Imagine—as unbelievably
perfect as it sounds—that there existed a tidy, effectively regulated home
environment. Unkind words and yelling weren’t allowed; the children were
expected to do as they were told, and by all appearances it was a fairly
perfect home. The family went on outings together; they didn’t suffer through
poverty, divorce, abuse, or chronic illness. But as each child moved out, they struggled
under the pressures of adulthood. A few years after the initial departure of
the eldest child, the family has come to a conclusion that they didn’t really
expect: there wasn’t much sincere expression of feeling at home, and the
children didn’t feel listened to while they were growing up.
I’m centering this
scenario on a real family I’m familiar with, and it took me a long time to
figure out why such a minute detail would have massive consequences. Unmanaged or
repressed feelings appear to result in an ineffectively-controlled adulthood. So
why was this home so perfect right until the children all left? The parents
were pretty amazing people. They studied parenting and actually made a point of
listening to the children after school every day. The biggest issue here was
the parenting goal.
The parenting goal
guides how a parent raises their children; even if a parent’s theoretical
ideals deviate from their real desires, their parenting will come out in the
end aiming towards their overall parenting goal. The typical, temporary,
primary goal of parents—whether or not they are conscious of it—tends to be compliance
and ease in raising their children. The goal is to have children that won’t
question them and will obey them. It makes life a lot easier to have children
that will simply do what adults tell them, and it makes sending them out into the
world a lot less terrifying when parents believe that their children are
perfectly responsible and capable of acting as adults.
Dr. Haim Ginott explained
the most effective goal of parenting in this way: “It’s to help a child grow up
to be a decent human being … a person with compassion, commitment, and caring”
(Ginott, 2003, p. 192). As counterintuitive as it sounds, children can’t become
committed and caring adults if all they do with their time is obey and wait for
commands. In order to have the capacity to care for other people, children need
to become adults with teeth and strength of their own: along with these traits
that Ginott described, children need the independence and responsibility to
exercise them.
That’s a lot of
weight to put on a parent, ensuring that their children not only live
comfortably while at home, but also learn how to perfectly balance obedience
and independence, agreeableness and stalwart defense of truth. Ginott gave a number
of methods for helping children to attain a balance of attributes, but I want
to focus on one in particular.
“Parents want to know
if the methods advocated in this book are strict or permissive regarding how
they relate to discipline,” Ginott wrote. “They are strict when dealing with children’s
misbehavior. But all feelings, wishes, desires, and fantasies are permissible,
be they positive, negative, or ambivalent” (Ginott, 2003, p. 196). Accepted
misbehavior—after the nature of misbehavior has been thoroughly explained and
understood—prevents children from understanding entirely how rules work. Children
naturally push and poke at boundaries to test them; that is part of the
learning process. If rules and responsibilities collapse to this pushing and poking,
children determine that they can have whatever they desire if they push hard
enough. This leaves parents being pushed from place to place.
On the opposite
end, feelings that are strictly caged and controlled cause internal strife.
Part of parenting is teaching children how to deal with their feelings. If
children are instructed to ignore or alter what they truly feel—and are
punished for not doing so—their hearts become hidden and their relationships
struggle. This occurred in the family I was referencing earlier: because of the
ostensible perfection of their home environment, there was a lot of pressure
for things to be positive or non-hurtful all the time. In fear of offending or
troubling their parents, the children hid their feelings and considered perfect
behavior to take priority over their real desires—until the children hit adulthood.
It’s terrifying
for parents to imagine that children should be allowed to think whatever they
like, particularly since parents have broader perspective and more experience
behind them. But I have already seen a peculiar phenomenon happening in my
life, even though I’m not that old: I’m forgetting what it’s like to not have
an independent adult’s perspective on the world. It’s easy to forget that
children need to go through similar experiences that adults did when they were
young; we hope to let them learn everything the easy way, by simply listening.
But that isn’t the goal of parenting—sometimes we just need to let them learn
by experience so that they can become wise, responsible adults themselves.
References
Ginott, H. G., Goddard,
H. W., & Ginott, A. (2003). Between Parent and Child: Revised and Updated: The Bestselling Classic That
Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication, 192,
196. New York: Harmony. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost- com.byui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=724916&site=eds-live
No comments:
Post a Comment