Habit Training, the Programming of Children

A good friend of mine just gave me some food for thought with her blog.  My friend, The Artsy Eclectic over at Literary Magic posted some information about her family's unschooling progress, and with it, a couple of links.  One of them completely caught me wrong, and maybe it's just me.  I don't know, but in my mind, programming my children to think, act, and behave in a certain way isn't entirely my goal in life.  I want my children to be free-thinking adults.  However, perhaps there is some benefit to this article.

Personally, the idea of social programming is the reason I wanted my children out of schools.  I don't want them to be molded into exactly what everyone else feels they should be, least of all, the school system.  I want them to have the independence and freedom to know what interests them, know when they're tired, and know what they want to do in their lives.  Now I'm hearing that I'm supposed to train my children?  The examples used here seem to go against everything I believe in my core.  More importantly, I'm starting to get the idea that this Charlotte Mason person is, well, outdated to say the least.  I will admit, I've never read any of her works, but it very much sounds like something I could have expected from the turn of the century.

The first example in this article is training your children to pay attention.  While I do see value in getting your child to pay attention, I don't think it should require "training".  It sounds too much like we're treating our children like animals.  It's mentioned in the article that what you wish the adult to become some day is what you must train them to be as a child.  Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but doesn't that almost feel like I'm controlling my children's destinies?  What about their own visions, goals, dreams, and independence?  In the case of attention, I don't feel I should have to train my children to pay attention.  I should certainly encourage them, but the more I think about it, it's not about paying attention at all, but keeping their interest.  If I can't pay attention to a four hour lecture on the subject of shoe leather because I simply don't care about the topic and it has no real impact on my life, why should I train them to pay rapt attention to such a subject?  More importantly, I really feel that it's not so much about training my children to have long attention spans and to pay attention when they're supposed to.  I think it's more in encouraging my children to have interest.  The example used of the mother shaking the toy to keep the baby interested, is that really about training to pay attention?  Or is it more encouraging the child to have a deeper interest?

Let's use the example of my own eleven month old son.  He's got this favorite toy that we call Mr. Frog.  It's one of those little security blankets with the rattle inside the frog head.  It's got two little arms sticking out.  I hold Mr. Frog before my youngest.  He pulls it from me, and much as his teething has him driven to do these days, shoves it in his mouth.  In a few moments, he's bored and tossing it on the floor.  I pick it up and shake it.  It rattles!  Excited, he takes the toy from me again and shakes it, squealing with pleasure at this!  While one might figure he already knew that, he's a baby and they're prone to not having a long memory.  He rattles this thing for quite some time, and then he gets bored.  He tosses it.  Did I really teach him to have a longer attention span, or did I just encourage him to become interested in this new feature of the toy?  Was he really paying attention longer, or was he perhaps investigating to see what else this cool toy that flaps around and rattles when he shakes it can do?  Is it possible that he tosses the toy, not because he's got no attention span, but because he's certain he's figured everything out about it and he no longer has interest?  Or perhaps he's really telling me, "Mommy, I'm done with all of that.  Show me something new I can do!"

The example speaks of a child left in a room with ample toys, flitting from one thing to another with less care and interest than a butterfly.  I'm not sure I believe that's true.  After watching three babies of my own and countless babies of friends, I don't think I really believe that at all.  Yes, babies tend to go on from one thing to another, but if you watch, they always find something of particular interest and go after it until they've exhausted all of the possibilities of what it could do.  They're little scientists.  They're exploring to figure it out.  However, at a young age, they're also learning to express themselves.  Each of my children has gravitated towards different kinds of toys when they were babies.  As a baby, my daughter preferred stuffed animals and anything that made lots of noise when you pushed the buttons.  My older son hated toys like that, preferring anything he could stack.  His biggest interest has been books since the first moment he's been able to get his hands on them.  He's also gone in and out of wanting to play a drum.  My youngest, he prefers things that move, make sounds, and require physical action to get some kind of result, like shaking Mr. Frog to create both motion and sound.  He likes hitting plastic water bottles against different things to see what they do, including his own head!  He likes things he can pull out of another object, or things he can put in.  Anything that he can open and close is a sure winner.  Does that mean they've all got short attention spans because other things tend to fall by the wayside with them?  I don't think so.  After all, you give my youngest a water bottle and he's set for hours on end.  You give my older son a stack of books and he'll be lost for a good long time.  With my daughter, sadly computers and video games are more her style, but the point is, if their interest is held, they can pay attention for what seems an endless amount of time.  Doesn't that kind of mean that the trick isn't in training them to have a long attention span, but in encouraging their interests in a wider variety of things than that which they're naturally inclined towards?

The second topic suggested was obedience.  From the sounds of it, they're talking the blind obedience that's so well favored in the military.  The idea is that your children should cheerfully respond to any request their parent should make.  If they're told to go to bed, they go to bed without question.  If they're told to come in from playing outside, they come in.  If they're told to play in their room, they go play in their room.  They do not do otherwise unless told to.

I have to admit, with the way my kids tend to get under foot when I'm doing things, or come into my room ten times when they're supposed to be in bed to tell me something, I start to see the value in obedience training.  Unfortunately, we get back into the realm of training animals.  A properly trained dog sits, stays, and rolls over on command.  Do I want my children to be the same way?

More importantly, I've built a huge foundation in my life upon one simple phrase, "question authority".  How can I in good conscience question authority in my life and expect my children to blindly respect my own authority.  I guess in that case, I've already made my bed and now I have to lie in it.  I'm the one that's going to have to put up with the example I'm setting for my kids.

By questioning authority, I don't mean telling off any person of authority because they're wrong.  I don't mean saying, "What gives you the right?" when being told what to do.  I mean question why the authority is in place.  Question the rules, not so you can find a loophole to disobey them, but so you can understand why they're in place, and perhaps even fight to change any that don't make sense.

