March 2007
Toddler Management: An Alternative to Conflict
The Editor's Note on respecting children in your December issue really hit home with me. At the age of 79, when I thought I had retired, I felt compelled to do something about the way children are treated. Things I see, like the examples of children being humiliated in your article, and the appalling statistics on child abuse, neglect and teen problems prompted me to do something for positive change.
My answer to my concerns was to become a trained parent educator, and I am now serving the Seattle area as a certified Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) instructor.
The effects of parenting practices, good or bad, start in the nursery and toddler hood. It pains me to hear people talk about the "Terrible Twos" when this time in a child's life can and should be the most interesting, exciting and pleasurable period for parent and child.
Rather than continually battling with a toddler, a more effective management tool is to remove the child from temptation and to distract him.
Dr. Benjamin Spock introduced parents to toddler management by removing and distracting in 1946 when his first book, Baby and Child Care, became the child rearing Bible of the day. Dr. Thomas Gordon, author of the Parent Effectiveness Training curriculum, calls the technique “trading” – trading an unwanted behavior for a desirable one.
Everyone wants to be approved and loved. No one, including your toddler, wants to be a misfit. Being a newcomer to the world, a 2-year-old has absolutely no way of knowing that the antique vase on the end table is any different from the plastic bunny in his hand as to whether or not he should play with it. He needs your help in understanding the difference.
Because he’s so eager to learn how to fit in, he’s wonderfully amenable to your teaching. When he is approached with a positive attitude and positive expectations, he actually welcomes this instruction because he wants to find his place in the mysterious order of things.
Although 2-year-olds are limited in their speaking vocabulary, they do understand much of what is said to them. The helpful parent, acting as a loving teacher, will gently remove the toddler from the object or activity in question and, with a warm hug, explain the difference between playthings and off-limits objects in his environment by saying something like, "This is mommy’s vase and not for little boys. Here’s something special you can play with." Or, "I’m afraid jumping on the sofa will break it. I’m putting this big pillow on the floor for you to jump on."
By removing him from the undesirable behavior, explaining the reason and offering him a desirable alternative, we show him that we are not simply taking advantage or our larger size or arbitrarily interfering with his need to explore and enjoy himself. The toddler’s natural desire to fit into the established order of the world around him motivates his cooperation when the lesson is taught in an understandable and loving way.
On the other hand, when he reaches for the vase, a slap on the hand, a harsh "No" or a rough yank will have several negative effects on his personality and his social development. He will feel confusion, fear and mistrust, which can lead to sneakiness, inability to cooperate and tantrums.
If your toddler could put this punishing experience into words, he would say something like this: "This big powerful person, whom I depend on for my survival, wants to HURT me. Now what do I do? What’s next?"
Although this verbalization will not occur, changes will be effected in the child’s developing brain in response to the negative experience. Critical neural connections and hormonal and chemical changes will be triggered that will impact the development of his personality in a damaging way.
If we are punishing and harsh, the fear we create in our child acts as a block to his ability to learn.
When our aim is to control our child instead of to teach him, our controlling behavior may escalate into a hurtful power struggle in which our child must fight back to protect his sense of self. If our efforts at control are too frightening and overwhelming for him to fight back, his submission will be damaging to the development of his self-esteem and his character.
His ability to cooperate comes from his experiences with
us as his helper, not
as his adversary. The treatment he has received from his parents since
birth will impress upon him whether we are for him or against him and
whether he will trust us or fear us.
If our responses have been angry and hurtful while he’s been trying to meet his needs and to fit in, his trust in our having his best interests at heart is seriously undermined, if not destroyed.
If this has already happened, we will need to launch a mighty effort to build his trust by abandoning our punitive, controlling approach and becoming the supportive teacher and guide he can eventually believe in. This makes it possible for him to enjoy the satisfaction of learning to cooperate and finding his place in the family and in the outside world.
How we handle our child’s first movements toward autonomy will either teach him to trust us or to fear us. Indeed, when a teenager has cut off communication with his parents and is living a double life - his life at home and his "real" life with his peers - we can be quite certain the roots of this alienation were planted with the erosion of his trust during the first years of his life.
Shirley Luxem is an Issaquah resident and parent of two grown children. For more information on her Parent Effectiveness Training classes or one-on-one training, call 425-222-4802 or visit www.parentingseattle.com.
Parent Effectiveness Training is a program to
teach effective communication skills and problem solving in the family,
with an emphasis on active listening. The basis is the book Parent
Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children,
30th Anniversary Edition, by Thomas Gordon
(Three Rivers Press, 2000). Luxem was influenced to learn and teach this
method after reading Ghosts from the Nursery:
Tracing the Roots of Violence, by Robin
Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley with an introduction by T. Berry Brazelton
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997). For more information on P.E.T., visit
www.gordontraining.com/family.html.
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