A Great New Book for Parents of Small Children

NURTURE SHOCK

NEW THINKING ABOUT CHILDREN

by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

Reviewed by Jeff Drake, M.A.

If you are a parent like me you are in for a shock. A good one! There is more to your child than meets the eye and there is now some really good research that will not only help you raise your child but will also make your life much easier in the process.

Authors Bronson and Merryman, one a parent of two children, the other working with children in schools, were both “shocked” when they first discovered that using praise to raise a child’s self esteem could easily do the opposite. How, they wondered, could their instincts have been so wrong?

As they point out the instinct to nurture their children Is there, but the “instinct” doesn’t really know what is best and parents need to figure that out. And in chapters on praise, sleep, school performance, sibling rivalry, self control, teen rebellion and others they show us that our instincts are “polluted by a …wishful thinking, moralistic biases, contagious fads, personal history, and old (disproven) psychology – all at the expense of common sense.”

So like all of us with the day to day challenge of raising a child we make thousands of decisions about what is the best way to parent. And most of them we make without really knowing for sure if they truly are the best. We are just guessing. And deep down we know that and it makes us nervous!

Because we don’t want to be wrong (parents more than any other group really want to get it right) we tend to not question conventional wisdom too much because then we would have to make all these thousands of decisions all on our own. So until we are faced with a problem; Johnny won’t eat his peas, Joanie won’t go to sleep etc., we ride blissfully along on the hearsay of what is best.

So why is “praise” no way to increase self esteem. It turns out that it is often just a label as in “Your so awesome Jeremy!”“You played great!” “You are so smart!” A label given by another person that has no way for the child to know what he or she actually did, and can do again, to make get that reaction. I am really awesome, for some reason, but I am not sure what I did, but I sure don’t want to stop being awesome….so I better be careful and not spoil it by making a mistake that will reveal that I am in fact not so great.

By contrast, a child who works hard to achieve something and is noticed for his specific effort is clear that the other person is approving of something that she did, and that she can in fact repeat. It also helps her see the story that it is something she did and can repeat that pays off. Now she can have her own clear goal that is independent of the praise of the adult.

An example that I have heard is that of the hockey coach who stopped giving the team general praise and praised each individual when they checked an opponent. The team’s performance in checking (and winning) went way up.

But for the child who just got a label “You’re so awesome Jeremy!” and has no way of knowing what he did to get it, he do not know what to do keep it. The result is that he won’t want to risk the loss of the label and will actually be more likely to avoid challenges. Having been given a label actually makes a person more insecure because there is no experience to understand how to repeat the behavior that is valued.

Nurture Shock will surprise you with what has been discovered about sibling rivalry, sleep, school performance, getting your child to learn to talk, and have self control. But of course for parents the challenge is not just knowing that praise can be harmful for example, but it is learning to apply that knowledge in the busy day to day coping and stresses of family life.

Parenting is a creative art and it is good to base it upon good science like the topics in this book. But science is only a starting point and I recommend that you buy the book and get together with other parents and to help each other figure out how to use this knowledge so that it will do your children the most good.

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My question is in regards to potty training. My daughter is 22 months and we've been taking potty training slowly. Bought the potties, got her interested, and let her sit etc... She's peed successfully once in her potty and twice in the big toilet. That was weeks and weeks ago. Now, she announces she wants to use the potty every other day or so, sits on her potty for ten minutes, pretends she's gone (says "I did it") however she doesn't do anything. Then, if I walk away to get her diaper or something and give her any space, she pees on the floor beside the potty saying 'look at me!' The first time I couldn't help but laugh, but now it is really upsetting and disappointing. What is going on?

Jeff's response:

Your curiosity is your best friend as a parent and I if we were talking in person I would use the old therapist trick of asking you to answer your own question. "What do you feel or imagine is going on?" I would do this for two reasons. The first is because you are the world's expert on your daughter and have spent the last almost two years doing intense research on just who she is. What are her hard wired character traits? How does she teach herself new skills? Is she so socially motivated that getting a laugh out of you is vastly more fun than peeing in the potty? Is she really ready for this step? Any question you can think of here that will help you organize your understanding of exactly who is this person called your daughter. This exercise gets you to run through your data banks and come up with a possible theory about her. This is so valuable because being an expert on her is your job. You will help her to interpret the world and the world to interpret her until she learns to do it for herself. That is how you will be able to help her develop the all important "social and emotional" skills, knowledge and attitudes that she needs to succeed in life. Your understanding of her will also really build trust into your relationship. I always find that parents "know a great deal more than they imagine they do. Especially if I ask them to just guess at what they know instead of trying to absolutely sure.

Secondly as 99% of us parents are, you must also be, an amateur. You do not know how to potty train or anything else except by trying and (please don't be upset!) failing. So your job is not to be either upset or disappointed but curious, "Why isn't this working" is a far more productive state than disappointment or upset. You may have expected too much from both yourself as a parent or your daughter as a child. Children pick up on our adult emotional states much more than our words. Your delight in her trick or your upset and disappointment will be more powerful than anything that you say.

