Obedience
by Dr. Coach Love
What comes to mind as you hear the word “obey”?
- Obey the rules?
- Dogs obey their masters?
- Children obey their parents?
- Obey commandments?
- Do you think of adults as being obedient?
- How about “blind obedience?”
- Is obedience always a good thing?
As parents, we hold many expectations of our children. After all, we are responsible for them. We have a role to fulfill as their parents.
At times, parents use their children’s obedience as a pass/fail measure of successful parenting. The thinking is “if my children do what I tell them to do, they will turn out fine. I know more than they do about what is best for them.” Some parents criticize those who cannot get their children to mind them. They think,”Those parents can’t control their children.”
Well, I am not sure that it is parents’ job to control their children. Isn’t it more important for parents to demonstrate self-control to their children? External control from parents does not automatically translate into self-control when children are out of sight of parents. So what’s a parent to do?
For starters, I suggest using the word “compliance” instead of “obedience.” This change creates a different mindset because it is a more neutral and broader term. And I refer to children as noncompliant, which is less judgmental.
Many parents value compliance as a trait they want their children to learn. After all, compliant children are easy to parent. They simply do what they are told. And as adults, there is a lot of compliance we need to accept. Yet, we usually do not say we “obey” the boss or workplace etiquette, but use words like “follow” or “comply.”
What happens when we have children who are either slow to compliance or often noncompliant with what we tell them to do? Noncompliant children are frequently self-directed, confidant, and persistent. These are all good traits for adulthood, but can be difficult to manage when we are parenting them. We do not want to extinguish these positive traits through heavy-handed parenting or to aid in escalating our children’s behavior to blind rebellion and refusal.
Recognize that when parents use adult energy to force compliance on self-directed children, other family values may be violated or lost. Kindness, respect, patience, tolerance, and unconditional love could be sacrificed when parents single-mindedly seek compliance above all else. Have you seen that happen?
Consider the alternatives for parenting. Of these 4 interpersonal values—- compliance, cooperation, compromise, and negotiation—-which do you consider to involve the most important skill for successful adult living? Is compliance (or obedience) the most important relationship skill? Do you think so?
On most issues, when faced with stubborn, noncompliance from your child, you can shift your focus to another family value and not risk damaging your child’s self-esteem, self-direction, persistence, and confidence. As necessary, dust off your compromise, cooperation, and negotiation skills, but bring them to your child’s level. Noncompliant, self-directed children are quick learners of these highly valuable interpersonal skills.
While compliance can be good for the short term, learning compromise, cooperation, and negotiation serves the child’s developmental needs into adulthood.
If your find yourself at your emotional limit and ready to overpower your child’s will, — – stop — – take a breath — – and think about it. If you are thinking, “But I am the parent, and my child should do what I say,” — – –do not fall into that easy trap. There are ALWAYS choices to teach and redirect your child and bypass forced, and potentially destructive, compliance.
The ideal, smooth scenario between parent and child is not always possible. Loving, respectful behavior toward your child is.
So if you get to that tense moment of decision of whether to force compliance
ask yourself:
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WHAT DOES IT PROFIT A family when parents CONTROL THE WHOLE CHILD, BUT SUFFER THE LOSS OF THE LOVING, RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIP? |
| © Copyright 2008 P.H. Pickett, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
Contact DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com for permissions . |
MORE INFO LINKS: Quizzes- Good Parenting Test;
Reflections- Parenting: Shame and Children
