One of the frustrations of parenting is having a child listen to you the first time. My mom recently came up with a good little song which summarizes the way we wish for our two kids to obey–”All the way, right away, with a happy heart.” Therefore, the request to pick up toys should not end with half of the toys picked up, nor should it take 15 requests, 32 minutes, or the I’m-sizing-up-your-body-to-see-how-big-a-hole-to-dig look of spite.
I am finally taking a page from Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp wherein Tripp makes the case that the most important aspect of discipline is the child’s heart and that we spank because we try to rescue the child from the dangerous place of disobedience. While I am not an absolutist that every disobedience should result in spanking, all parents can take heed to the idea that when we warn, ask the child if s/he wants to be disciplined, plead, beg, bargain, etc., we are really inviting the child to live on the dangerous ground of constantly waiting to be pleaded with. I see the results as a high school teacher in children who have been “trained” to disobey until the age of 14.
In our culture, we use the excuse of the teen years, something foreign to my wife who is from Vietnam. There, 18 means nothing. American culture, however, attaches such significance to 13, wherein we give leeway for disobedience as “those teenage years,” and 18 as the magical number where one flies the coop and becomes magically independent and mature. The reality is that teenagers are no less rebellious than two-year-olds, those “terrible twos.” The consequences are just that much bigger.
The tantrum that we let stand, the giving into the pleading, the shrug of the shoulders to a refused request are small in consequence at age 2: embarrassment at the store, a bit of a stomachache, a few toys on the floor we begrudgingly pick up. Consider the consequences at age 14: family ties severed for good, driving with a drunk friend who couldn’t see the light turn red, the application for college that never gets completed.
William Damon makes the same excellent point from an educational perspective in Greater Expectations, a must-read for lax (most) school administrators, teachers, and parents.
One last point: I believe that we should avoid spanking, not because we avoid giving consequence but because we teach and frontload how to obey so that the offense is never committed. One good strategy? I just learned that if I ask my daughter to repeat my request, she is clear, has no excuse, and can ask if she doesn’t understand my request. This is only fair. Before, I might have hurriedly asked her to pick something up and become frustrated that she did not follow through. Now, she is clear on my expectation. I wait for her decision as to whether or not to praise her or lovingly teach her in discipine.
