I`m currently a college teacher but I`ve worked in many different environments and kinds of jobs, including an extensive amount of family counseling. Beyond that, I`ve always been a student of human behavior. It seems to me that the road of human behavior has a fork in it and everyone travels down one path or the other.
I`m suggesting there are only two basic orientations that determine how we interpret life and how we should behave toward others. The fork in the road is severe and the two paths not only diverge, they can become diametrically opposed to each other. Now this is only my opinion, but this is my article so I`m entitled. Please, bear with me.
One path is hard and gets harder the longer one lives and the farther one travels down that path. This is the path that leads to a bitter end with few friends and estranged children and family members. On this path, the traveler tends to interpret all of life as unfair and other people as uncaring and insensitive to this traveler. This is a path of anger, frustration, and bitterness.
The other path is perhaps more difficult and more challenging but it is the path that allows its traveler to rest his or her head in peace at night. It is also the path that contributes to happy and secure children and long term successful families.
The first path is that of a punitive orientation toward life. The second path is a supportive orientation.
The Punitive Path - An Example
The punitive person may be operating under the best of intentions. It is likely they are reproducing the parenting style to which they were subjected in childhood.
The punitive parent believes that the best way to motivate his or her children to do well is to punish them when they don`t live up to the parent`s expectations.
The punishment is usually in the form of harsh criticism. An example would be something like, "You throw like a girl." One that my wife was hit with when she was a girl was, "I bet you think you`re pretty." Try training a dog like that and you get a vicious animal or one whose spirit is broken. Neither one can interact socially with humans or other dogs.
The punitive person majors on the minors. Little issues escalate into a family war. I can demonstrate this motivation by writing about a couple I tried to help with family counseling. They were both in their early thirties and had two boys aged about nine and eleven at the time. They believed the way to raise their boys was to lay down strict rules and never budge. For example, household chores were a big thing in their family. In fact, it seemed like their whole strategy of raising the boys was household chores.
They thought a strong work ethic would keep the boys out of trouble and could not see deeper into the parenting paradigm. My counseling to them was that this was not only insufficient for good parenting, but that the boys would resist this and find ways to punish parents who reduced parenting to the role of drill sergeant. When the boys were old enough to leave home they did and quickly became estranged from their parents. The older boy punished his very religious parents by getting involved in drugs and alcohol and hanging with the wrong crowd. He died a few years ago in a car crash.
This is an extreme example but I`ve seen this pattern played out over and over again. I can`t count the number of times I`ve seen a young lady punish a father by becoming sexually active with the specific kind of people the father spoke out against during her upbringing. The supportive orientation is in many ways 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
The Supportive Path
The supportive path is not one of rolling over and agreeing with everything our kids want. It requires and demonstrates real strength, not the appearance of strength offered by the punitive path. This orientation requires a real relationship with our children, one of listening and thinking deeply about their strengths and weaknesses, their gifts, and their orientations toward life.
The supportive parent believes that the best way to motivate their children to do well is to praise and encourage them when they do well and cultivate positive behavior and traits.
The supportive parent goes beyond rules and equality. Treating your children equally is often not fair at all. Think about that one for a minute. Each child is unique and has a different set of strengths and weaknesses from his or her sibling. The supportive parent studies each child and gives each one what they need so that all of them thrive and are ultimately happy. Please allow me to give a brief personal example.
We had a boy and a girl. I learned early on that our son could be corrected easily by a word or two more than that broke his spirit. The way into our daughter required much more communication and the time necessary to interact and talk through the issue so that she understood. If she understood, she complied and everything was cool. They both came to the same end state which is true equality but by different treatments. That is equity and it is not easy.
Switching Paths
There are very few times in my counseling and teaching careers that I`ve seen anyone able to switch from the punitive path to the supportive path. I`d say if you can clearly place yourself on the punitive path there is hope for you. If none of my brief description of the punitive orientation resonates with you, you are either on the supportive path or there is little hope for you unless you choose to be very objective and ask the people who know you best which path you are on.
However, if you can identify strongly with the supportive path and can point out instances in which you made a choice to deny the punitive solution to a problem and went the extra mile to be supportive, you are probably a supportive person in your orientation to life and others.
I apologize for this being such a brief treatment of an important topic but ask you to please meditate on the two paths to save years of grief and ensure a life of no regrets with your family. Live long and parent well!
Jacob has been writing articles for several years and focuses on learning and teaching and on effective parenting. He is also a math guy so he loves his gadgets. Check out his site about an Electronic Notepad and a Smart Pen to you save you time and effort by producing both a digital copy and a hard copy of your notes and sketches.
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