|
Perspective Newsletters
Fall 2002
PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN AND THE ISSUE OF CONTROL
Page 2
"I don't want to tell Terrell that he has detention
tomorrow. Could we just call it getting special help with his studies?"
"I don't tell Kerry when Jeff calls her. I don't think he is a good influence and
I don't trust Kerry to make good decisions."
"Rather than get into a fight with Mark (my son), I hide my car keys."
"Well, what do you expect me to do? Anthony is 17 years old and bigger than me!"
"Terry is only 11, but just to keep the peace, I usually just give in to him."
"We are really having a crisis at home. John curses at me and threatens my husband.
I am sure he is getting high. All I could do is put him out on the street and then
I would worry about him getting killed."
I cannot even guess how many times I have heard these comments and many more like
them from parents. Yet, I have never been able to offer a simple standard piece of
advice. Children and adolescents do not always conform to their parent's wishes,
and this is putting it mildly. Some children really do get out of their parents' control.
There are many, many reasons and circumstances that contribute to situations between
parents and their children in which a child is pretty much out of control. One of
the common themes is absent or severely compromised parental control.
When the parent realizes - or not - that they are bargaining with their child, when
they feel like they are walking on eggshells around their child, when they have to
approach decisions about their child's actions carefully for fear of what the consequences
might be, and/or when a parent accepts that they cannot simply tell their child 'NO' and
expect them to change their behavior, serious control has been compromised. Parents
have lost important and necessary control. This happens for many reasons. One reason
has to do with the parent's own experience with control, power and authority.
Parents learn how to parent from being parented. We take from our experience those
parts of parenting we appreciated and apply them to the parenting of our own children.
We exclude those parts of our experience that we do not feel were beneficial. However,
as most parents will tell you, this is never enough. This is only the start, an idealized
model of parenting which is usually close to fantasy. We are going to be even better
parents than our parents. We would do some things much better and we would never
do some things. We are going to be close to perfect. Yet faced with the hurdles of
raising children, we are humbled. Can we even be adequate parents becomes the reality.
Control is one of the central variables involved in parenting and in this transformation
from the fantasy, idealized parent role to the more realistic, 'learn as you go' young
parent.
With parenting comes the opportunity or at least the occasion to deal with power
over another. Everyone has been affected in one way or another by control and authority
and everyone seemingly has a different take on how they will respond to and internalize
these issues - on the job, with others and then, in the instance of parenting, with
their very own flesh and blood. The resolution and residual consequences of their
own authority conflicts with their parents play heavily in the development of authority
in the young parent.
For many young parents, this typically brings up a dilemma. For a good proportion
of our society, power or control over another is simply undesirable. For the young
parent striving to achieve an idealized parental role, trying to be as good a parent
as they possibly can be, in their mind, they want to be able to talk and reason with
their child about everything. Simply telling a child 'NO' should be a last resort.
If there is a good relationship, a strong and meaningful parental bond, would a parent
ever have to be authoritative? Doing so would be admitting defeat and a sudden dissolution
of the idealized model parent. Love, trust, open communication, and honesty should
be enough for almost any occasion between a parent and a child. Only abusive, angry,
power-hungry, uncaring and/or tyrannical parents start with 'No'.
Unfortunately, idealized parental roles are great targets but we all fall a little
short. Unfortunately also, there are parents who can be abusive, tyrannical, uncaring
or maybe just ill-equipped to deal with the demands of parenting. Unfortunately,
control, power and authority are loaded issues for most of us, not easily dealt with
and not totally understood with vast amounts of personal insight. Parents equate
power, control and authority with the uncaring or even abusive parent. Yet good parenting
requires parents to be in control, to be the authority. When life and death are concerned,
who should be the authority: the child or the parent? The parent delighting in seeing
her baby crawl around the floor for the first time, next has to deal with the electrical
outlets and the eventuality of little fingers and metal objects finding their way
into these outlets. The young father proudly walking his preschooler to the bus pick
up has to worry about the boy chasing a bug or ball into the street.
Confronted with these scenarios, the effective parent learns quickly that saying
'NO' with authority is part of the baggage of being an effective parent. They learn
that in order to protect their child's life, they need to hold the power. The child
has to know that when the parent says 'NO', that they must stop whatever it is they
are doing, immediately and without doubt or hesitation. The child's life is at stake.
