We live in a world where the pace of life grows ever faster; a world of credit and instant gratification. We have a menu of fast and processed food which means that for the first time the life expectancy of the nation’s children is less than that of their parents.
At the same time children are driven to grow up faster and faster. The period of a child’s life when they should be allowed to explore without external pressure is being eroded. The education system expects children to be in school before they are five, and from that point they are on a learning treadmill. Many children are running wild but have they ever experienced respectful discipline or been given clear secure boundaries?
Changes in our society as a whole have brought about the confusion in parenting; children no longer remain in the exclusive care of their mothers or close relatives during infancy and early childhood. To maintain a lifestyle, pay the mortgage or alleviate boredom it is now usual for both parents to be working full time and for mothers to return to work within weeks of giving birth.
At one extreme children are abandoned in front of television or the latest video game, and at the other, we have a generation of anxious parents who are showing flash cards to babies, and who are worried if their child is not reading by the age of five. They are filling their early years with extra curricular activities and stunting their true development by focusing on academic achievement.
Since the Sixties there has been a school of thought that has advocated treating children as small adults whose opinion we should seek in all matters affecting them. The natural consequence is that many parents feel ruled by their offspring. From my own friends I hear statements such as, “We all know who the boss is in our house”, “She won’t do this, or won’t eat that whatever I try”.
We have put them in charge of their own lives, giving them wide choices in their daily lives: what to wear, what to eat, when to go to bed or how much television to watch, even before they know how to tie their shoelaces. Not surprisingly parents are disheartened, exhausted and along with their children they are confused. What we don’t realise is that we are engaged in absent parenting.
Children need clear firm boundaries. They will, characteristically, push at these boundaries to see if they are strong and consistent. A child’s early motivation is only driven by one force, to grow, to understand and conquer the environment in which they live. However, strange as it may seem as long as the boundaries are lovingly set, children want and need them. A child’s playground of life needs to start small and grow with the child. Its boundaries give the child a sense of security.
If a child has what seems to be unlimited choice why should it take ‘no’ for an answer?
We are in danger of our children running our lives through the simple exercise of will, of power without responsibility. Our woolly thinking is leading to anarchy. It is time for parents to be the adults. Children are not young adults; they are growing and maturing infants. They require very special, individual and kind treatment, they become confused if they are given a free rein; it does not serve their needs. The parent who does not guide, is absent from the child in their most vulnerable area, creating emotional insecurity.
Unfortunately the reaction to this situation is that the pendulum is swinging to its polar position. The result is a brat camp disciplinary code. A swathe of books has hit the market place, suggesting that children are naturally wild irresponsible creatures that need taming.
The books claim to be about ‘an end to soft parenting’ but ‘an end to parenting with love and understanding’ would seem more applicable. Leaving aside the fact that we are creating generations of hyperactive, out of control children, poisoned by chemical additives and high doses of refined sugar in their food, the ‘new wave of child rearing books’ would seem to be promoting ideals that would be more appropriate to the Victorian era.
Our children are not our adversaries. They are not here for us to tame. To support a culture of conflict between parent and child is merely to create the next generation of abusers; for it is abuse that is being suggested. We need to build our children’s trust in us as parents. We need to make them feel safe enough to explore the boundaries of their world.
On television we have programmes dealing with the idea of the quick fix; a doctrine of punishment and reward, a system of techniques to control wayward children. How can we expect years of parenting chaos to be resolved in a couple of weeks? Certainly the programme illustrates the fact that it is we as parents who need help, but as well as creatively dealing with the problem we must seek to understand is how to build loving adult/children relationships from birth, for the long term.
Surely we have learnt that punishment has only a short term beneficial effect but causes long term damage. If we were to compare the relationship we have with our spouses to that of our children, do we really think that hiding our husband’s car keys or cancelling our wife’s hair appointment, every time we were upset, would actually lead to an improvement in that relationship.
I am not suggesting a return to a hippy liberal philosophy; one that believes that children should be left to their own devices without discipline. Children need parameters, they thrive with clear boundaries. They test us to find the limits and as long as they feel safe, are content to live within them. But what must be remembered is that young children are unable to set their own boundaries. Their role is to keep pushing the boundaries; our role is to set, with love, clear consistent boundaries, to enable them to grow into balanced adults.
I am advocating creative parenting. We need to act as adults when we deal with our children, although this can be difficult when most of us behave like children in all our relationships. We need to be the captain of the ship, but this does not mean that we should behave like prison officers. I will expand on this later but first I should explain what brought me to this point.
My parents brought me up with a strict and authoritarian code of conduct; I learned to behave beautifully. I remember as I child listening to conversations between my parents as they congratulated themselves on my manners, whilst their more liberal friends had tempestuous and problem children, who spoke rudely to their parents and ran roughshod over them. I felt very proud of myself. I now recognise that I was conditioned by fear of punishment and my parents’ anger.
My terrible twos were squashed and my attempts at teenage rebellion were throttled only to re-appear untimely at the age 38 just before my father’s death. I was unable to forgive him and he died before we could complete our emotional journey; I am sorry for this.
When I was 37 my daughter was delivered by me, (with the attendance of a mid-wife) at home, in a water pool. I looked into her eyes at birth and saw a new soul with wisdom and innocence; I am sure I felt what all mothers feel, I wanted to protect and cherish her. I silently vowed that I would find another way to raise my child. What I didn’t realise was that I was still acting in rebellion. If a mother is aware of an unhappy childhood she will often seek to redress the balance. Hence authoritarian parents are succeeded by liberal parents, and vice versa.
