Thinking about things from a parent’s point of view influences all of the person’s thinking and much of his or her behavior. But that is only part of an important cycle.
At the next stage, the ways communities think about children and families influence the parents’ points of view. In fact, communities relate with life-shaping force to the ways children are raised.
Of course, that quickly becomes a two-way relationship because the ways parents care for and raise their children – and then the children themselves – shape their community.
Author Jane Nelsen, in the fourth edition of her classic book “Positive Discipline,” talks about some of the social changes over the past several decades that have influenced parental behavior.
Sometimes the results of those changes are obvious to almost everybody. One result of social change, many would say, is that children don’t obey parents and teachers like they used to.
“The first major change,” she writes, “is that adults no longer give children an example or model of submissiveness and obedience.”
The statement startled me even though it isn’t the first time I have heard, read or thought similar ideas. Cornel West and Sylvia Ann Hewlett wrote in “The War Against Parents” about the head-on competition between individual rights and the demand on parents to first consider their children. For example, a mother recently described her sudden, unavoidable, personal awareness that she didn’t have the luxury to be sick when she was alone with her infant daughter.
In American culture, the rights and needs of individuals generally prevail over concerns for others or for the group.
But Nelsen refers to something even more specific than individual rights. She points to the fact that children don’t learn obedience because they no longer have adult models for obedience.
“It is difficult,” she argues, “to find anyone who is willing to accept an inferior, submissive role in life.”
The same point could be made in the opposite way: Any social changes that liberate anybody – and there have been many such changes – help liberate everybody.
Nelsen is not arguing to go back to something called the good old days. “Many things about the good old days were not so good,” she reminds parents. The battles for civil rights and equality have brought great progress; but even progress, even the most positive changes, have unintended impacts that must be addressed.
In this case, she points out that “Children are simply following the examples all around them. They also want to be treated with dignity and respect.”
This social change calls for an equally potent change in the ways parents and other authorities discipline children. This new form of discipline must depend on something other than obedience: Children no longer have good examples of obedience, nor is there much call in our communities for blind obedience.
Parents can find help in “Positive Discipline” for navigating the path between being either overly strict or overly permissive. Nelsen starts by encouraging parents to evaluate their discipline decisions with four questions:
“Is it kind and firm at the same time?”
“Does it help children feel a sense of belonging and significance?”
“Is it effective long term?” (Punishment sometimes works short term but has bad long-term results).
“Does it teach valuable social and life skills for good character?” (Nelsen lists respect, concern for others, problem-solving, accountability, contribution and cooperation as such character skills.)
Nelsen, like most good teachers, gives parents practical help in thinking through these questions. Someone described her style as similar to bringing other parents around the campfire to share successful ideas about parenting. Parents who come to the campfire and who do think the questions through will come up with their own approach to discipline.
And it is in that search that readers will discover some of the greatest rewards of being a parent. Much of that reward will be personal growth.
Bill France, a father of three, is a child advocate in the criminal justice system and has worked as director of clinical programs at Luther Child Center in Everett. You can send e-mail to bill@ billfrance.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
