Bad Boy at Burger King

Six year old Marty was a master at goading his folks into unwinnable control battles. While Mom and Dad are finishing their food and getting ready to finish some shopping before the mall closes, Marty is doing everything with his food except eating it. Mom is frustrated and tells Marty to hurry up and eat. Marty buzzes his burger with a fry. Now Dad jumps in with the threats. Mom tries the "open wide for the airplane" trick but Marty clamps his jaws shut like a bear trap. More threats from Mom and Dad. Soon, almost imperceptibly, the corners of Marty's mouth begin to tighten into a curt, self-satisfied smile. Dad sees it and loses it with more threats. Marty, no doubt, is thinking something like this: "Look at me. I'm only six years old and I've totally controlled these two adults fro twenty minutes without even opening my mouth. What a power trip. I control their tone of voice, the color of their faces, and whether or not they make fools of themselves in public. The last thing on my mind is worrying about their threats." A love-and-logic parent would say with a smile "No problem Marty. The car will be leaving in five minutes. There are two ways to leave with me: Hungry is one way; not hungry is the other." You can't control if the burger goes down the throat but you can control when the car leaves.....and if the child remains hungry. By offering Marty choices, the struggle is transferred inside Marty's head. Marty's too busy to argue - he's weighing his choices, "hungry... not hungry" - and Dad and Mom have five minutes of welcome tranquility. Many parents, however, after issuing alternatives, would be tempted to harp and nag while the child is making up his mind. "Don't forget, the car is leaving in three minutes" or "if you don't eat that food you're going to be hungry".  These sorts of reminders are putdowns. Cut the kid some slack. Marty's smart enough to remember the choices he's been given. Back them up Mom and Dad!

Winnable Wars

Cline/Fay say winnable war is waged through choices, not demands. Choices change the entire complexion of the control struggle. They allow us to give away the control we don't need and gain the control we do. With choices kids have no demands to react against, and the control we need is established. Choices work because they create situations in which children are forced to think. When they have to think, they can't fight. Second, choices provide opportunities for children to make mistakes and learn from the consequences. Third, choices work because they help us avoid getting into control battles. Finally, choices provide our children with opportunities to hear that we trust their thinking abilities, thus building their self confidence and the relationship between us and them.

Dealing with choices and being held responsible for their own decisions, prepare youngsters for the lifetime of decision making that awaits them in adulthood. Effective parents, however, should offer choices only when they are willing to ensure that their children will be forced to live with the consequences.

Losing Control

Cline/Fay say there are areas in which parents just can't win. If a little one does not want to talk for relatives, eat vegetables or sit on their potty chair, all the threats and cajoling in the world won't get them to budge. We influence our children only by modeling. We model by how much we like our food at the table, eat our vegetables etc. The secret to establishing control is to concentrate on fighting battles that we know we can win. That means selecting the issues very carefully. We must pick areas where we do have control over our kids. Then we must offer choices in those areas. We may not be able to make a little one eat when they're at the table - that's an unwinnable battle - but we can control whether she's at the table or not. We may not be able to control when they do their chores but we can make sure they do them before they eat their next meal. 3 rules for control battles:

1) Avoid a control battle at all costs
2) If you're going to get into one, win at all costs
3) Pick the issue carefully. Whenever we lose a control battle, it's because we have not chosen the issue carefully.

Control

If a parent calls a child to dinner and the child doesn't come, who is in control? Would it be easy to say "dinner's in 20 minutes and we'd love to have you join us. If not, you can join us at breakfast"? If that seems like a difficult thing to do it's likely due to our feeling a loss of control. The solution is putting kids in control on our terms, according to Cline/Fay. Kids with too much control become brats. Too little control puts them in a constant battle with parents. Psychologist Sylvia B. Rimm, Ph.D., says people of all ages compare the amount of control they have in a relationship only to the amount of control they used to have - not to the amount they feel they should have. When more control is allotted with time, people are satisfied; when control is cut back, people are angry. Thus, children who grow up with parents who dole out control in increasing amounts are usually satisfied with the level of control. Thus, toddlers make decisions about things like chocolate or white milk; ten year olds decide how to spend their allowances; and seventeen year olds make decisions on nearly every aspect of their lives. The obvious conclusion to this is if a parent disengages due to being tired, lazy etc. they allow kids to take control. When parents see this result they try to wrest back control and discover what fighting is all about. Worse, as noted in previous posts, if parents win the fight (individual battles) they lose the war. Kids never tire of trying to regain lost ground. In fact, none of us do.

