Children are born with some behavioural traits that either flourish or are weeded out, depending on how the children are nurtured. Other traits are planted and vigorously encouraged to grow. Taken altogether, these traits make up a child’s eventual personality. Your gardening tools as a parent are techniques we call shapers, time-tested ways to improve your child’s behaviour in everyday situations. These shapers help you weed out those behaviours that slow your child down and nurture those qualities that help him mature.
The goal of behaviour shaping is to instil in your child a sense of what is “acceptable behaviour” and to help him have positive feelings about it. The child learns to behave, for better or for worse, according to the response he gets from his authority figures. When a child gets encouraging responses to desirable behaviour, he is motivated to continue it. When a child gets unpleasant responses to desirable behaviour, it dies out. However, when a child gets lots of attention, positive or negative, for undesirable behaviour, it may continue, especially if that’s the only behaviour that gets a response. Be careful which behaviours you reinforce and how you do it.
Most shaping of a child’s behaviour is a when-then reaction. (When Billy’s room is a mess, Mum says, “No more playing outside until it’s cleaned up.”) Eventually, the child internalizes these shapers, developing his own inner systems of when-then, and in so doing learns to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions. (“When my room is a mess, it’s no fun to play there, so I better clean it up.”) He learns to shape his own behaviour.
At each stage of development, your shaping tools change, depending on the needs of your little garden. In the pages ahead, we give you gardening tips to help you confidently shape your child’s behaviour and make his personality work to his advantage. He will be a more likable person who contributes to the garden of life.
9. Raise Kids Who Care
Being a moral child includes being responsible, developing a conscience, and being sensitive toward the needs and rights of others. A moral child has an inner code of right and wrong that is linked to his inner sense of well-being. Inside himself he knows that “I feel right when I act right, and I feel wrong when I act wrong.” The root of being a moral child, and one of the main focuses of this book, is sensitivity to oneself and to others, along with the ability to anticipate how one’s actions will affect another person and to take that into account before proceeding. One of the most valuable social skills you can help your child develop is empathy – the ability to consider another person’s rights and feelings. Children learn empathy from people who treat them empathically. One of the best ways to turn out good citizens is to raise sensitive children.
Besides teaching children responsible behaviour toward others and toward things, also teach them to take responsibility for themselves. One of the most valuable tools for life you can give your child is the ability to make wise choices. You want to plant a security system within your child that constantly reminds him:think through what you’re about to do. By learning to take responsibility for their actions in small things, children prepare to make right choices when the consequences are more serious. Our wish for you is to raise kids who care.
10. Talk and Listen
Throughout each chapter we will point out ways to communicate with your child so she doesn’t become parent deaf. The best authority figures specialize in communication with children. Often rephrasing the same directive in a more child-considered way makes the difference in whether a child obeys or defies you. (see here.) Wise disciplinarians know how to open up a closed-off child and consider the Golden Rule: Talk to your children respectfully, the way you want them to talk to you.
Besides learning how to talk to a child, it is equally important to learn how to listen. Nothing wins over a child (or adult) more than conveying that you value her viewpoint. Being in charge of your child doesn’t mean putting her down. In Chapter 8 we will show you how to help your child recognize and appropriately express her feelings. Once she is able to manage her own feelings she is more likely to become sensitive to the feelings of others.
Each of these discipline points depends on the others. It’s hard to be an authority figure, a good model, a behaviour shaper, and an obedience teacher if you and your child aren’t connected and you don’t know your child. You may know the psychological principles of behavioural shaping, but shapers won’t work if you can’t communicate with your child. And even a connected relationship doesn’t guarantee a disciplined child if you fail to convey your expectation that your child obey you. These ten interdependent building blocks form the foundation of the approach to discipline advocated throughout the rest of this book. Put them all together, and you have a blueprint for raising children who are a joy to be with now and who will make you proud in the future.
The balance of love and limits.
chapter 2 birth to one year: getting connected
Why are some children easier to discipline? It took us more than twenty years of parent and baby watching to answer this question. Our conclusion is: the deeper the parent-child connection, the easier discipline will be.
To help you appreciate the relationship between connecting to your child and disciplining your child, in this chapter we will share with you our observations of thousands of parent-child pairs, our experience in connecting with our own eight children, and what other researchers have observed about the relationship between parent-child attachment and discipline.
What we observed. We noticed three features of connected kids that made them easier to discipline:
• They want to please.
• They are willing to obey.
• They are more self-controlled.
These are the kids you like to be around.
We also noticed these features of connected parents:
• They respond sensitively to their child’s needs.
• They respond appropriately, neither giving too much nor too little.
• They know their child. They are observant of age- and stage-appropriate behaviours.
• They are in charge of their child in a guiding, not controlling, way.
What others observed. In addition to our own observations, we read the most credible research that attempted to answer the age-old question, What can parents do that most affects the way their children turn out? These are known as attachment studies. Attachment researchers use the term “securely” attached children (we call them connected kids) or “insecurely” or “anxiously” attached children (we call them unconnected kids). The striking conclusion that we can make from these studies is that, in addition to our genetic wiring, how we become who we are is rooted in the parent-child connection in the first few years of life. Attachment researchers found that connected kids shine in nearly every area of competence and behaviour. The summary of their observations is shown in the chart on.
Modern research is finally concluding what savvy mothers have always known: a healthy attachment in infancy is likely to turn out a healthier adult. How a mother and infant spend the first year together makes a difference, probably for the rest of their lives. The basis for discipline at