As I haven't potty trained anyone for almost a quarter of a century I couldn't remember the age range that researchers have for most children ( and remember no mater what when it comes to any one child, there are always exceptions). The "Pull Ups" web site had a range of 2.5 to 3.5 years which puts your daughter's age as much younger than most children when they are successful. One possible explanation is that as a parent you are ahead of your daughters readiness. So I hope that this relieves you of some of your upset and disappointment in not succeeding.

By the way I remember reading that in England before the Second World War parents were expected to potty train their children by the time they were one year old. And over half of the men who were recruited and rafted into the army stll had problems with bed wetting. So beware of expectation yo pick up casually about children's readiness.

So if it okay for her to not really be ready, or care about the new adult pee and poop disposal system, the expert advice might be to just put it away and try again later. There is no point in deepening the habit of goofing around about it. Wait awhile and then if you sense a higher degree of maturity in her give it another try. The good thing that you get to do here is to be a leader and set the goals and the conditions for your cooperation. If she is not with the program it is okay to stop and wait until another moment to then reset the goal for her. The same applies to lots of new skills and expectations we have about them being ready to matser them.

Since growing up is one long learning process, and readiness is always an issue, taking away the potty, not as punishment, but as leadership, with the message that "you can try again another time" is entirely appropriate. It is relaxed, and carries the positive expectation that the child will not head off to high school or college without having mastered the skill. There is faith that the child will learn when there is readiness.

I taught children to read for a few years and I was always astounded how we would be working on sounding out and recognizing familiar words or similar sounds and it was a huge effort until one day the child would come to school and suddenly it would just start to fall into place. The shift was so significant that it took away my sense that we "teach" our children. It was replaced by we help direct their attention and wait until the readiness to learn ripens and they teach themselves. We just help them choose what is worthy of their focus.

And each child will teach themselves differently, and some will need more support while they learn, and others less. Some will learn to read like a snap, but struggle to learn to do a somersault. So here come's your most important job as a parent. While you are helping her learn to potty train herself, you are making sure that she builds and keeps a sense of faith in her ability to learn, and self confidence that her efforts will pay off. Setting goals for her that she can stretch and succeed at give her that sense.

Children who grow up with that kind of faith and self confidence have the ability to see opportunities where others see barriers, to recover from set backs, and to look forward to the future and life in general. As her first and most significant helper, how you see her and help her learn will do a great deal to accomplish this goal. And while our society will help you with teaching her academic and athletic skills, they do not yet help you with her much more important social and emotional development.

What to do with a "TerribleTwo"

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Ok I have a question for you. My oldest is 21 months and I can see the terrible 2's coming. How do I best help him through this time of important learning? What is the right thing to do when he tells me NO? I look forward to your response.

Jeff responds:

Dear Chad and Kimmie,

Congratulations, you have asked a very important question at just the right time.Instead of waiting until you are neck deep in frustration you are sensing some confusion and getting help.

The two's are "terrible" because the usually compliant and sweet toddlers suddenly become stubborn and will throw huge tantrums if they don't get their way.

Up until this point they have been mainly preoccupied with allowing you to meet their basic needs, food, comfort, sleep, warm dry clothes,etc. while they explore and master their own body, rolling over, crawling, standing walking, and of course talking.

But having realized that they are okay and these needs will be met, their inner drive to develop switches from just the passive receiving of help to the acting "on" the world. They now want to become an 'individual', to express their own will, to have their own wishes, wants, and desires. This is a whole new inner force that the child has not had to contend with before and therefor they do not have any skills or experience of what to do with it. Suddenly they WANT; they MUST HAVE, they DON'T WANT TO. And they have no ability from inside themselves to control these powerful feelings.

I find it useful to imagine this new drive of the 'will' as an inner 'tiger', primitive and ferocious, that the child has not yet gotten ability of 'self control' to manage.
In fact it is only with the mastery of this 'will' that the children have the power to turn it back on themselves and control their behavior.

The job of the parent then is two fold (the simpler stages of parenting are now over!). First, the child needs her 'will' of course. It is a major part of our human identity. Without it we do not know how to go out and shape our lives. So the parent must help the child find ways of practicing making choices and giving the child's will the chance to be active and be expressed successfully.

At the same time the child's will is a monster of self centeredness that has no regard whatsoever for other people's need, for what even is possible for the parent to give, or for what is good for the child.
It will take many many years for a child to grow out of their self-centeredness. It is hard wired into their stages of development.

So the parent must step in to limit the child's will so that it does no great harm. The child cannot understand this, because a two year old has no rational cause and effect thinking, deep memory, experience or sense of time to tell them, "It is okay, Mom and Dad are not letting me play with the sharp knife for my own good, and there will be plenty of other opportunities when I will be able to get my own way."

