Gratitude Attitude Part 2

In Gratitude Attitude Part 1 we looked at:

• Developing Understanding
• The Value of Chores
• Exposure to Differences
• Benefits of Gratitude

Healthy Limits

Cloud and Townsend teach that a child needs both gratification and frustration: Their need for love, connection and care must be met and this helps build a sense of trust in the parent. When our children are babies, they are dependent on us for everything. As they grow older we give them increasing freedom, space and choices. But we must limit them and this frustrates them. We shouldn’t dole out all that they want or they will have an unbalanced view of themselves seeing themselves as the centre of the universe.¹

Mother Ogre

Generally speaking when a child gets what she wants she thinks herself entitled and that her parents are good. When she doesn’t, she sees herself as a victim or deprived and parents are bad. One needs to tolerate being the “bad” parent.

There was many a time I ended the day in exhaustion, saying to Bruce, “I’ve been ‘mother ogre’ today!” I was tired but it wasn’t self-deprecation. I had just needed to set limits and bear the brunt of our children’s grief over not getting their way. I knew it had to be done and it wasn’t pleasant but I am so glad I persisted because I was rewarded eventually with very appreciative children. I am still enjoying that reward.

If we have let our child play “god” for a while, it is harder to break their sense of grandiosity. Start early. If we are being worn down by the child then seek support. It is better not to have a limit than to have one that is not kept. Why? Because when the child wears down the parent and gets his way it reinforces his sense of “godhood”. His sense of entitlement will grow and he will become the ‘ogre’. For more on entitlement see Amy McCready and my post on Consequences.

Consequences

Setting the table was one of our children’s first family chores. Samuel had gotten into a pattern of avoiding this task when asked. We explained the consequences: If you don’t do your job, you won’t eat dinner. Then the day came, after being warned three times, that he left the table unset. Consequently, he missed his meal and didn’t get another one till morning. Was it hard? Yes, but it was an important lesson to learn: in our family we all do our part.

Sometimes consequences happen naturally. If your child doesn’t eat, he might feel hungry or if she breaks a rule in sports, she might get sent off. Most of the time, consequences need to be imposed. It is best if the consequence is related. If a child is being silly and spills a drink, he must wipe it up. If children are fighting over a toy, the toy can be put away for 10 minutes. When it is not possible to have consequences that are logical, we can use other effective negative consequences like loss of privilege or time out.

Our Family Ways

Think ahead by agreeing what your family rules are and what the corresponding consequences will be. Our family aims to live by Our Family Ways which is a list of positive attributes we developed over the years. The older the child, the more he or she can participate in the process of formulating them. When our children know the rules and the corresponding consequences and we parents apply them consistently, our children have a much deeper respect for our parenting.

We are helping our children make important connections. If there are no unpleasant effects of bad behaviour, or positive effects for appropriate behaviour, in essence no practical understanding of cause and effect, we are actually training our children for failure. We are setting them up for some nasty shocks later in life and, like it or not, we will be implicated in their pain because we love them and are involved in their lives.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping

When we plant seeds in our gardens we usually get a result – a plant that comes up in the same botanical family of the seed. We don’t plant a daffodil bulb and get oranges. Why in life do we sometimes expect a different result to arise out of our parenting than what we plant? We might hope, for example, that our adult children will somehow turn out as reasonable, grateful, law abiding citizens, without having taught them with consequences when they were children to abide by some family rules.

Planting Potatoes