For example, if I set a rule in my house that states no one will ever wear shoes past the front hall, I'm not expecting my kids to just ignore it and run crazy in the house with their shoes on asking, "What gives you the right to say we can't wear shoes in the house?  All our friends do it!"  What would be fairly questioning authority would be, "Why can't we wear our shoes past the front hall, mom?  That seems like a silly rule.  None of my friends have a rule like that in their house!"

Then I could respond with something like, "In our house we don't wear shoes past the front door because shoes can track mud, dirt, and water all over the house.  All of that dirt, mud, and water has to be cleaned up, so to make our lives easier, I decided we shouldn't wear shoes in the house."

In response, my children have the freedom to decide it's a good rule, or suggest a way it could be done better, such as everyone takes turns cleaning the floor so everyone can wear their shoes in the house, or that wearing your shoes in the house is okay when you're coming in from outside to get a drink or to go to the bathroom.  I'm certainly not saying that the children should write my house rules, but I find that when my kids truly understand the rules and why they are in place, they respect them a whole lot better.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, really.  After all, I wouldn't want to train my children to, say, listen to anything an adult tells them to do.  After all, we know that there are bad people in the world, and they're not all strangers.  While I do want my kids to go to bed without question, I know they're a lot more likely to go to bed on time when they know why their bed time is in place.  They're much more likely to eat the food I put in front of them when I explain to them why I want them to eat it, not just enforce it as a rule that they must eat it all.  They're far more likely to clean their room when they understand the logic behind it.  More importantly, I feel it will help them to make their own rules and set their own standards when they're older.  Some day they may have kids of their own and need their own set of house rules, and I don't want them to blindly raise their kids like I'm raising them.  I've seen too many families that justify everything as good, healthy, and right because, "that's how I was raised and I think I turned out okay."  I want my kids to make decisions in their lives because they feel it's the right thing to do, not because they were programmed for obedience at a young age.

One example, in particular, really strikes me as off on this article.  When the children are told to go upstairs when a "caller"/guest arrives, they beg to stay downstairs on the grounds that they are quiet, which they are not.  This is shown as an example of why children must be obedient.  In my eyes, I see no reason why my children shouldn't be able to make bargains like that, just as long as they hold up their end of the bargain.  As soon as the children are not doing as they promised, they're sent directly upstairs, no ifs, ands, or buts.  The next time they ask to stay downstairs and play quietly when a guest is over, they're reminded of what they did last time and are told no straight off.  Perhaps next time they'll be given another chance.  I don't see the harm in allowing the children to stay downstairs if they're holding up their end of the deal, and it will teach them skills like bargaining and negotiation, which are vital throughout life.  It will also allow the children to feel they have some power and control over their life, and it's not just arbitrary decisions made by the parents.

Yes, I do see value to obedience and children doing as they are told.  Unfortunately, I see no benefit to training blind obedience.  As said in the article, if you want a child to be something as an adult, you need to train them as a child.  Well, I want my children to be independent, free thinkers who understand the reasons behind the rules in their lives and don't just blindly obey.  In order to have that, training obedience is kind of contradictory to the cause.

I've put a lot of thought into how I want my children to be when they grow up.  I've had some wonderful conversations with other parents on the subject.  I've changed a lot of my parenting style as time goes by.  I've learned a good deal from one book, in particular, which I'd recommend to any parent who wants a family that functions more harmoniously, but doesn't necessarily want children who are trained in obedience, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & How to Listen so Kids Will Talk.  It's been a huge inspiration in changing the way I work with my kids to help them understand they too have control in their lives, and this isn't just about doing what Mommy says.  There's a reason I make the rules I do.  Another book I find incredibly inspiring on the subject is Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason, which talks about parenting through unconditional love and fostering a harmonious family through respect, not through obedience and discipline.

In my eyes, who cares about "training" your children?  They're not animals, and as my friend, The Artsy Eclectic, said so wonderfully, "Who wants mold anyway?"  I truly feel that raising children in this world so filled with hatred, pain, and suffering is so much more than a factor of training them to be something we want them to be.  It is instead about opening their eyes to possibilities, encourage their interests, encouraging exploration in the world around them, and most importantly, letting them figure out who they are in this vast world of infinite possibilities.  There's value to allowing them choices, letting them make up their own minds, and helping them understand when obedience is necessary and why.  There's value to teaching them to respect not just their family members, but every living being around me.  Forgive me if that sounds like too much of a break from the regulated and regimented system so many people flock to these days, a system that is so well demonstrated in our school system.  I know it's an out-there concept, something that sounds like it was left over from the hippies in the '60s.  I know a lot of people will positively find my ideas fluff.  That's okay too.  I can respect that, but training my kids is not for me.

I don't want my children to be like that lamp post, as beautiful as it was, convinced to grow in an unnatural way simply so someone could craft something beautiful out of it.  I want my children to grow up wild and free, to be exactly the way nature intended them to be.  It's not my job to decide what my children will some day be.  It's my job to give them all the tools possible to craft their own lives.  It's my job to make sure they can look beyond the obvious path to see the wide rainbow of options before them.  It is my job to show them the world so they never have to look back thinking "I wish I had known!"

By the way, I want to send a huge thanks to The Artsy Eclectic, for being such an inspiration, and for being a wonderful part of my support system.  She is the one who has given me the confidence and the courage to say many of the opinions on this subject I've expressed today.  I know in her humble, modest way, she'll tell me I'm giving her way too much credit, but she really has no idea how much she has inspired me.  Thank you, The Artsy Eclectic!  May you go on to inspire and encourage thousands more!  It's people like you that change the world!