Doing the Unexpected
Our children are very smart. They shine the focus of their intelligence on us, their parents. They know more about us than we know about ourselves. Remember: Their desire is to have control and they plan to get it from YOU. Given that this is their goal, can you think of a better subject for their study?
From the moment of birth, the child’s attention is fixed on the parents. We teach them who we are by our talk, our facial expressions, our every gesture. What we don’t say, they pick up from what we do. They know us and know us well. They learn to speak our language and to understand how to elicit every nuance of “our” language. From some point, fairly early on, everything you say or do will be held against you in the “court of adolescence.”
Knowing us so well, our every movement from early childhood on, gets in the way of our teenagers being able to learn from us when we talk or provide consequences for their behaviors. In order to create a cause for pause, a moment when they are once again alert to our message, we must do the unexpected.
Everyone of us learns quickly in times of stress. Finding ourselves in an unexpected predicament creates the stress that fosters learning. What does that mean for us as parents?
Be sure when your child pushes the button for the fourth floor, that the elevator stops on the second floor. If the child is expecting a ride to the second floor, make sure she arrives at the sixth floor. Rewire your buttons so that you can respond outside your “regular” stops. While you are stopped in a location your child never expected to be, you have the interested, inquiring attention of your child once again. You have a brief but valuable “teachable moment.”
