At 07:07 AM 1/3/2013, ChemE Stewart wrote:
I find that if I ignore my kids when they act up, it usually goes
away. It is usually them looking for attention. I was taught that
from a PhD family psychologist and it works. You might try the
same. It has a lot to do with maturity.
Stewart, you were given some advice that may have been practically
effective in a certain situation and with certain children. It can
work at a certain age, and with certain problems.
I have seven children and six grandchildren. The first five children
were biological children, the last two were adopted, and they are
young, currently aged 9 and 11. I don't want to reveal too much about
my children, so I'll now write in the abstract, but I want to
establish that what I write is not merely theoretical, and I've been
*intensely* involved with many psychologists and therapists for many
years. Some of them are hopelessly incompetent at dealing with
certain relatively unusual problems, others are highly skilled.
The advice you got was generic, and, as I say, could work. But what
about when it doesn't?
Now, consider an attachment-disordered child. They have been through
some disruptive trauma.
Place this child in an environment where the child is loved, and gets
plenty of healthy attention. Great!
Now, complicate the situation with a sibling, and siblings, it
appears, very naturally compete for attention.
One of the children feels that the other is being favored. So they make a fuss.
Suppose a parent, following the advice, ignores them. *They will
experience this as abandonment,* so, now, their upset increases.
"Mommy favors Sister, and now, I have proof! She is ignoring me and
that means she doesn't care about me!"
So she escalates. Will more ignoring resolve this issue?
Sometimes it goes away for a while, but once that response is
established, it's always there, waiting to be retriggered.
It will not be resolved until it is *resolved.* Ignoring never does
that. From what I've seen, sometimes it is *never* resolved, and the
child becomes an adult, still carrying all those expectations and
developed responses, which then repeat, as relationship issues, for a lifetime.
No. My conclusion, years ago, was that when a child wants attention,
*they need it.* Give them attention. Don't wait for them to act out,
but don't withdraw attention as an attempt to manipulate their
behavior. And that's what the professionals I trust confirm. Classic
behaviorism, which can inclde the "ignore them" advice, does not work
with children who actually need attention! It works with relatively
well-adjusted children who will work out their own problems without assistance.
But a great deal depends on the kind of attention given. With my
children, my approach is always to train them to resolve their own
problems. And then I step back and let them do that. They will fail,
possibly many times, and our hope is always that not too much damage
is done! But they also succeed, and success breeds success.
My children are a challenge, but they are also a deep source of joy
and satisfaction, as I watch them develop and mature. My 11-year-old,
who has been, perhaps, the most "challenged," is now doing things
that the professionals said were impossible for a girl of her age.
"You can't expect her to do that!" I was told. But ... she does it.
Therapists are trained, and the training includes models of childhood
that are correct as to the norm, but not necessarily as to the range.
If I expected my daughter to succeed beyond her age, and blamed her
when she doesn't, that would be, in fact, abusive (and that's what
the therapists want to prevent). But I don't blame her, I just
encourage her to recognize what she did -- and didn't do -- and I
praise her for every honesty and action toward her goals. *She sets
her goals.* And then she fails. *That's normal.* Then what? Learning
to deal with failure without descending into guilt and depression is
a crucial life lesson.
I'm a *trained* father. I've made many of the possible mistakes. But
I try not to repeat them.
