You want to make Mary twitch?

A mother stands in my front hall at the end of the day.

Her daughter reaches for the latch of the front door. Now, this is Not Allowed at Mary’s house. Children are never, ever to open the front door. Never, ever, ever. I shudder to think of the chaos and potential tragedy that could result from children wandering out the door. Most of the time, the screen door is kept locked to prevent escapes, but this is the end of the day, parents are coming and going. The door is unlocked.

Nonetheless, locked or not, the door is Off Limits to the children, and SuzieQ knows this. However, she has obviously weighed our respective authorities (who’s the boss? mummy or Mary?) and our potential to act (who’s standing closer to me?), and figures it’s a risk worth taking. Mother notices.

“Suzie. Leave the door, please.”

Suzie looks at mum, and puts her hand on the door knob. Without breaking eye contact, her jaw set, she carefully places her hand on that knob. OOoooh, the defiance! I’m itching to take action, and I would, I would, were mother not standing between us. But of course, mum won’t let her get away with that, right?

“Suzie. Leave the door and come here, please.” (And I sigh, inwardly. Here we go!)

Suzie unlatches the door.

Now, her mother is within arm’s reach. There is absolutely nothing to prevent mother from stretching out her arm — she wouldn’t even have to lean! — and pulling the door firmly shut. Instead, she merely tosses more words, more pointless words, into the air. Tosses them into the air, where they dissipate into nothingness. Ineffectual, meaningless nothing.

“Suzie. Leave the door.”

Suzie opens the door.

(Gee. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, huh?)

“Suzie. I said leave the door.”

Suzie steps out onto the porch.

“Suzie. I said … oh, okay. Okay, you can go out, but stay on the porch!”

We’ll stop here, shall we? You can see the trajectory. I think none of you will be surprised to know Mum and I didn’t get to finish that conversation.

Suzie’s mother is impressed (and truth be known, I think also a little pissed off, some days) at how readily, and without any fuss, her daughter does as I ask. Had I been standing between Suzie and the door, there is absolutely no way at all that she would have touched the latch.

What’s the difference? Is it that “children always behave better for others than their parents”? Suzie’s mother’s been known to cite the truism.

Oh, puh-lease. No. It’s because Suzie’s mother does not consistently monitor and maintain the boundaries she attempts to set. I do. I do, not just with Suzie of course, but with all the children. I do, because I’ve been doing this for years, because I know the enormous difference it will make and because, as Hannah expressed it so well not too long ago

IT’S EASIER OH MY GOD.

I do it because I’m in the business of raising adults. I do it because I want these children to become all they can be.

But I also do it because if I didn’t, I would have FIVE children all ignoring me and dashing every which way, doing exactly what they wanted in every moment, all day long. Can you imagine? The chaos, the noise, the screaming, the violence, the mess?

That? Is my idea of hell on earth. Lordy.

If I had issued the directive, Suzie would have dropped her hand. Period. I might, because her mother was there, have gotten a considering look as she weighed the possibility that Mummy might trump Mary, even in Mary’s home, but even so, I am reasonably confident she wouldn’t have. Had mum not been there, there wouldn’t have been a second’s hesitation. The hand would have come down.

Suzie, however, is three and a half, and well schooled. Cast back a year and a half, though. A year and a half or two years. Cast back that far and re-run the tape with an un-trained Suzie.

Suzie stands in the front hall as we all get out coats on to go out. She’s ready first, and reaches for the door.

“Suzie. You don’t touch the door knob, remember? Only grown-ups open that door.”

Suzie, being the feisty little thing she is, gives me a considering look and grabs the door knob.

“Suzie. I said no. Only grown-ups open the door.” And as I speak, I move close, lift her hand off the knob, and, if she seems inclined to reach for it again, lift her to a different area of the floor.

Suzie, being the feisty little thing she is, would probably kick up a bit of a stink at this point. I suspect it was all the stink-kicking a year or two ago that now prevents her mother from taking firm, decisive action. Mum doesn’t want to provoke a fit. (A wry comment about letting the terrorists win flits through my brain…)

Which is why, when I take that essential firm, decisive action, I reward her with a very warm and sunny “Thank you!” and a distracting task.

“Thank you!” because it’s good manners to thank someone when they help you out. The fact that the help wasn’t voluntary is completely irrelevant. The point here is not to punish her for her attempted disobedience, the point is to teach her a Better Way. So, a warm and sunny thanks. Which very often throws them off their disgruntled emotional trajectory, and they’ll smile right back at you.

And then, quickly, give her a task. “Here, sweetie. Would you give Sam her hat, please? Sam needs her hat so she won’t be cold!”

That usually does it. Usually, but not always. If Suzie were determined to throw her fit, if she refused to be distracted from the joy of rage, then I would move into my standard tantrum response. (If you are interested, check out the Tantrum Series tab at the top right.)

So. Issue an instruction, make sure it’s been heard, then FOLLOW THROUGH. Calmly, firmly, politely, implacably.

Every time.

That’s it, that’s all. The caregiver’s “secret” to co-operative children.

Follow through, physically if necessary, and it often is at first. (By ‘physically’, I mean hand-over-hand helping or preventing whatever it was, of course. I do not mean spanking. If you can produce considerate, obedient, kind children without it — and you can — why would you?) Follow through despite the protests, despite the tantrum. Follow through, every time, and it will not be long before there are no tantrums because they just don’t work.

I’m sure a lot of the time when I see lack of follow-through, it’s happening because the parent doesn’t want to subject the caregiver (and themselves) to the struggle that might ensue. But please! Don’t fret! Don’t worry! She won’t criticize, she will applaud! Go for it, because I promise you: When you tell your child to do something and then don’t follow through? You are making your caregiver twitch.