As my daughter grew she was full of fun and adventure and spirit. I didn’t want to tame this, or break her spirit, as had happened to me. I asked her opinion about almost everything; she chose her own clothes to wear and her own food to eat. I had stopped working and she had all my time; I was available on demand. I believed I was raising my child as perfectly as possible. But as the months went on I began to see, by the age of two and a half, that this expression of freedom and choice wasn’t working for her. She was beginning to exert her will on me, and everyone in our immediate circle.
One particularly nasty outburst brought me reeling to my senses, I wasn’t serving her or giving her the resources she needed to deal with her desires and will. I began to observe what was happening and when and I realised that I wasn’t providing my daughter with the necessary boundaries. She had my attention, but she also needed my steady and steadfast guidance.
I lay awake at night, berating myself for being a terrible mother. I recognised that I should be the leader in the relationship, and if it was going wrong it was my responsibility. I knew that it was counterproductive for me to become angry when she disobeyed me and I bit my tongue; but she was so angry with me. This was doubly shocking, first I was never allowed to show anger as a child, and here was I, searching for a new way of parenting only to discover that I was the one being shouted at. My daughter wasn’t happy with the freedom I was giving her; it was leading to confusion.
I fell into the trap; I became more authoritarian. I resorted to physical strength to ensure that she put on her coat when I wanted her to; I with-held things or events when I didn’t get my own way. I used my authority and found myself wielding my power. I began to use punishment. I knew there had to be a better way but I didn’t know how to achieve it. I could see the resentment building up in my daughter and what had begun as an amazing relationship was turning into a power struggle; family life had become more of a battleground and I was losing. I looked forward to when she was in bed. I was exhausted with her screaming. It was ugly.
I knew that reasoning with a child under the age of seven was futile, but I still tried. To my amazement she learnt to copy and imitate. Now nothing was possible without a negotiation. However my two-year-old became very proficient at it, and of course she was intractable in her opinions. Now I needed help and I needed it fast.
Then, one day, a miracle, a letter arrived inviting me to a lecture: ‘The Art of Creative Discipline’ by Lourdes Callen, ‘A parent educator’. My heart skipped a number of beats.
She spoke firmly and knowledgeably about discipline and boundaries. She indicated a new course of parenting which was about respectfully creating a safe place for our children, and giving them enough room to grow.
She made it clear that the thing that every child needs to know is ‘do you understand me?’ By the end of the lecture I realised that I now had the tools to explore another way of parenting, a middle path, and excitedly I returned home with a new approach. My relationship with my daughter, and my understanding of her needs, changed overnight for the better.
What I learned is that we have a natural authority over our children just by virtue of being their guardian. They need us for their survival; they want to be included and loved, just as we all want to be included and loved. So, a firm, but kind, “we don’t do that in this family” or “mummy would like you to do that”, will have a much more powerful and positive result in the longer term than saying “I’m going to take away your favourite toy because you won’t put your coat on”. Why? The statement doesn’t make sense to a child. It just serves to teach the child that they have to protect themselves, to maybe lie and cheat and watch their backs because their parents, the very people who should be protecting them, seek to punish rather than understand. Such behaviour creates scarcity not abundance, resentment not love.
Real power is displayed when instead of seeking to punish we choose to lead, to educate, to be forgiving, kind and just. Only the powerless strike a weaker person. Punishment is reactive. We need to be the teacher in the relationship and help our children to grow into self disciplined adults. Discipline cannot be imposed by punishment; it is self defeating.
Self-discipline can help to build self-esteem which in turn enables the child to grow into a healthy adult. Punishment creates a child and adult who may follow instructions without question, but it breeds a hidden resentment; a sense of humiliation, a constant feeling of not being understood. If that does not lead to rebellion it will remain within the body as a source of illness and despair.
Children will find boundaries useful, in fact essential, as long as they are consistent and lovingly set; firm kind discipline will set them free and enable them to grow. But first we need to create a strong relationship of trust and respect within an understanding of the child’s needs.
Lourdes reminded me that it is not strange that our children want to push the boundaries, to discover where they are, to understand that they are safe and that we love them regardless of their acts of sabotage. They are experiencing the world through us and understanding how to respond to it. They instinctively want to learn how to survive and grow, to express their inner selves and to be all that they are meant to be. She reminded me that if we recognise this as we put in the boundaries, then they will understand the firm ‘nos’ that are essential to their calm and enlightening upbringing. They will sense that we understand them and they will co-operate. In this way the child finds the limits, adapts to them and builds an inner compass that will serve them for the rest of their lives.
With the pressures of the modern world our children are growing up too fast and we are all responsible for accelerating the changes. Let them be child-like for as long as possible. A child is nourished by just being in the presence of a loving adult. Active parenting is to anticipate what is going to happen and not to loose one’s temper or become a child as well. I found that my daughter needed me to guide her and show the way, not through logic but through example. When I wasn’t doing this, when I was being a ‘liberal’ parent she was drawing my attention to her needs in the only way she knew. I interpreted this as ‘bad behaviour.
What I have come to observe is that if she becomes aggressive, or wild or tearful it is for a number of identifiable reasons: she is tired, hungry, cold, hurt or over stimulated. All of these emotions are avoidable if I am truly aware and I anticipate her feelings. She is seeking the primary things that each child actually needs, rather than desires: sleep, food, warmth, love and stillness. They are fundamental survival needs and cannot be replaced by a new toy or a chocolate bar.
These ideas aren’t new, Rudolf Steiner speaks at length about the need for rhythm and routine, the breathing in and out that each child requires each day, the three distinct phases of growth from 0 to 21 and the needs of each of these phases.
Each day I try to remember we do not own our children. We are their guardians; it is our duty to teach them, to prepare them for later life, to enable them to grow into well balanced adults. It is a huge responsibility, but if we get it right the world will be a better place.