Thinking Simple

How To Minimise Controlling Interventions

Key Points:

Every controlling intervention comes at a cost
Eliminating them often requires us to go against our natural instincts
Making such a deep rooted change starts with developing a heightened awareness
We need to spot what's causing us to intervene, learn what shapes our children's behaviour and identify the difference between what we're trying to cause and what we're actually achieving
By increasing the quantity and quality of attention we bring to our parenting the change will start to happen without us really noticing

Introduction

In this article I will be focusing on:

The true cost of controlling interventions
What's causing us to make them in the first place - developing a heightened awareness
The first step to eliminating them

Controlling interventions can take many forms. They can be anything from a guiding hand to help steer a child down a busy street to sending them to their rooms in disgrace. Most of them are simple verbal commands:

"Stop that."

"Come and eat your breakfast."

"You can have an ice cream when you've finished your dinner."

"If you don't finish your homework you won't get to watch TV."

"No, I said NO..... Oh, go on then."

"If I have to tell you one more time..."

"Be brave."

"No."

"Be good."

"Mind the ...."

Like weeds, once you start looking, they're everywhere!

Are we doing it because we feel responsible? Because without it things would be chaos? Because it's the way we were brought up? Because it's what's expected of us? Or, because it's all we know?

Is it really possible to imagine a life without them?

"Don't forget you've got your piano lesson after school today."

"Daddy, why are you telling me that? I already know!"

"It was just a reminder."

"I don't need reminders, thank you."

My five year old daughter is so accustomed to living in a world without any form of overt controlling interventions that she's developed an intolerance to anything that even sniffs like one. But, I can forgive her for that.

So yes, such a world is possible. We live in a world without threats, bribes, punishments, commands, protracted negotiations, or even, warnings.

Just about the closest we come to a controlling intervention is "Dinner's ready".

It wasn't always that way. I didn't set out to eliminate controlling interventions. I set out to be the best parent I could be.

There are three things that drove me to eliminate the control:

developing an understanding of the true cost of each intervention
noticing the difference between what I was intending to cause and what I actually achieved
and, to be honest, having a daughter who was allergic to being told, or shown, what to do from the moment she came out of the womb

Ok, ok, to be really honest, it was probably those reasons in reverse order!

The True Cost Of Each Intervention

Before understanding what causes us to intervene and how to eliminate them it's worth reflecting on why we should even take the trouble to do it.

What is actually happening when we issue a command, a threat, or enter a protracted negotiation?

The answer is a great deal is happening. And little, if any, is what we intended.

To explore these unintended consequences, I'm going to pick a really simple, and seemingly innocuous example, just to make the point:

"Come and sit at the table and eat your breakfast"

Innocent enough surely?

But, was it really necessary to issue a command? What's wrong with "Breakfast is ready".

By choosing to issue a command rather than simply giving information for them to act on we are:

Suppressing their free will
Preventing them from developing their own sense of responsibility and control
Establishing, or reinforcing, the idea that eating is something you do because you are told to do it, not because you enjoy it and want to do it
Disregarding what else they may be occupied with at that moment
Risking a reaction
Or, no reaction

As you can see, even if they comply our simple command was damaging.

If they choose not to comply, we are potentially locked in a control battle with the risk of repeated commands, escalation, bribes, threats, punishments and ultimately, loss of respect. Not to mention the negative atmosphere we've created.

Perhaps most important of all is that every command we issue increases the likelihood that we will need to issue commands in future, whereas every time we hand the control to them we increase the likelihood that they will take responsibility in future. It's a classic choice of spiralling up or down that I call 'Give control to achieve control'.

I will explore these topics in more depth in future articles but for now let's just take one more example:

"Hurry up"

Another seemingly innocuous command. What harm can it do?

Well, in addition to the reasons above, it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect to that which we intended.

Young children do not behave in the focused, directed way we do as adults. They are busy controlling their movements, observing the world around them and processing their own thoughts. Landing them with a command just adds to the workload and is likely to either, be ignored, generate resistance, or slow things down.

How often have you told a young child to hurry up and found that things magically happened faster than they otherwise would, leaving everyone in a positive mood? It never happened to me!

Commands truly are a risky business.

Thankfully we should never need to issue them.

The First Step To Heightened Awareness - Examining What Causes Us To Intervene

The first step in any change journey is to create a heightened awareness and with it to increase both the quantity and quality of our attention.

In respect to parenting, that means reflecting on the controlling interventions we're making, the impact they're having and exploring the options we have for doing things differently.

In time you'll ideally need to develop a reflexive ability, that means the ability to observe yourself in the moment and make different choices. It's hard. Reflecting and anticipating are sufficient for now.

The exact reasons why we step in to intervene are many and varied, but they all fall in to one of 4 categories:

Transitions - all parents know that transitions from one activity to the next require careful management, they can be a major source of controlling interventions.
Loss of Respect - respect for our children needs to be freely given, but the unfortunate truth is that it needs to be earned in return. Without it control battles are inevitable.
Stepping In - "mind the ...", "sit up straight", "there's no need to cry", "say please", whether we're trying to be helpful, or trying to control our children's behaviour, the urge to step in is almost impossible to resist.
Misbehaviour - there may be no such thing as an innately naughty child, but there are reasons why they might choose to misbehave.

In the rest of this article I'll take each category in turn and expand on what is causing us to issue controlling interventions and where to go next to learn how to avoid them.

Accepting Responsibility

Hopefully we can start to recognise and categorise the interventions we are making, but how are we going to reduce or eliminate them?

The first step is to recognise that the need for intervention almost always stems from us as parents, not from our children. It can be a hard one to get your head around at first.

Then, we need to develop alternatives.

All of this is covered elsewhere in the related articles. If you're interested please choose another article and keep reading.

Remember, children are people too. If you wouldn't do it to an adult, don't do it to a child.

Created 22/11/2018

Last Updated 22/11/2018

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