What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
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Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#2To summarize: Change your approach from instilling your will into your child’s behavior and becoming frustrated with their non-compliance to patiently modeling the desired behavior for your child and asking for their cooperation. Accept that you will not get their cooperation every time, and have faith that they will eventually learn from your graciousness.
I think this would be helpful if the parent hadn’t yet tried it, but it hardly sounds foolproof. Are there any parallels in other environments or studies around this?
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#3To summarize: Change your approach from instilling your will into your child’s behavior and becoming frustrated with their non-compliance to patiently modeling the desired behavior for your child and asking for their cooperation. Accept that you will not get their cooperation every time, and have faith that they will eventually learn from your graciousness. I think this would be helpful if the parent hadn’t yet tried…
I vaguely remember a speech of an MIT president (?) to new students that the faculty goal is to make them dissimilar to their parents.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#4To summarize: Change your approach from instilling your will into your child’s behavior and becoming frustrated with their non-compliance to patiently modeling the desired behavior for your child and asking for their cooperation. Accept that you will not get their cooperation every time, and have faith that they will eventually learn from your graciousness. I think this would be helpful if the parent hadn’t yet tried…
It's not clear to me that any of this is a good idea.
For example:
> Just to be clear: this is not about just following your child around, cleaning up after them. That would be a failure to teach them responsibility, and yes, that teaches entitlement. This is about seeing yourself as a willing helper, the extra support that our children need to practice or to be willing to do it themselves.
It's not clear to me that just changing the way we see ourselves will actually achieve anything. Even if we see ourselves as "willing helpers", the child might take that to reinforce their view that everyone should be helping them willingly.
I love thoughtful mini-essays, and this is one of those. I just think that in this case the author reaches the wrong conclusions.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#5What I don't like about article like these, is they never say when is enough, enough. If my 15 year old is still dumping milk on the floor and laughing surely the "Model Graciousness" phase has ended.
Also not covered is what makes "a spoiled brat". In my experience, both as a child and adult, it seems the "spoiled brats" are the children that have little to no boundaries and are allowed to do whatever they want even if there parents are present, and display helpful properties.
I considered my self a pretty forgiving parent, but in my opinion a parent who is not in control of their children at least to a degree where they can be pleasant to strangers in public(what if they dump milk on a stranger in public and laugh?), is not a good parent and their children struggle from a lack of structure.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#6I think this might work when trying to teach your child a new/correct behavior vs getting them to stop/cease a bad behavior (biting, purposely getting milk from the fridge to explicitly dump on the floor). In my experience for kids under 4, the latter often does require repeatedly forcing them through the motions of cleaning it up. Pick your battles of course and consider underlying factors like if they're hungry or tired.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#7What I don't like about article like these, is they never say when is enough, enough. If my 15 year old is still dumping milk on the floor and laughing surely the "Model Graciousness" phase has ended. Also not covered is what makes "a spoiled brat". In my experience, both as a child and adult, it seems the "spoiled brats" are the children that have little to no boundaries and are allowed to do whatever they want even…
Children really do thrive on boundaries, and sometimes the only way to establish those is with force (take their hand and make them clean it up) or other punishments.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#8What I don't like about article like these, is they never say when is enough, enough. If my 15 year old is still dumping milk on the floor and laughing surely the "Model Graciousness" phase has ended. Also not covered is what makes "a spoiled brat". In my experience, both as a child and adult, it seems the "spoiled brats" are the children that have little to no boundaries and are allowed to do whatever they want even…
Children really do thrive on boundaries, and sometimes the only way to establish those is with force (take their hand and make them clean it up) or other punishments.
And then your child is not going to do something only because if not, punishment come. And they will still do it, if they can get away with it. Punishment never work on the long run.
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#9What I don't like about article like these, is they never say when is enough, enough. If my 15 year old is still dumping milk on the floor and laughing surely the "Model Graciousness" phase has ended. Also not covered is what makes "a spoiled brat". In my experience, both as a child and adult, it seems the "spoiled brats" are the children that have little to no boundaries and are allowed to do whatever they want even…
Children really do thrive on boundaries, and sometimes the only way to establish those is with force (take their hand and make them clean it up) or other punishments.
"We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were broken down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased."
-- G.K. Chesterton
Re: What do I do when they simply refuse to do what I am asking them to do? (2015)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children really do thrive on boundaries, and sometimes the only way to establish those is with force (take their hand and make them clean it up) or other punishments.
And then your child is not going to do something only because if not, punishment come. And they will still do it, if they can get away with it. Punishment never work on the long run.
> And then your child is not going to do something only because if not, punishment come. And they will still do it, if they can get away with it. Punishment never work on the long run.
Punishment definitely works in the long run. That's what society is based on.