1) How does John know he’s gay? He didn’t date any girls in high school.
Maybe the REASON he didn’t date any girls in high school is BECAUSE he’s gay.
JOHN knows he’s gay. All his friends know he’s gay. His parents are the only one who somehow didn’t notice.
2) A kid falls off a roof and has a seizure. Maybe. Or possibly the kid had a seizure and therefore fell off the roof.
It’s hard to know what came first.
3) A kid has bad behavior, won’t pay attention in class, doesn’t do his homework. There is conflict in the home. Mom hires a tutor. Kid reluctantly goes to the expensive lessons, doesn’t pay much attention. Dad insists on a therapist. Kid skips as many therapy meetings as he attends. Kid refuses to study, gets bad grades. Home is an unrelenting series of nagging and lying: “Do you have any homework?” “No, there’s no homework and anyway I already did it.”
If only we could get him to study, mom laments. If only his sense of himself were better. Then he would be on the honor roll.
I doubt it. I don’t think you CAN get him to study. And if he did study, he wouldn’t learn much or perform much better.
There’s another false conclusion: if he were on the honor roll, then he would feel better about himself.
Nah. If he felt better about himself, then he might be on the honor roll.
I think that there is something about this kid’s brain that makes it hard for him to attend. Maybe he has an attention issue; maybe he has trouble with executive functioning; maybe he learns differently; maybe he’s just not as smart as his parents think he is; maybe he’s sensitive and can’t handle the pressure.
But no kid EVER in has woken up in the morning and said, “I have an idea: let me be a pariah to my family. I’ll PRETEND not to understand. I’ll REFUSE to pay attention. I will deliberately get bad grades and fight with my parents morning, noon, and night.”
Here’s the silliest explanation of all: he’s doing poorly to attract negative attention.
Negative attention? I don’t even know what that is. He’s calling out in class and acting out because he wants negative attention? No. He’s acting out in class because he doesn’t understand what’s going on and he’s bored screaming out of his mind.
When you see bad behavior think “can’t” rather than “won’t.” Of course “won’t” can metastasize and take on a life of its own. “Won’t” can become so overwhelmingly cogent and present that the original “can’t” can be hard to find.
How do we avoid the enormous “won’t” from a 17 year old? Easy. By taking our children at their word when they’re little, by considering “can’t” as the default explanation. Believe your child when he says something makes him uncomfortable. Believe IN your child when she says that she isn’t ready to accomplish some task.
When your 17-year-old son says he’s going to smoke pot, run away, quit school, make every bad decision in the book, your parental options are limited. Tough love may be the best decision available but tough love is the nuclear weapon of parenting. You may win the war but the collateral damage will be high. “My kid is no longer addicted to benzodiazepines–five years, three stints in rehab, and a quarter of a million dollars later.”
Surely a lesser cost could have been paid earlier when the stakes were lower. When your child says, “I’m not ready” take her at her word. If she can’t find her shoes or doesn’t want to learn how to swim, wait a bit. She won’t walk down the aisle barefoot. And yes, she needs to learn how to swim, but if she learns how to swim on Tuesday rather than Monday it’s unlikely that she will drown is that 24 hour interval. And in the meantime, you have communicated to your kid that you are sensitive to her sense of herself and her relationship to the world, that you trust her judgment and you trust her.
Because time is on your side. Because development is your friend just as a healthy plant depends on sunshine to grow up healthy and strong. And erring on the side of nurture is the way to avoid confusion later on.
Here’s the last “which came first” for this week: my child acts out, that’s why I don’t trust him. Nah. You don’t trust him that’s why he acts out. Or stated positively: I trust my child and believe in her. That’s why she is such a pleasure to be around. Nope. Your child is great BECAUSE you trust her and believe in her.
It’s not that hard to get the direction of the causal arrow pointed the right way. A little thought and a lot of nurture is all is takes.