At this intersection, the first insult to the idealized parent occurs. There was
no magic moment of insight on the child's part by which they submit to external power
openly, knowingly and willingly, and it may have hurt the parent to accept this.
The parent may realize that he or she has become, if only in part, that which they
pledged years ago not to become.
The next juncture occurs when the parent realizes that for other reasons besides
life and death, he or she must assume power and control over the child. Parents want
their children to socialize along certain lines. They cannot fight with their siblings,
they cannot only eat ice cream and they have to go to bed at a certain time. These
parenting assignments are not the child's responsibility and again cannot be dealt
with democratically. The parent has to act in the child's interest including making
decisions for the child even against their will. This certainly does not mean that
the good parent is not trying to explain their reasons for their action, but simply
that they are guided first and foremost to provide for the child.
A parent may discover at this point that there are some psychological reasons for
them to exercise authority and control over their children. Their children need to
trust them starting with the 'big stuff' and the routine testing. Do the parents
care enough to make the tough decisions? Do the parents care enough that they will
'hang in there with me despite myself, despite my challenges, despite how hard I
may make it'? Even more importantly, do the parents care enough to confront their
own internal conflicts with power and authority in light of raising their child as
best they can? Can they deal with their own conflicts with personal values, the now
shattering of the idealized parental image? It may seem like it is all gone, like
they have surrendered such a personal piece of themselves, when a parent now says
'No' in response to teenage issues of dating, school behavior, playing sports, or
to issues of character. These decisions are now removed from life and death and from
necessary developmental concerns. These issues go to character and the child's values
and socialization. This is chosen intrusion and not needed intervention, or is it?
Parents love their children. Following this, they put their own needs, wants, fantasies,
even lives behind those of their children. Parents learn, to varying degrees, to
accept parental control and, at varying levels, to exercise parental authority throughout
their child's beginning years. Yet the evolution of parental control is a very individual
experience and can be quite problematic. Children do not readily accept parental
control. Children, throughout their childhood, challenge parental control. And, as
with most developmental concerns, development is usually uneven. Good parental control
is achieved and then backsliding happens. Good parental control is lacking and is
a bear to achieve during the teenage years. Good parental control is frequently interrupted
by significant life events such as a death, a sudden change in the family, a new
sibling, a divorce, a move, maybe a change on the parent's part, not to mention that
parents come in couples and approach parenting unique to one another, and that a
perhaps limitless amount of special circumstances will challenge the parent's use
of control in a healthy, even and caring manner. I presented parental control (and
power and authority) as I have as a unique dynamic and as a matter of development
for parents. Healthy parents take on parental control as good and necessary and characteristically
wrestle with control internally and in practice with their children. When and if
a parent gets to the point that they are fearful of parental control, feel they have
lost parental control and cannot regain it, and/or, for whatever reason, cannot justify
the use of parental control, then something major in parenting needs repair.
It is not normal, it is not healthy for either the child or the parent, and it is
not in the child's interest for a parent to avoid or surrender needed control. Something
is wrong and things do go wrong.
If for some reason you find yourself without the ability to access necessary parental
control, please do not surrender or become immobilized. Even when they are 18, children
need their parents to be able to protect them from themselves, to help them grow
up and do the right thing and to care about them enough to wrestle through control
issues with them. This does not mean parents should be abusive, totally authoritative
or simply bossy because it is easy. This means that, as most parents realize, taking
control when needed and doing so with genuine concern and positive regard is loving
a child. Without parental control when it is needed, the likelihood of serious characterological
and social problems is high. Please get in touch with these issues and please accept
help if needed in restoring good parental control. When our children become parents,
they very well may reflect upon us with a level of insight knowing that most children
need a good dose of healthy parental control to get them to the place where they
can be healthy parents for others, and this is just one of the circles involved in
life. Parental control is certainly not everything, just a piece of fabric that binds
parents, their children and all the rest of us.
Ed Schultze, Ed.D.
President/Executive Director
Lincolnia Educational Foundation, Inc.
|
|
|
