Last summer, at the beach, while a group of pre-teens kids were doing a running race, one of them pushed his sister to attempt winning over her. He immediately was dragged out by the arm by his father who threw him around and pushed him to seat for 5 minutes, as punishment.
The boy resisted and the mother took over, telling him (literally!):
- “You need to listen to your father, it’s the hierarchy, and you must learn to respect that”.
The boy further complained until his father came back and held him again down by his arm to keep him sited.
- You should be ashamed for pushing your sister! –the father exclaimed towering over him.
- You should be ashamed for hitting your son! - the boy defiantly replied.
This incident, viewed from an Aware Parenting perspective, showcased an authoritarian approach that not only proved ineffective but also harmful in several ways:
- It fails to understand the underlying causes of undesired behaviour. Why did the kid push his sister? Undesired behaviour is just a symptom.
- It does not teach by example. Teaching nonviolence with violence is like teaching a kid not to smoke while you are smoking a cigarette. Humans learn values not by being told, but by being shown. It might well be that the kid has learnt from the father.
- It damages attachment, tears down trust and builds up resentment often leading to power struggles. Insecure attachment has deep impact in adult relations, and is a key indicator of physical and emotional well-being throughout life.
- Punishment, especially in public, provokes humiliation, which decreases self-steam. Low self-steam is linked to anxiety, depression, self-harm behaviours such as addiction, and the list is long.
- It teaches the wrong reasons of doing or not doing things: teaches things out of fear for his dad or being punished,NOT out of respect for his sister and respect for rules of the game.
Here are 5 steps that you do instead when your child has exhibited undesirable behaviour:
- You ask the kid to come with you for a walk (you avoid talking to him in public).
- You ask how he is feeling in that moment and listen actively. Try to connect. If sitting down always go same level, eye to eye.
- Comment that you noticed what happened and ask why he thinks he did it.
- From there there are different variations depending on what the kid says but the most important 3 things are to use this chat for are:
- Creating trust between you
- Connecting between the parent and the child, once there is safety guiding him towards concluding he’s done something that was undesirable and discuss conflict resolution options together.
- This chat is used for the parent to understand the root causes of the behaviours. Which are generally: unmet needs, pent-up emotions or lack of information.
- Ideally there’s tons of preventative work to do with him. Once you understand the root causes you can make along term plan. I recommend attachment play specifically power reversal games that would work wonders in this family. Stay tunned to new blogs and videos onInstagram where I demonstrate ways of using attachment play.
