When You Stop Controlling, You Gain Control
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”I’ve tried everything, from offering reward to punishing, threatening and withdrawal of privileges, but nothing seemed to work! Kids these days are so different and uncontrollable. I really don’t know what else to do.” These are just some of the words of frustration often uttered by well-meaning parents who simply wanted their children or adolescents to behave well. What should they do?
Psychiatrist William Glasser, creator of Choice Theory, offers one paradoxical advice: “When you give up controlling, you gain control.” That might sound counter-intuitive at first, but it will soon become clear when we examine the simple logic beneath it.
It is human nature us to resist attempts from others to control our behaviours. The need for freedom and autonomy is encoded in our genes. And children are no different. Young children who feel powerless to resist their parents’ demands for them to do things they do not want to do often comply out of fear, albeit with resentment. However, adolescents who feel they might have the power to resist successfully may have no hesitation to put up a fight and thus, earning them the familiar title of ‘rebellious teens.’
Moreover, as today’s youths are increasingly encouraged to speak their mind, express their opinions and question conventional wisdom, many parents find themselves ill-equipped to deal with those who readily talk back or challenge their instructions in ways that are unimaginable in the past.
The greatest shock goes to parents who still believe firmly in exerting their parental authority in a strict and authoritarian manner. They continue to attempt to control their children by exercising their positional power, not knowing that in a democratic society like today’s, dictatorship has long lost its relevance. Respect for individual freedom and choice is the new currency. Without mutual respect between parent and child, the journey of parenthood can be a difficult one for both.
Most Parenting Problems are Relationship Problems
In essence, the majority of parenting problems are really relationship problems. Many parents have complained about having trouble getting their children to listen to them, but few are prepared to examine how they might have contributed to their problems. The same children often have no trouble listening to their friends or other adults whom they admire, respect and trust. So, what is the secret for getting through to a child or adolescent who refuses to listen?
The answer is simple – work on improving the relationship. And that begins with giving up the need to control our children, followed by taking charge of a few things that we do have control of – the way we see, the way we think and the way we act.
A New Way of Acting with our Children
Every action parents take can potentially affect the parent-child relationship in either a constructive or destructive manner. A useful rule of thumb for parents is: “When you don’t know what to do, do nothing.” The reason is simple. It takes much more effort to recover from a negative experience, than to have a positive one.
Perhaps the quickest way to enhance parent-child relationship is for us to avoid what Glasser terms as the “seven deadly habits” – criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, and rewarding to control. All these actions stem from the inherent tendency to control our children, and almost always make them feel unloved and disconnected, thereby destroying our relationships with them. He also goes on to suggest that we replace these destructive habits with the “seven connecting habits” – caring, trusting, listening, supporting, negotiating, befriending, and encouraging.
A New Way of Thinking about Children’s Behaviours
Children’s behaviors are driven by the same set of basic human needs as we do. Namely, these include the need for survival, safety, love and belonging, freedom, power, and fun. And most of the time, when children ‘misbehave,’ it is because they have limited experience, knowledge or skills to satisfy their needs in ways that adults deemed as acceptable or socially appropriate.
Infants cry, toddlers throw tantrum, and teenagers tell lies because those are the limited ways they know for getting what they want. Rather than to punish them with the hope of deterring future recurrences of the undesirable behaviours, would it not be more useful that we take time to help them acquire the missing competencies so that they learn to fulfill their needs in more constructive ways?
Controlling children through reward and punishment will not foster the sense of independence and competence in them. It is imperative that help them develop self-control so that they are able to make good moral choices on their own.
A New Way of Seeing Children
Children are not objects that we could control or shape to fit our ideals. They have a life of their own, and we must resist the temptation to mould them into what we think they should be or to live out our unfilled dreams through them. They will form their own ideas about the world, and have views that differ from ours, just like how we think differently from our own parents.
While we try to impart to them, values that we hold close to our hearts, we must be mindful not to forcefully impose our worldviews onto them. The latter will only invite resistance and rebellion. Rather, it is through maintaining a strong parent-child relationship built on the solid foundation of mutual trust and respect that we could retain our power to influence them through offering on-going guidance and counsel.
Conclusion
Children are indeed uncontrollable, but that is not the root of the challenges parents face. It is the tendency to control the uncontrollable that makes parenting problematic for many. The only things that we truly have control over are those that lie within the self – how choose to we see our children, think about their behaviours, and act with or towards them.
What we cannot control, we can at best influence. And our ability to influence our children rests solely upon the strength of the relationship we have with them, which can be enhanced by replacing destructive habits with constructive ones that can foster the sense of parent-child connection. It is only when we successfully make our children feel loved and connected that we regain control on how our journey through parenthood will continue to unfold.
Contributed by Kenny Toh, Founder of Institute of Advanced Parentology
