Why Parents Need to Matter
Two conversations I had last week - one with a client and one with my son - highlighted (yet again) the power of our relationships with our children to shape, inform and influence their behavior. Parents and teachers often go to great lengths to figure out what behavioral technique – punishment or praise, carrot or stick, consequence, time-out or reward –is going to be most effective. What’s meant by “most effective” is: what will deliver the greatest ability to influence our child’s or teenager’s behavior so that it falls more in line with what we want it to be.
Let me take just a moment to address any objections: the idea that parents and teachers (and grandparents and other caring adults) should have the goal or intention of influencing behavior. Whether we like how it sounds or not - it’s not very PC to talk about influencing someone - OF COURSE this is what parents need the ability to do. Any form of teaching or guiding or leading or disciplining relies on the principle of attempting to correct or influence our kids. And it’s when we don’t feel like we have any power to naturally do these things that we start pulling out the techniques that, ultimately, do more hard than good.
What behavior technique is the most effective?
With all the focus on the various techniques and strategies - which is most effective, what item to take away for the most leverage and, always, eventually, what to do when the child stops caring what you take away - we lose sight of the fact that the most simple and natural answer to the question of how to lovingly guide our kids lies in the strength of our relationship. Not only is this much more “effective” (as the following examples illustrate), but when we lean into relationship it just plain feels so much better to our hearts than all the behavioral manipulations.
When we make our relationship with our children both the priority and the bottom line–when we unconditionally invite them to rest in our deep love– they naturally care about what we think, which includes: what we think about what they are doing, what they should do, what we don’t want them to do and what we’re concerned about regarding them.
It’s so simple as to feel almost laughable in the face of the myriad books laying out complicated techniques of counting to this number before saying this and then, if that doesn’t work, taking away x or y object or “privilege” But, truly, it is that simple, that rock-bottom, that natural and, also, that essential if we are going to be able to do our job as parents; a job which very much includes lovingly leading, teaching, guiding, advising, correcting and influencing.
So, here are the stories that brought this point home, yet again, this week:
The first story
Clients of mine have worked diligently over the past year to build their relationship with their thirteen-year-old daughter - we’ll call her Alexis. When we first started working together, Alexis and her mom’s relationship was very tenuous – Alexis was often angry at her, didn’t want to spend time with her and never confided in her about her life or feelings. Both parents were concerned about the friends Alexis was spending time with – they weren’t close to their parents, engaged in illegal activities and were sexually precocious. Alexis rejected her parents’ expressions of concern or attempts at correction or guidance evoked intense anger and counterwill. Fast-forward to now - after a year spent patiently, playfully and lovingly cultivating warmth, invitation and openness - when, the other day, Alexis shared with her mom that she had recently written a list of “red flags” to look for when evaluating if a boy was “boyfriend material”. While the very fact that she was sharing that she had created such a list with her mom felt like nothing short of a miracle, it was what she told her mom was on the list that really made this mom’s heart explode: “Mom,” she said, “it’s a really big a red flag if he’s not close with his parents.”
The second story
My 17-year-old son was recounting a conversation he had with friends as they watched a basketball game. My son said that the other boys, who go to a different school, were telling him about a boy who goes to their school who is always getting in trouble: with teachers, with other kids and even with law enforcement. The latest issue with this boy was that he assaulted a girl on a date and had a restraining order issued against him. My son said that he and the other boys were discussing this recent development when one of the boys reflected, “I just think my parents would just be so sad if I did something like that.” My son and the third boy agreed and discussed how badly they would all feel to cause their parents that kind of sadness and shame. My son said that they soon realized that they had stumbled onto an infinity loop of cause and effect: that it was a function of their closeness with their parents that they cared how their parents felt about their behavior and it was because of this closeness that they weren’t in the kind of emotional turmoil that was leading this boy to behave in this way. The closeness was the key that opened them to caring about living up to their parents’ expectations for them and also was the birthplace of the emotional maturity that made this boy’s behaviors feel so foreign to them.
The most powerful tool we have: unconditional love
Both of these stories illustrate the virtuous cycle of offering our children our unconditional love; it allows them to rest in our care so that they can grow and mature. When we provide this for them, they are receptive to our values and hopes for them.
Alexis’ loving parents didn’t wait to show their unconditional love until she was living up to their values; they did it AND THEN she was able to get there. They didn’t punish or threaten or anything else that would undermine the relationship; they realized that the relationship is the panacea. Alexis felt her parents’ love and as their relationship grew her behavior improved. It is precisely when things aren’t working, when our kids are messing up, aren’t pleasing us or living up to our values that we need to boldly and unconditionally offer our unwavering heart. It is always the way through. In her “List of Red Flags” she made clear that she recognized the value and safety in peers who are connected to their parents.
My son and his friends stumbled onto this deep truth at the basketball game: that it was because they felt their parents’ love so deeply that the thought of behaving in a way that would so deeply disappoint them was heartbreaking to think about; they valued their relationships with their parents because they felt valued in those relationships. This isn’t because they are inherently “good kids” - they are good kids because they have been given unconditional love and care. They realized that if this other (suffering) boy had received the type of love from his parents, he would be a different kid. I find myself holding out hope that someone–a teacher, a grandpa, an aunt - will have the wisdom and grace to see past his behavior and to offer him love and care which could lead to a very different future for him.
Every kid has the potential be a “good kid” - we unlock this potential in them, paradoxically, by making sure they feel that we’re there for them no matter what.
The most powerful tool we have to be able to do our job as parents is our relationship with our child. Anything that undermines that - I’m looking at you time-outs, consequences, silent treatment and other behavioral techniques - takes us further away from what we need to do the most important job we are given. We only need to remember that we all already have what we need to parent effectively inside of us - our love and the ability to offer it through thick and thin, again and again and again.