One recent Sunday morning, I was listening to a talk by Anam Thubten, a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He said, “Being free from your habits is the ultimate freedom. It takes a practice - any practice.” This can be a time for bringing in new practices into your life as a road towards freeing yourself from some habits. I would like to consider some habits in the realm of communication. Some of this applies to our communication with young children. Most of it applies to all communication.
Think about an interaction you had with a child when things did not turn out the way you wanted. Perhaps you had a conflict with a child, or perhaps you were trying to resolve a conflict between two children. I am sure there are many events you could bring to mind.
What happened inside you when the child didn’t do what you wanted? what thoughts and feelings rose up for you? If you are like most humans, you got at least mildly upset, you probably had thoughts like “He shouldn’t have done that.” “That wasn’t appropriate,” or “That was wrong to do.” What quickly arises in us are thoughts judging the behavior of others.
Now, let’s look at levels of response to the given situation. I am not in favor of ANY of these types of response and I’ll explain why.
Level one - you have judgmental thoughts (like those above) and maybe you get angry. "He shouldn't have done that." "She was being bad/naughty/mean."
Level two - you say something judgmental based on those thoughts, ie scolding.
Level three - You send the child to his or her bedroom, or the coatroom, or other containment space AKA ‘time out.’ Or, you take away a privilege or withhold a treat or an adventure AKA “consequence” or “punishment.”
Level four - you physically hurt the child (corporal punishment)
From my point of view, all create the situation where you, the adult, are a danger, a threat, to the child. All are a variation of inflicting punishment on someone who has 'done something wrong.' The only sensible response for the child is for his or her neurology to implement fight/flight/freeze/hide tactics until the danger passes. The odd thing is the adult is wanting the child to change behavior but is creating a situation in which the part of the brain which has the capacity for learning is not in charge.
Let’s look at this in terms of neurological development. (The following ages are approximate.) In human beings, the most ancient parts of the brain are responsible for survival, fight/flight/freeze/hide, and where habits and automatic routines are performed. Vital functions such as breathing and heart beat are managed by this part of our neurology. These parts of the human brain are mature by about two-years-old and include the brainstem and the cerebellum.
By age seven, the limbic system has ripened into full functioning. It is the part of the brain that processes experience into memory, where feelings are experienced and where learning can take place.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the home of so-called ‘executive functioning' such as reasoning, focusing attention, self-reflection, abstraction, planning, impulse control, and so much more. It isn’t fully mature until someone is in their late 20’s.
So let me get to the point. A teacher or parent has access to the capacities of the PFC. A young child simply does not. Think about it. The young child learns by imitating, What can we offer that we would be happy if the child did (eventually) imitate? Can we develop the patience to allow the child to take up what we offer as an example in their own time?’
It all starts with how we frame in our own minds the behaviors we don’t like. If we can see the child’s behavior as a learned strategy to get what they want or need, then we don’t have to have the thought that they are bad or wrong, or they shouldn’t have, etc… Then we can understand that the strategy is not to our liking and we can provide example of a different strategy that we hope will be imitated and eventually replace the unwanted strategy and become a new habit.
There are no recipes for this. Each of us is different and each child is unique. We do, however, have the capacity to use our advanced neurology to think of possible solutions, to think of ways to develop new habits, to think of what we want the child to imitate. We have the potential to change our minds - to stop framing in terms of right and wrong and attempting to change 'wrong' behavior by punishment.
In this time of a new year, let’s think about new strategies and new habits. It starts with us. It starts with how we as adults frame our experiences. And then that new perspective can inform our own actions and words and our world will be a better place for us and our children.
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