Getting What YOU Want in Parenting
Have you ever noticed that everything is a battle with your
child? If it is, then one of three things is happening. Your
child, you or both are in a competitive need cycle. What is a
competitive need cycle?
As humans, we are all born with five basic needs that we are
genetically programmed to attempt to meet. They are survival,
love & belonging, power, freedom and fun. Without getting into
the detail of the developmental model described in Nancy Buck's
book, Peaceful Parenting, power and freedom combine to make the
competitive need cycle.
When people are in a competitive, need cycle they are most
strongly driven by the need to gain more power and freedom in
their lives. With a parent and child, this is typically
represented by the parent refusing to consider to allow their
child to do something. The parent is attempting to meet the
power need by keeping his or her child safe and the freedom need
by extricating him or herself from the worry of wondering about
his or her child while the child would be engaged in the
forbidden activity.
The child, on the other hand, is attempting to meet the power
need by having new experiences and exploring the world and to
meet the freedom need by gaining time away from restrictive
parental supervision. When a parent and child are both in their
competitive need cycle, naturally a power struggle ensues.
I have four examples of situations and possible solutions if
you, the parent, are willing to consider focusing on your
cooperative needs of love & belonging and fun instead. Why do
you, the parent, have to be the one to it differently? Because
it is you who are dissatisfied with the situation. Whose
behavior can you control? Hopefully, you understand that you
cannot control your child's behavior as much as I know you'd
like to at times. The only person's behavior you can control is
your own.
Since it is you and not your child who is reading this article,
I'm talking to you about what you can do to improve the
situation.
Staying focused on changing your child will only lead to your
frustration and a break down of your relationship. You won't be
successful at long-term change in your child. He or she may
acquiesce while in your presence but there won't be the required
internal motivation to change required for any long-term
transformation. So, let's look at what you do have control
of---the way you respond to your child's push to meet his or her
power and freedom needs.
Rebecca:
The first situation I want to talk about involves ten year-old
Rebecca. Rebecca's parents came to me frustrated over the fact
they were unsuccessful enforcing Rebecca's bedtime and she would
frequently be grumpy because of lack of adequate sleep. They
also were hoping for some down time to spend some quality time
with each other without children around.
After, evaluating what was really important, the parents spoke
to Rebecca about no longer enforcing her bedtime. They explained
that she could go to bed whenever she pleased as long as she was
able to get up in the morning, get to school and be relatively
pleasant with family members. However, there would be a
household quiet time that would begin at 9 PM. At that time,
everyone needed to be in his or her own bedrooms engaged in
quiet activity.
These parents couldn't wait to tell me how great it worked!
Since Rebecca had no parents fighting with her to go to bed, she
could no longer meet her power need fighting with them.
Consequently, she began to go to bed when she got tired and
stopped fighting sleep. Steve and Mary were able to get the
quiet couple time they needed so everybody won.
Veronica:
The second situation involves my friend, Denise, and her
daughter, Veronica. Veronica is 11 years-old and wanted to have
her hair highlighted like all her friends do but Denise was
opposed to the idea. While discussing the situation with me,
Denise realized that she was concerned about the maintenance
costs of highlights and the damage that will be done to her
daughter's beautiful hair if she starts applying chemicals to it
at her early age. Of course, Denise had explained none of this
to Veronica.
What she did say was, "No, you are too young to have your hair
highlighted. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean
you should." Does that sound familiar? What I suggested instead
is that she tells Veronica her concerns.
Denise started by saying that she wanted to revisit their
conversation about highlights. Denise agreed to Veronica's
initial request to be given the highlights as a birthday gift.
But then, she asked Veronica what her plan was for upkeep.
Denise explained that she would have to have the highlighting
process done every two months or so and that it would cost
approximately $60 each time. Denise offered to give Veronica
money for helping out doing extra chores around the house.
Since Veronica had agreed to this before and failed in the
follow through, Denise asked another question. She said,
"Veronica, I know you have agreed to do extra chores in the past
and you didn't consistently follow through. If history repeats
itself and you don't have the money you need for the highlights,
are you prepared for what your hair will look like once the
roots grow out?"