The Threat Cycle

Cline/Fay say the temptation is great. Threats make us feel like we're in control and they sometimes work. However, threats don't work on all kids and don't always work on every kid. When kids are commanded to do something they don't want to do they will fight back - usually with actions, not words. They might do the dishes but accidentally break one or two. They may go to bed but at a snails pace or find all kinds of issues once they get there. (need a drink, too hot/cold etc). We'd rather they think than fight. Fighting words invite disobedience. It has been clinically proven that kids who are thinking cannot fight us at the same time. Therefore, instead of saying "you get to work on that lawn right now" or "you're not going to talk to me that way" or "I'm not letting you out of this house until you clean the living room"; say, "Feel free to join us for your next meal as soon as the lawn is mowed" or "I'll be glad to read you a story as soon as you've finished your bath" or "You may eat what is served, or you may wait and see if the next meal appeals to you more."Then, let our yes be yes and our no be yes too. Use no as seldom as possible but when we do it must mean just that - no exceptions. All of the other times we are tempted to use no, we can avoid a fight by forcing our kids to do the thinking, by replacing no with a yes to something else. In this way, we use thinking words instead of fighting words, and we establish the behavior we want. For example "yes, you may go out to play as soon as you practice your lessons" or "yes, you may watch TV as soon as your chores are done". Now, what if they say they don't like either of those choices? We would lovingly say "well, honey, that's the way the world works for me. First, I get my job done, then I get paid, then I eat. If it's good enough for me, who do you think I think it's also good enough for?" The child will always answer, a little dejectedly but insightfully, "me". And we always respond with, "good thinking". Once the limit is established, be assured kids will push the boundaries to see if you really mean it. If you give in, you've lost. In other words, if they miss a meal, so be it. No snacks later.

How to talk and still set limits

Cline/Fay say kids seem most secure around parents who are strong, who don't allow the limits they place on their kids to crumble. Children lose respect for adults who cannot set limits and make them stick. Kids who misbehave without having to face the consequences become brats. For many parents setting limits means issuing commands, and backing up those limits with more commands spiced with sternness and anger. They may get results, but they're setting their kids up for a fight against them.

The difference for love and logic parents is they are always asking questions and offering choices. Consider the following fighting words vs thinking words:

Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice. OR You sound upset. I'll be glad to listen when your voice is as soft as mine is.

You get to work on your studying. OR Feel free to join us for some television when your studying is done.

Be nice to each other. Quit fighting. OR You guys are welcome to come back as soon as you work that out.

I want that lawn cut, now! OR I'll be taking you to your soccer game as soon as the lawn is cut.

Love and Logic is not a license for misbehavior

Cline/Fay say the trick is to never actually tell kids what they have just learned. Further, telling them what to think is counter productive. We can give them guidance but they must learn to think for themselves. The best time to start is when they're toddlers. Once they leave our care we want them to be so good at thinking that they can face bigger problems and the daily hassles of life with competence and good sense. The key involves setting limits and boundaries involving 1) modeling good adult behavior by caring for ourselves and 2) life or death issues. In both of these instances the child's problem becomes our problem. Consider the following example with "Thoughtful" and "Thug":

These two toddlers want to be picked up. They raise their hands and scream demandingly at their parents. Thug's parents pick him up. In essence, they say "Be obnoxious with me and you'll get your way". However, when Thoughtful raises her hands and screams, her father politely says, without anger or sarcasm, "Thoughtful, why don't you lie down on the floor? I can't pick you up when you act like that." Thoughtful begins to learn to say "Daddy, will you pick me up please?"

The boundaries we set for our children are in reality the boundaries we set for ourselves. The more squishy and indecisive we are about our own boundaries, the more soggy and inconsistent we are about the limits we set for our kids.