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| Two views of path to parent success | |
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offer guidance on discipline The problem with parents these days: They are a) wimps or b) tyrants. The choices are stark. But they get to the crux of two popular takes on discipline problems in American families, and to two new books that would like to add a third option to those multiple-choice questions: c) none of the above. In ``Take Back Your Kids: Confident Parenting in Turbulent Times,'' author Bill Doherty makes his case that parents' biggest failing now is abdicating their role as heads of their families. The result is children with an oversized sense of entitlement, children who are rude -- sometimes downright intimidating -- in their demands. In ``Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime,'' author Mary Sheedy Kurcinka concentrates instead on the damage when parents leap too quickly into an ``enforcer'' mode. The result is children who think that force is the way to handle all human affairs. It's hard for anyone to like them -- including themselves. A careful reading of these two books -- Kurcinka's published in January and Doherty's in March -- shows that both authors see the best-of-all-possible-worlds' parents are pretty much the same: mothers and fathers who have mastered both sensitivity and authority. But their books are different. And they join store shelves full of parenting books that do take extreme stands: either get-some-backbone or embrace-all-feelings, a contradiction that often leaves parents scratching their heads -- or worse, vacillating between the two. Sense of alarm ``The question is, what war are we fighting now?'' Doherty, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota, asked in a recent interview. ``My suggestion is that many parents who have gotten the cultural message that we need to be sensitive . . . now need to learn to set limits.'' ``I don't want to be an alarmist,'' he wrote in the book, ``but a sense of alarm is hard to avoid. Loving, concerned parents have lost their balance. There is reason to worry about the adults our children will become.'' The problem, Doherty says, is that families have patterned themselves after the ``consumer culture'' they live within. Parents see their children as the consumers, and themselves as the providers of services. The analogy plays out in all kinds of ways, he said. In a marketplace, companies are devoted to finding out what the customers want and then providing it, he said. And in a marketplace, the customer is always right. In the book, Doherty tells the story of a mother frantic at a department store because the Pokémon video game her son wants is sold out. She asks the clerk to write her son a letter to that effect, on store stationery, because he'll be upset and ``he'll never believe me.'' Doherty also wrote of a 17-year-old boy who said to his parents, ``Why should I mow the lawn? It's not my lawn.'' Yielding power In these households, all power and no responsibilities are in the children's hands, he said. These children are never taught that they have obligations to contribute to their families and communities. Doherty also faults the ``therapeutic culture'' that similarly has invaded homes from the world outside. The deluge of pop psychology books has parents convinced they should treat children as a professional therapist would: tirelessly, selflessly attentive; and willing to overlook even the most disrespectful treatment in the interests of engaging the child. But what's right for the professional is not right for the parent, Doherty said. He tells the story of a 3-year-old boy who kicked his mother. ``It hurts Mommy's feelings when you kick Mommy,'' she told her son. ``Which, of course, is exactly what he wanted,'' Doherty said. ``She could not even stand up and say, `You don't ever kick me.' '' By contrast, the preferred approach in Kurcinka's book is precisely to examine the feelings behind a family conflict. The technique is called ``emotion coaching.'' ``On the surface, power struggles look and feel like a tug of war,'' Kurcinka, an early childhood educator, author and lecturer in Eagan, Minn., said in a recent interview. ``But in my experience they are really about the feelings and needs of kids, and parents need to get to those.'' Children need lessons in feelings every bit as much as in reading and writing, Kurcinka said. And the evidence is clear: Children who learn to recognize and handle their own feelings -- what some call ``emotional intelligence'' -- cope better with life's ups and downs; develop better friendships; and master many more challenges, from playing the piano to advancing their careers. |
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