Thursday, December 5, 2013

REVISITING THE GUILT TRIP

Photo by Scott Vandehey
How many of us as parents are using various forms of manipulation in the name of Good Parenting?  After all, it’s not those obviously aggressive methods other parents are using: screaming, spanking, threatening, bullying – right?  Since manipulation is defined as “controlling or influencing cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously,” we might want to rethink our use of it.  Especially for those of us who want to help our children develop into responsible, thinking, self-confident adults.  Consider this; the Latin origin of this word is “handful” which is just what we have when we try using these strategies.  And how many parents describe their kids as a handful?
Here are 9 common manipulations that we may recognize as having been used on us.  And which we may unknowingly (or habitually) be using on our kids.

1.   Guilt: “After all I’ve done for you; I can’t believe that you can’t help me.”
2.   Whining: “If you loved me, you would …”
3.   Domination: “Because I’m your father, that’s why!”
4.   Comparison: “Your sister could do this by the time she was your age!”
5.   Intimidation: “Why are you such a baby? You should be able to do this!”
6.   Fear: “Look, if you don’t do this now, you’ll never get another chance! Somebody else will take your place.  Opportunity only knocks once!”
7.   Disappointment: “We’re counting on you to do this. Don’t disappoint us.”
8.   Desire to Conform: “Come on, everyone else is doing it.”
9.   Sarcasm: “No, I didn’t expect you to do your chores…the dog’ll do ‘em this week!”

How much better to ask questions [“Did you really want to say that?” or “What do you think you should do?”], give choices [“Do you want to do homework before or after dinner?], or offer assistance [“Let me know if you need help with that.”].  Take a nice big breath and you’ll find it easier to have these options as opportunities to LET your kid think and grow, rather than to MAKE him obey.

Off the guilt trip and onto the freedom train – or was that the freedom brain?   After all, that’s what we want them to use!  Besides, it ultimately takes more of our energy to try to figure out how to wield a manipulation [then another and another – since they’re seldom really effective], than to breathe and let the child do the thinking for himself.  It’s a win-win.