She also discussed with Veronica the concern for the health of
her hair. She said that starting to put chemicals into one's
hair at eleven did not bode well for maintaining healthy looking
hair into adulthood.
Denise marveled at what happened next. She said that what had
been a heated battle between them for months turned into a
non-issue. Veronica decided she no longer wanted highlights in
her hair. She realized that she probably won't do the chores to
earn the extra money needed and that she doesn't want to look
"weird" while her hair is growing out. It's amazing what happens
when we align ourselves with our opponent's resistance. It's a
concept that has been taught in martial arts within the physical
realm for centuries but it can easily be applied to the mental
realm in parenting just as easily
Carrie:
The third scenario involved a mother's horror when she learned
what her eight year-old daughter had done. This mother, Linda,
sent her daughter, Carrie, to swim camp. Carrie had been a
swimmer for quite some time but this was the first time she was
actually exposed to older swimmers at camp.
She learned from them that a good way to shave time off her
record is to shave the hair off her entire body. Now what hair
could an eight year-old have? It didn't matter---Carrie was
determined to shave everywhere except the hair on her head.
Linda, in horror, forbids her to do it.
What was Linda concerned about? It was a multitude of things.
First of all, her daughter was too young to start shaving.
Secondly, she was concerned that if she began shaving, then her
hair would grow back very dark and course. (Of course, this is
an old wife's tale that many of my generation was exposed to.)
Linda was shocked to learn that despite her refusal to allow
Carrie to shave, Carrie later went into the bathroom, took a dry
razor to her skin, and shaved anyway. Unbelievably, at her next
swim meet, she had the best time of her short life to that
point. Did shaving help her or was it the power of her belief
that the shaving helped? I can't answer that question. However,
the point is that what actually happened was worse than the
original fears Linda had about Carrie shaving.
Had Linda listened to the desires of her daughter and she was
willing to consider the request, she may have spoken to a
pediatrician and learned that her second fear was unfounded.
Then she might have been able to assist Carrie to shave safely
instead of with a dry razor and no supervision at all.
What parents often fail to realize is that just because they
tell their child no does not mean that their child will
dutifully obey. Often a "no" means that their child will proceed
stealthily without parental permission anyway. When this occurs,
the child is doing something the parent doesn't approve of and
the parent has no idea and therefore, no opportunity to discuss
the possible dangers and concerns.
My Children & Their Friends: I used to see this a lot when my
boys were older. They would have friends whose parents were
quite strict and would not give permission for them to attend
parties where it was known there would be alcohol and no
parental supervision. On the surface, this makes perfect sense.
What responsible parent wants their child at a party drinking
without any adults to intervene if there is a problem?
However, in refusing their child permission to go, what I often
saw was that same child telling their parent that he or she was
going to stay overnight at a friend's house. Then that friend
would tell his or her parents that he or she was going to stay
at the first friend's house. In essence, what resulted was two
children out all night, doing God knows what, without any adult
having any information about what was happening.
My approach with my children when they would want to go to a
party was to discuss the things I was afraid of. If they had an
explanation for what they would do to handle the problems about
which I was concerned, then I would generally allow them to go.
If they couldn't address certain situations, then they would not
be permitted to go until there was a reasonable plan in place to
address my concerns.
The main things I was concerned about were not drinking and
driving. What would they do if offered drugs? What would they do
if someone showed dangerous signs of having too much? What would
they do if violence broke out or things got out of hand? What
would they do and what did they expect me to do if the party
were raided by police? Over time, we discussed all of these
situations so that I was satisfied that my children could handle
them if they ever came up.
This resulted in me having peace of mind and generally, enough
information about where my children were going to be and what
they were going to be doing to satisfy me. It is not an easy way
to parent and it sure doesn't guarantee that your children will
always make the best decision.
What it does do, however, is it stops making you the person your
children have to fight in their attempts to get their needs met.
It keeps your relationship with your children strong and
influential. It allows you, as the parent, to discuss situations
and possibilities you normally wouldn't have the opportunity to
discuss. In addition, it helps your children to become better
decision makers, problem solvers and to anticipate circumstances
before they arise.
If you would like to study this kind of parenting, you can join
us for any number of possibilities. Visit out website
www.TheRelationshipCenter.biz and check out our "Parenting" page
for more information.