Deconstruction

In a previous post, I discussed the widely-held parenting myth that “children behave better for others than for their parents.”

I noted that it was important to distinguish between “stranger” — for whom kids generally will behave better, at least until a certain age — and “others”, anyone else, no matter how familiar. I stated my belief that a child’s better behaviour for a familiar other person is nothing magical or mystical — it has to do with something the parents are/aren’t doing. If the parent and the other person were consistently doing the same thing in the same way, they’d get the same response from the child.

I gave you an example, and asked you to deconstruct it. You did very well! Yes, the issue was that the mother didn’t follow through.

She called the child to her. The child paused. At this point, mom could have gone to get her, but what she actually did — Calling a second time, to see if she’ll come — was reasonable parenting.

The critical point, the crux of the matter, was what mom did when the child SMILED AND TURNED AWAY. No matter how cute and charming the little girl was at that moment (and she WAS, the little devil), that’s deliberate, conscious defiance, people, and needs to be dealt with instantly. At first glance of that smile, mama should have marched over, taken the child’s hand, and explained the situation: “When mama says ‘come over here’, you need to come.”

Clear and effective.

If that happens every single time this direction is issued, the child will be coming, reliably, within a couple of months. (Depends on the child, of course. But by 21 – 30 months, sometimes earlier, you can expect to be heeded with reliable consistency.)

And the problem of running away, which some of you rightly noted might be the child’s response when she sees mama bearing down on her? I say that’s precisely why you need to nail this behaviour now. There is nothing more humiliating than chasing a laughing child when it’s not a game. And talk about undermining your parental authority! Ugh.

There are a couple of ways of dealing with this behaviour, and which you choose will depend on the personality of the child involved. However, not wanting this post to get unduly long, I’ll put them into another post.

Do children automatically behave better for other familiar people than their parents? No. My three (happily secure) children almost always behaved as well for me than for others. Sometimes even better, because my expectations were often higher. My five step-children behaved just as well for their parents as for anyone else they knew. (And even reasonably well for me, the step-mother, though not as well as for their dad. The difference there had to do with how I behaved and certain other political factors that we don’t need to get into here…)

Mamadragon says it well. With toddlers, it’s Tell, Show, Do.

Tell them what you want. “Come here.”
Show them. The mother could have beckoned and pointed to the ground beside her.
Do. See that the requirement happens. Go get the child.

And I would add another “Tell” at the end, when you explain the expectation. “When I say come, you come.”

Do this, and your child will behave as well for you as for anyone else.

Really.

The Myth of Better for Others than Parents

At the library this morning, where the following little vignette occurred:

I am herding my tots through the security gate (which will “BEEP!” if you take an unchecked book through it. SO exciting.). Another tot, about the same age, attracted by the children her age, is sort of being swept along with us.

Her mother calls her.

“Sadie! Come back to mama, sweetie.”
Sadie doesn’t appear to hear. Mama repeats herself. “Sadie, honey. Come back here to mama, please.”
Now Sadie pauses.
“Sadie? Come back to mama, sweetie.”
Sadie looks back at mama, smiles, and then turns toward me once more. Mama calls after her.
Sadie walks through the security gate to me and my tots. Mama calls to her receding back.
“Sadie, silly girl. Come back to mama!”
I smile at Sadie, put my hands on her shoulders and say, “Hello, Sadie. You know what? You need to go back to mama. She’s calling you.” Then I gently turn her around and then let her go. She races back to mama, bubbling over with (very loud) tears.

“Thanks!” says mama, then turns to Sadie. “Now why will you come to mama when that lady says, but not when mama calls?” Mama turns to me. “They always behave better for someone else, don’t they?”

I simply smile at her as I gather my tots to leave. I can’t give her a direct question because, you know what? Popular as that sentiment is, I don’t believe it for a minute. It’s nonsense.

I can hear gasps even among my regular readers. You didn’t know I dissed that myth, did you?

See, here’s how it is. Even as I watched her interact with her child, I saw that woman make a critical error. If she makes that error routinely, as she probably does, this would pretty much entirely explain why her child doesn’t ‘come here’ when mama says “come here”.

Then there is me, The Stranger. I actually put hands on the child — very gently, of course — and directed her mildly back to mama, and that was enough to set her to wailing and racing back to mama.

This would not have happened were I mama, of course. The response I got was qualitatively different than mama would have received for the exact same action. And it is from this discrepancy that the Myth of “Better for Others than Parents” arises.

And that myth extends not just to strangers, but to caregivers, too. What I do is somehow magical. The child will behave better for me, simply because I am not mama. Even when I am no longer a stranger, the child will behave better for me, because of my not-mama-ness. This is the Myth of Better for Others than Parents.

At first, the “Better for Others” myth is in fact grounded in fact. A stranger is often unsettling to a child, unnerving, perhaps even intimidating. Rather than interact with a stranger who gets a bit directive, the toddler will very often head back to the security of the parent, even if that means (sigh) doing what they were told. That works — but only so long as the other adult is still a stranger.

There’s a transitional period during which a child in my care gets used to me, when I go from Stranger to familiar. It generally takes about three weeks, sometimes as long as five. But I can guarantee you that, after no more than six weeks, if I had been consistently responding to the child as mama does, that the child would be ignoring me just as she ignored mama.

Conversely, if mama, for about three to six weeks, responded as I would in that situation, her child would be responding to her directions the same as she would to me.

There is nothing magical about what I do vs. what mama does. We’re just doing different stuff.

Okay. This will be your quiz, your chance to analyze and evaluate. What did that mother do wrong? What action did she take, or not take, that pretty much ensured that her child would igore her instructions? Why did the child feel secure to ignore her?