Nov 3, 2014 | trust
Hide and Seek can be fun for kids… but the thrill is in being found. No one wants to stay hidden forever. That means they’ve been forgotten and are not part of the group anymore.
An (admittedly imperfect) analogy can be drawn to hiding our wrongdoing
When adults do something wrong, our temptation can be to hide it. But we quickly learn that the hiding becomes a problem in and of itself.
It cuts us off from our community. It allows our detrimental behavior to continue to harm us. It brings unwanted feelings of shame.
We don’t want this for our children.
Why do children often begin to cover up their wrongdoings?
For one thing, it is usually easy to hide a hurtful wrong, while deciding to reveal it is hard.
For another thing, children are scared of the consequences, especially when that may include punishment in some form. So instead of acknowledging the wrongdoing and exposing themselves to the adult’s potentially negative reaction, their temptation is to hide it.
Also, children sense a breach of relationship when adults get angry or express disappointment in them, making their choice to hide seem like a safer alternative.
What can we as parents or caregivers do to help children navigate these difficult waters well?
The most important action we can take is also the most simple: Show them through modeling. When do children see you admit that you have done something wrong or handled something badly? When have they seen you apologize for your actions?
One dad sometimes gets mad at his kids and yells at them. (Admittedly, they’ve generally done something to provoke that response.) He knows he shouldn’t yell at them, so after he cools down he will come back and apologize to his children. Through this they learn that it’s okay– even good– to be honest about your shortcomings.
The more honest I can be, the less I have to hide…when I have nothing to hide, I have everything to give.
–American singer/songwriter Kenny Loggins
Tweetable: When do children see you admit that you have done something wrong or handled something badly? Click to Tweet
Oct 20, 2014 | Direction
I have noticed that very young children are quite honest and open about their wrongdoing.
A child who is told to stay in the living room and not come into the kitchen will slide one foot into the kitchen and then look at the adult to see what they will do. The child is not hiding what they are doing– it’s more like they are experimenting to find out what will happen.
What the adult does next matters
One little girl saw some pretty headbands with sparkles at a friend’s house where she was playing. As Chloe and her mom were walking home, the mom noticed Chloe holding the sparkly headbands. “Where did you get those?” “From Hannah’s house.” “Did Hannah give them to you?” “No.” So they marched right back and returned the headbands to Hannah and her mother with an apology from Chloe.
What did this little girl learn about wrongdoing and guilt?
- Stealing is wrong. I should not take what doesn’t belong to me.
- When I do something wrong, the way to handle it is to go back and acknowledge what I did.
- The apology should come from me, not from my mother. No one else is responsible for my actions.
- When I admit what I did and apologize, I am forgiven and the relationship is restored.
Incidences of wrongdoing are a valuable learning experience for children. The way the important adults in their lives respond becomes the way the child will respond for the rest of their life when they do wrong.
Imagine this mom had behaved differently. What different lessons might be hard-wired into Chloe’s internal guidance system?
“Did Hannah give them to you?” “No.”
- Response #1: “Oh. Well, I’m sure it’s no big deal. They’re just hair bands.” And they keep walking.
- Lesson #1: Stealing is no big deal. You don’t need to address it. OR: It’s better to not let people know if you’ve done something wrong.
- Response #2: Seeing the hair bands and pretending not to. Saying nothing.
- Lesson #2: This is acceptable behavior.
- Response #3: Taking the child back to return the hair band with the mom apologizing to the other mom.
- Lesson #3: I am not responsible for my actions– my parents are. It brings shame on them when I do something wrong. My parents need to right the wrong, not me.
- Response #4: Yelling at the child, bringing the issue up multiple times, shaming the child in front of others.
- Lesson #4: I am a bad person because I did this. If I do something wrong in the future, I should hide it.
The way the important adults in their lives respond becomes the way children will respond for the rest of their life when they do wrong.
Tweetable: Your reaction to children’s wrongdoing gets hard-wired into their internal guidance system. Click to Tweet
Jul 21, 2014 | Direction
At some point, every child understands a moral directive and does the opposite. This is a defining moment in the child’s life. This is when they (subconsciously) ask us, So what? Why should I do the right thing? What difference does it make? We are keenly aware that we give the answer to these questions by what we do ourselves more than by what we tell them.
Reflect for a moment on why you do the right thing.
Why do you obey traffic laws? Why do you tell the truth? Why do you follow instructions from flight attendants? Why do you file your taxes with honesty?
to avoid unpleasant consequences?- it’s how I was raised
- I draw on spiritual strength
- it gets me more of what I want
- to get to heaven?
- because __ said so (the law, the boss, the church)
When we take time to reflect on the meaning of our choices, we become clear on the direction we are giving children.
Your internal motive for why you do what you do shapes, both directly and indirectly, the framework your child uses to answer, “So what? Why should I?” That message becomes part of their hard-wiring for years to come.
Tweetables:
- At some point, every child hears a moral directive and does the opposite, a defining moment in the child’s life. Click to Tweet
- When we reflect on the meaning of our choices, we become clear on the direction we are giving our kids. Click to Tweet
Jun 9, 2014 | Direction
A child’s need of direction for their human spirit includes acquiring basic ethics to guide the way they live. Part of the role of a caregiver is that of a teacher. We teach morals in the very same way we teach life skills.
If you are teaching a child to clean up the dishes, you don’t say, “How do you feel like this should be done? What seems right to you?”
You show them, you let them try it, you provide corrective feedback, you show them again, you let them try it again, and so on. It’s incredibly repetitive, they often don’t do a good job for quite a while, and it’s certainly more difficult than simply washing the dishes yourself. But that’s how people learn.
As caregivers, we provide children with modeling, direction, and feedback.
We demonstrate patience and a tolerance of mistakes during the learning process, and offer praise when the child makes a good effort or achieves a goal. This is the fun part of directing kids: seeing their excitement when they can show off a new skill, seeing their confidence increase as they say “I can do it!”
And we do it as life unfolds.
We teach right and wrong the very same way as we teach life skills. We keep living in the moment, focused on building character, on strengthening conscience–theirs and ours–as we walk with them through their daily life of schoolwork, recreation, relationships, and lessons.
Tweetables:
- A child’s need of direction for their human spirit includes basic ethics to guide the way they live. Click to Tweet
- We teach children right and wrong the very same way as we teach them life skills. Click to Tweet
