One evening a mother was busily preparing a birthday party for one of her adult friends. Unfortunately, she had not figured out how to manage her young children while getting the party ready. She was overwhelmed with party preparations and the children tended themselves.
As people began to arrive, the five-year-old daughter became focused on the beautifully decorated cake on the table. The girl reached to get a finger-full of frosting. Mom saw the daughter and threatened her: “Don’t you dare touch that cake!” Daughter withdrew her hand—but not her interest. When mom got busy with other preparations, the daughter snatched a section of cake. When mom discovered the offense, she exploded: “I told you to leave that cake alone! Go to your room!”
Mom had good intentions—but set her daughter up for failure. She might have moved the cake. She might have busied her daughter with a task. “Would you help me put out the napkins and plates?” She might have provided the daughter with a snack. She might even have cut the daughter a piece of cake. A very proactive parent might even have created a separate cake for the children to enjoy. But when we bark orders without attending to their needs and interests, we guarantee problems.
Often, we do the wrong things in parenting because we have lost sight of our real objectives. We may react to children’s “misbehavior” with poorer motives:
- Stop the noise and confusion
- “Teach them a lesson”
- Make them suffer for misdeeds
Most confusing of all for children, we sometimes react to their behavior only when our mood makes it annoying to us; they never know when inappropriate behavior will be laughed at, ignored, scolded, or punished. The very same behavior can elicit vastly different responses based on our current state of irritation. This does not teach children to respect laws or lawgivers.
The objectives listed above don’t have an honored place as parenting objectives. There is a higher purpose for parental guidance than ministering for the law of justice. The ultimate purpose of good guidance is to teach children to use their agency well. This is a vital—and challenging—objective; it will not be accomplished without wise and consistent effort.
We don’t merely want our children to follow our rules, though we are generally glad when they do; we want them to internalize standards so that, when we are not around to govern them, the inner sense of right and wrong still is. We want them to develop inner standards of goodness. We want something far more than compliance; we want moral development. This requires a very different kind of parenting from “natural man” parenting.
Three Kinds of Control
Research has shown that parents’ attempts to control children can usually be divided into three categories.
Control by Power
The first is power assertion or coercion. We can use force—including spanking, threats, rewards, and punishment—to control children. This technique gets compliance as long as we have more power than our children and are present to exercise that power. But this technique does not effectively teach children an inner set of values, i.e., moral internalization or conscience.
As you might expect, the use of power results in undesirable outcomes. Children of parents who regularly use power assertion are more likely to be either passive or rebellious. Neither of those outcomes is good. We don’t want children who surrender their agency to powerful others and we don’t want children who senselessly fight against authority. Yet those are the likely outcomes of using power to control children. Parental use of power also results in lower social competence and moral development in children.
One very popular form of coercion involves shaming and scolding children. Some parents might suppose that scolding and shaming are acceptable ways of helping children understand when they are behaving irresponsibly. We may think of this as the quickest way of letting our children know they are out-of-line. But let’s consider scolding from our children’s perspective.
Scolding and punishment frighten children. Their natural tendency when scared is to cling to their mother [or father], but she [or he] is the one doing the scolding, and in doing so she is pushing the child away from her. This causes additional anxiety, and the child is frustrated—unable to act on his or her natural impulse for safety. The people who are supposed to shield the child from anxiety and comfort the child are instead the source of an anxiety from which the child can find no shelter. This means that repeated and/or severe scolding may damage the child’s fundamental trust (Sigsgaard, 2005, p. 143).
One of the unintended effects of scolding and other forms of punishment and coercion is that children feel lost. In a confusing and hostile world, they have no advocate or friend. It is no wonder that coercion has negative outcomes when used as a control technique. Coercion does not respect children and does not teach them how to operate in a confusing world.
Control by Love Withdrawal
The second control technique is called love withdrawal. This involves any action by parents that suggests that they won’t sustain a relationship with children who act in certain ways. Heaping guilt on children can be a form of love withdrawal. Timeouts can also be experienced as love withdrawal if they communicate to children that their parents don’t want anything to do with them because of their mistakes.