No, all the child feels is that I am not getting what I want!" And not knowing time it is the same as, "I will never get what I want!" and because everything is still personal and unexplainable, "You are doing this to me for no good reason."

Only the slow accumulation of practical experiences shaped by the parents accomplishes what the child needs during this stage. First the child need to experience that her will can be successful enough to nurture the growing faith that most of what she wants will be allowed or granted, so that it's okay if sometimes I cannot have what I want. Second that sometimes what I want isn't good for me and I can rely on my parents to help keep me safe with their limits. Third, she learns that Mom and Dad care for her and appreciate how hard it is to feel unhappy when she cannot get what she wants, so it helpful to talk out her upsets. She learns that her deep desires do not drive away her beloved parents is served by taking some of her will and using it to control her own reactions and behaviors. Self control actually makes her feel strong and proud of herself.

So as parents you are the coaches, or teachers that are helping your child develop and master their 'sense of will' so that it is optimistic, valued, and gradually tempered to become flexible and trusting as the child negotiates these wants and desires in her all important social world.

In beginning when the child is most vulnerable and least skilled, accommodate where you can, and definitely sympathize where you cannot. Meanwhile give the child plenty of opportunity to exercise choice where you can set up two good choices. For example:"Would you like to wear the red shirt or the green shirt?" Both choices need to be okay with you.

Don't offer lots and lots of choices especially when the child is not interested. Multiple breakfast choices everyday are not necessary and only serve to drive the child into wondering what they want prematurely and make you life very complicated.Keep it simple, and when the child seems to have a clear desire to exercise choice.

Because the child cannot understand your reasons, don't lecture on them, if you have to set a limit use a simple and repeated phrase such as, "We don't do that." Being firm and still warm is sufficient. Make sure that you don't get angry if at all possible. Your anger just scares the child and now they are caught between their inner tiger, and their outer angry adult. Under those conditions they do not learn self mastery of their will, they will learn to stay frightened of others and of their will. They will also be learning to use anger as a way to solve problems.

Distraction is a wonderful tool because most children are so distractable they switch desires to something different and more acceptable fairly easily. But the child needs to have some limits to 'practice' learning to accept limits and control their behaviors. Meeting all their needs keeps them from learning self monastery. Making to many demands for sacrificing their desires leads to an weakened sense of will.As the child gets that their wishes will often be met, it is easier and easier to set limits on what they cannot have.

When they are tired and have had a bad day, they lose the ability for self control (just like adults), you will need to lower your expectations and cut them more slack. This is a time to win the war, not the battle.

You do not need to bribe, threaten or punish. Your loving disapproval, warm conviction and insistence is powerful enough. Just be patient and let time work for you.

Some children have very strong wills. They need more time and more help learning to master it. They are not spoiled, or bad, just different.

Finally do not get scared by the power struggle. You can relax, you have all the influence you need to set limits and they will learn to master their will with the right practice and your good examples.

Greetings,

If you have questions about raising children that you would like to see tackled please e-mail me at drakej23@gmail.com.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Jeff

Welcome to Jeff Drake's Successful Parenting Help Desk

The Purpose:


Greeting and welcome to a place to explore how to help children grow up. It is a place where parents and professionals and all who are helping to raise children can come with their questions, worries, struggles and yes, successes too. Together we can use this place to build and share a storehouse of useful experience, knowledge and research. The goal is to create a tool that will help us all be able to think more deeply and act more effectively and to give our children what they need to grow up into successful adults.

The Focus:

As we look at the the issues and concerns of those who are helping to raise children we are open to any and all topics. Experience has shown that helping children becomes easier and more effective if we can succeed in three key ways:

1. Knowing when it is good to help a child, and when it is good to leave the child to learn on their own. Parenting must change as the child changes, or become ineffective. We will focus on gaining an understanding the phases of child development so that we can work 'with' and not 'against' them.

2. Using specific communications skills builds strong and cooperative realtionships between adults and children, the strong relationships in turn help parents, teach and children learn more effectively. The second focus will be on how to build in these communications skills when working with children.

3. Understanding that children come hard wired with their own particular combination of character traits. This means that working with children is never a matter of applying 'one size fits all' techniques. It is important to understand the special challenges and assets of your child's type if you are to work with them successfully.

The Process:

Things I will do:

As topics and problems arise from your questions and feedback, I will post important resources from my own parenting curriculum, Successful Parenting, as well as from many other resources, and provide links and to reading that I feel will help us all move forward and understand children, how they develop and how we as adults can best help.

What you can do:

Ask questions and make comments that arise from your efforts and experience raising children. Here is the chance to start a conversation that will help you find a good way to move forward. When you have,through great effort solved a problem, here is a chance to share that with someone else and save them the worry and bother of their own trial and error searching.

A place to begin:

How do you teach your children social and emotional skills such as handling their own emotions like fear and anger, learning to share and take turns, being careful of others feelings? Where do you find the most difficulty?

I look forward to your responses and the conversations that grow out of them.

Jeff Drake 9/6/09