While at centerparcs, I had plenty of time to think and pplwatch, sitting in 6 inches of water as Small plodged about. One of the paddling pool areas has a built in sandpit, and I got to watch a number of children interacting with their parents in this area. For some reason, one of the thing most of the children did (although not Small oddly enough) was start throwing sand about. I think all but one set of parents reacted to this.
“No Thomas/ Cassie/ Charlotte/ James, don’t throw sand.”
Good, as far as it went. But all of the children continued to throw sand. And all but one set of parents seemed to feel that their parental duty had been exercised by the recitation of the phrase. I only saw one set of parents follow up their admonition – a small boy had the sand removed from his hands after he’d been told ‘no’ by both mother and father, and was given a ball instead, thus allowing him to continue throwing things if that was what he wanted to do.
I thought about this quite a lot, not least as I had to keep dodging the thrown sand. Why were all these highly committed parents so completely incompetent in this area, and did they realise what they were actually teaching their offspring? It seemed to me that not only were they allowing the sand to be flung about with gay abandon (it may be that they didn’t think that this was really a problem, and that’s certainly up for discussion too), but they were also teaching the kids that no doesn’t mean no, or only sometimes, and the best thing to do is just continue with whatever you’re up to, as you’ll probably get away with it anyway. And it seems to me that that is a far more significant lesson.
hmmm, yes, I see a lot of that too and I do think it’s a very dodgy way to start life with your kids! I know that there’s no one “right” way to do parenting but I do suspect that saying what you mean (and meaning what you say) is fairly central to most philosophies of sprog-rearing isn’t it?
Yes, and once learned, it is very difficult for someone to unlearn it as an adult.
It’s very difficult for some people, and I’m including myself in that number, to follow an instruction without knowing why. I find it frustrating hearing warnings but no explanation to the child as to why that behaviour should stop. If you’ve never had sand in your eyes maybe you don’t appreciate how much it can hurt.
Isn’t it sometimes very important, for safety, that a child should obey first and question afterwards?
if a child receives an explanation most of the time and then can learn that instructions are for good reasons, they will be able to obey the instructions that don’t have any explanations as they can trust that there will be a good reason.
I’m woolly headed for full of cold.
Marcus doesn’t often give explanations. I always give explanations (because I was the child who wouldn’t follow instructions if I couldn’t see why. I was often described as wilful). She obeys me far more readily, and sometimes tests the instruction and then the explanation is proven. Scissors being sharp enough to cut yourself being one of them.
The parents who gave the ball as an alternative were good, but still should’ve followed through on the sand in eyes hurts message.
At too young an age I suspect a wordy explanation may be as much of a problem as never giving any. So replacing the sand with the ball did at least indicate that some things are acceptable to throw and others aren’t, and the little boy seemed to move on with that quite happily.
I guess I was worried more about the learning about language and interactions – saying ‘no’ with no follow up meant that ‘no’ was just a sound without a meaning which is going to lead to difficulties any way you look at it really.
I think I’d be tempted to just distract with something else or move to another environment with a young child in that kind of situation, rather than have the confrontation and either force a win or fail to.