Research shows that love withdrawal is not consistently constructive or destructive. It can cause children to feel guilty and insecure. It does not reliably get compliance and it does not encourage moral development. But the larger concern for earnest parents is that love withdrawal focuses on emotional manipulation; it does not teach children better ways to use their agency. Instead, it teaches them to feel unsafe and unsure in their own lives.
Control by Induction
There is a third kind of control that is far more effective than power assertion or love withdrawal at helping children learn wise use of their agency. Scholars sometimes call it induction which is defined as actions by the parents that attempt to influence and persuade children to do what is right. It involves helping children understand the effect of their behavior on others and themselves. It provides explanations and reasons and minimizes the use of power.
Parents who use induction are far more likely to have children who are socially competent, more independent, more able to control their impulses, and more responsible. Maybe most important of all, such children have better moral internalization; they do what is right because it is right. They do not require guards and enforcers.
God’s Kind of Control
The first time I studied the scholarly definition of induction, I was amazed by how similar it is to what God has recommended as the process for influencing other people. I will use His words and add a little commentary in brackets to connect His words to research and experience.
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood [or parenthood], only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, [Wow! That is pure induction!] which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile— [We are more effective when we use respectful methods! Our souls are enlarged!]
Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost [not when irritated and tired—only when directed by God’s holy messenger]; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. [YIKES! The child must know the immense power of our commitment to them!] (D&C 121:41-44, emphasis added)
Notice that God recommends patient persuasion, humble kindness, authentic love, and heavenly knowledge. Phew. This is a tall order for humans. It seems that God wants to stretch us earthly parents to be more like Him.
Parenting on Earth
What does godly parenting look like when enacted by imperfect, human parents? Where are we most likely to fail along the way?
We have a smart, energetic grandson whose energy exceeds his impulse control by a sizeable margin. Naturally he regularly bumps into life and people. When he, his sister, and I play basketball at our house, it is not very long before the boy’s lunge at the ball collides with his sister. She goes sprawling and scrapes her hand or knee. The scrape combined with the surprise leaves her hurt and sad. If we want to teach the boy to play basketball without tackling his sister, what can we do?
If we favor coercive methods (or we are simply tired and frustrated), we may lecture the boy, punish him, tell him that he is through with basketball for the day, or remove privileges. All of these are likely to make him more resentful of parents rather than more mindful of his sister.
Love withdrawal takes a different approach. It might include one of those “I’m-so-disappointed-in-you” lectures. It might insist that he go to his room for an extended period. It might even entail name-calling—suggesting that the son is a disappointment. This would make the boy lonelier rather than more considerate.
What does wise induction recommend? In a perfectly calm and cordial manner, I ask him to sit down nearby and think about what he needs to do differently. He sits. His sister and I play basketball for a couple of minutes. Then I go sit by him. “Can you tell me what went wrong?” He immediately and naturally blames: “She got in the way!”
I calmly say, “Why don’t you take a couple more minutes to see if you can figure out what you can do differently to play well with your sister.” He does not need to do his sister’s repenting. A couple minutes later, I sit by him again. “Can you tell me what you can change?” Usually he is ready to repent: “I dove for the ball and ran into sister.”
Induction invites children to consider the effect of their behavior on others. “Yeah. What was that like for sister?”
“She got hurt.”
“You’re right. She got painful scrapes. We try to never hurt each other. What can you do differently?”
“I need to watch for her and not run into her.”
“Would you be willing to do that?”
He sighs, “Yeah.”
“Are you ready to try again?”
We go back to basketball without any insults, threats, or punishments. I know from experience that he will be reckless with his sister again at some point. When that happens, we will repeat this procedure as many times as we need to. Children need more than one encounter with reason and compassion to learn those principles. Effective parenting takes time, consistency and patience. It takes many sessions of patient teaching.
Induction is the key to teaching responsible behavior. But induction does not include lecturing, guilting, isolating, hurting, or punishing. It is lovingly shepherding a child’s mind and heart toward understanding how to live mindfully and responsibly in the world.
The next article will consider ways to bring heartfelt compassion, healthy nurturing, and wise guidance into effective harmony.
Reflection and application:
Think of a recent disciplinary encounter with a child that didn’t go very well. Can you see how you could have used induction rather than power assertion or love withdrawal? How would you use induction to be effective with your child? What could you do to help your child learn to be considerate of others?
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