I was sitting at the library the other day at a table outside the “quiet” area trying to work on new articles for this very blog. It was a Saturday morning and there was a dad there with his two young daughters. They had just finished story time and were preparing to leave. For a half-an-hour, while I tried to write, one of the little darlings ran back and forth in front of the tables while the dad continued to say…
Come on, you know what he said, right?…
“Isabelle, you come here right now. I mean it! “
Of course Isabelle, who was about 4, had no intention of coming and had no doubt that dad, in fact, did not mean anything of the sort. For a half-an-hour she ran around, hiding and disrupting anyone who had come to the library for reasons other than to watch a misguided four-year old taunt her father.
At first I was supremely annoyed. You might imagine that such situations drive me up a wall. But then I became sad. And I wasn’t sad for the father, but for a little girl who had learned that with her dad there were no limits. There was no reason to listen, no benefit to doing what he asked. A child raised with this idea usually has a very low self-concept and the feeling that there is no strong person in their life on which they can depend and emulate
This situation made me realize that I talk a lot about consistency my classes. Supernanny, Nanny 911, Dr. Phil, heck every parenting technique I’d ever seen talks about the importance of being consistent. Well, this father was consistent. He was so consistent, in fact, that his daughter had learned she didn’t need to ever listen to him because history had proven to her that nothing would happen if she didn’t.
So, if you’ve got a consistent whiner, a kid that has manners that make you cringe or a mouth that makes you want to weep, look at the negative situation in terms of consistency. When your kid exhibits bad behavior, what is your consistent response?
So, now you know why the blog was late. And why I won’t try to write at the library again. And how I realized that not all consistency is good consistency.