Parenting Blog

I belong to our local food coop, where we all put in a monthly work shift to get reduced prices on organic food.  I was working as a cashier, when I noticed that the cashier next to me was inputting all of the receipts by hand, rather than scanning them with the machine. When I asked her about it, she replied that the machine wasn’t scanning very well.

I agreed that the scanners were a little temperamental, and said that I personally had found I had to discipline myself to move a bit more slowly than my norm.  I’d learned that if I held the receipt in front of the scanner a moment longer than usual, it would scan.

“I don’t like to be told what to do by a machine,” the other cashier said.  “I would rather just put all the numbers in by hand even though it’s more work.”

“I bet you don’t like to be told what to do by people, either!” I joked.

She looked at me with amusement.  “You’re right! Who does?”

“No one,” I agreed.  “But you might be over-reacting a wee bit, if you think the machine is telling you what to do.  I’m betting you got pushed around some as a child?”

Now she was looking at me in amazement. “I certainly did.  A lot. I had a very traditional upbringing.  But how did you know?”

Now, there was no magic in my conclusion.  Anyone who over-reacts so much that they think a machine is pushing them around has probably felt pushed around much earlier in life.

But the Aha Moment for me was when my co-cashier referred to it as a traditional upbringing.

The conventional advice given to parents is that kids need to learn who’s boss and be obedient to their parents.  Unfortunately, that always creates power struggles. Kids who have to fight to assert their individuality and independence keep fighting later in life, even when it's not appropriate. Kids who are allowed to make appropriate decisions early in life -- "Do you want to wear the green shirt or the red shirt?" "Today is Saturday so you need to clean up your room. Do you want to do it before lunch or right after?" -- don't have to reflexively assert their own will, because they have been allowed to develop it throughout their childhood. Research shows that they are actually more cooperative with their parents, and also with their later coworkers and bosses.

If you talk to someone who doesn't like being "bossed" around, they can usually tell you stories about being bossed around by parents or caretakers early in life. Often, they rebel as soon as they get big enough not to be controlled physically, and the parents will tell you they "gave up" and let their headstrong kid make her own decisions. But if the parents had not over-controlled the kids as toddlers and preschoolers, those kids would be more cooperative right through adolescence and into adulthood.

So next time you find yourself getting into a power struggle with your child, STOP.  That’s an old legacy you’re passing on, and it’s totally unnecessary.  You can set limits without squashing your child’s will.  If you need more info on this, do check out the positive discipline section of my website, for ideas on how to guide your child today for a healthy tomorrow.