same way. Keep the conversation going. Help your children form a deep and concrete understanding of the ideas and concepts surrounding their behavior. If you do this, there will be no need to punish and discipline them through fear and anger because your children will be able to monitor their own behavior*.

This won’t happen quickly. It will take time. I think this is something that isn’t well understood about peaceful, communicative parenting. It is a long-term plan. Its purpose is not to change behavior in an instant and conclude things quickly, its purpose is to develop and cultivate a child’s way of thinking so that ‘bad’ behavior becomes controlled intuitively by the child’s confidence in, and ability to make his/her own good decisions.

(*Don’t mistake this for meaning that children shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions and that you can’t get mad at your children. Don’t mistake this for meaning that you shouldn’t make boundaries. I am not making those claims. I’m only proposing that correcting ‘bad’ behavior with bad behavior is not an effective parenting or teaching strategy and that children should not be disciplined out of anger or through the use of fear.)

The article being referred to can be found at Fatherly.com.

https://www.fatherly.com/fatherly-forum/why-i-choose-extreme-parenting-for-extreme-child/