Parenting Tidbit

The popular view is that children who misbehave are just “testing limits” – a phrase often used as a justification for imposing more limits, or punishments. But perhaps such children are testing something else entirely: the unconditionality of our care for them.  Perhaps they’re acting in unacceptable ways to see if we’ll stop accepting them. ~Alfie Kohn

I got this quote from the class that I was taking (I'm finished!!) and we had a good discussion around Kohn's thoughts.  I don't think any of us, especially those of us with children would argue that limits and consequences are wrong, but we realized it's good to question how we use them with children.  In the heat of the moment when that student is swearing a blind streak at you, or your child is kicking and punching in the supermarket, we are convinced those little people are acting like this only to make your life a living nightmare.  That somehow this is a cruel test children put all adults through at some point in their lives and repeatedly over and over and over again.  But then after the red is gone from your sight-line and you are more rationale, and so are they, I wondered if maybe that wasn't the case.  A whole lot of energy expended just for another person's harm?  Not like I don't think I would be worth it *chuckle* but it didn't seem to sit right.

Until I read Alfie Kohn's essay from which this quote is taken from, I came to this conclusion.  Maybe people act out horribly because they are wanting attention.  Is that so bad?  Attention and recognition from another human?  Not at all.  Everyone has the need to be acknowledged by another human being; it's in our nature.  We have been created to be in relationship with others, not isolated.  Unfortunately, some of us haven't learn how to obtain that attention using appropriate and healthy methods.  

Why would we expect kids to utilize healthy methods when so many adults are disfunctional in their cry for attention?  You know those people.  Hey, maybe we were once them or are still there.....Anyways, it made me think that maybe, just maybe they want to see if people will walk the walk that they so often talk.  Are they truly committed to me?  Will they stay with me even when I'm a total jerk?  Will they still love me when I hurt them?  

Makes  me think about Jesus and how those soldiers were beating him and spitting on him.  He could have ended it all there, but because he had unconditional love to the utmost degree, he stayed.  He stayed and it cost him his life.  What an example.  

So in my human relationships, especially with my children, I wouldn't even think of not loving them because of something they do.  That's not love.  It  makes it a little less overwhelming when my child has a complete fit in the car for the hundredth time that week because she can't have a candy and continues to buck and scream "NO!" and baul because I won't give in.  As my ears come close to bleeding and I briefly lapse into this idea that she's trying to destroy me and I can't possibly keep going, Kohn's idea reminds that she needs to know that no matter how she acts, there'll be limits in everything except my love for her.  

*still hard, still hard this parenting thing*