“Can’t you just tell him to shut up?” she said. The three-year-old had screamed non-stop for 30 minutes, both he and I had sweat in our ear canals. “No, that’s not how we raise children today,” I said. For a long time, we have been more concerned with what our children do, rather than what goes on inside. It’s as if we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be small and vulnerable. And what it’s like to not have the ability to handle violent emotions on your own. Instead, in today’s society we choose to see children who “defy”, “press buttons” or “cling”. When we see children this way, it’s easy to feel inadequate as a parent, like we’ve lost control. And thus we reach for solutions that promise more control, such as the removal of benefits and reward schemes. Here the aim is to shape the child’s behavior so that it fits into society’s expectations; be obedient, fall asleep quickly, eat nicely. On the road, we forget the most important thing; the relationship between us. I dare say that the source of conflicts with our children is often about the gap between how children actually function, and how we think or want our children to function. This means that children are often unable to meet the unrealistic expectations we place on them. Threats and rewards, for example, only have a short-term effect, and teach the child nothing other than that the love we give is conditional on “good” or “bad” behaviour. The fact is that young children are impulsive, slow, explosive and inflexible. These children that we love are sometimes quite difficult to live with, but it is not like children plan to hit their younger siblings in the head, or think anything particularly about the consequences of that. Our children do their best with the conditions they have. We do well to understand that. Being a parent is not about exerting as much control as possible, but about being a safe, empathetic leader. In practice, this means that it is possible to set a limit when the child hits, and at the same time show understanding that the child got angry. After all, an important part of children’s learning is about how we treat each other. In today’s society, unfortunately, we are obsessed with quick solutions that look good and sound right, such as the one-year-old falling asleep on his own or the four-year-old losing the bag of sweets on Saturday for not following an order. This tricks us into thinking that obedient, cooperative children are the goal of child-rearing. But that is wrong. Well-behaved children are not the goal, they are the side effect of a good parent-child relationship. We are now in a paradigm shift in how we understand ourselves and our children. New knowledge about child development challenges our inherited way of parenting. It forces us to be more aware of why we do what we do with our children. We know, for example, that children grow from recognition, contact and love, but that yelling, threats and teaching shrink children. We know that empathy is not innate, but something that the child absorbs, among other things, in good relationships. We know that children do as we do, not as we say. And that it is precisely in the relationship between us that the child learns to manage his feelings. This does not mean that there is one specific way of doing things. It’s about the way we are. After many years as a psychologist, I know what good relationships mean. Both for children in childhood, but also later in life. Good relationships affect how we cope, and which relationships we ourselves manage to build. It determines how we live our lives and manage our emotions, and thus our mental health. Therefore, we need a society where children are not sent to the room to cope with difficult emotions alone, but are helped by safe adults who can tolerate the emotions. If you’re wondering how it’s done, take a step back and ask yourself: How would I like to be faced with a situation where I was sad and furious at the same time without the tools to deal with it?
ttn-69
Well-behaved children are not the goal – Statement
