Behavioural and emotional self-control is a learned skill.

Every kid has different wiring, and a different personality, driven by different urges, different anxieties and different needs.Left unregulated, these little bundles of assorted tropisms can howl around into nasty little uncontrolled feedback loops in various situations - and those loops are what we call 'misbehaving'.When their hot buttons are hit, their needs aren't met or they short-circuit on short-term rewards, they very often end up in a cycle of behaviour that only makes the situation worse.Some act out, some lock up, some get angry, some lose motivation and stop caring; there's a hundred different ways for this shit to go wrong. Sometimes the cycles are small, short and furious (like a toddler tantrum), sometimes they're big and slow (like avoiding school subjects they're bad at)This certainly isn't limited to children; all humans fuck up in similar ways (eating your feelings because you're sad about being fat, anyone?), it's just that kids are prone to more frequent, more severe and more avoidable fuckups because they have no shock absorbers.They're all tight-wound springs and no padding whatsoever. They're completely reactive; put them in a situation they can't cope with, and you're in for one hell of a bumpy ride.No kid is exempt from this - it's the price we pay for our extreme flexibility and adaptability. Damping down a specific personality's wild oscillations requires custom-built, personally-tuned coping mechanisms - a generic off-the-shelf solution couldnt possibly cover all the differences between us.If your kid seems naturally chill and easy-going, it's because the situations that set them off and the ones they regularly encounter don't intersect much. Luck of the draw, really.So in order to damp this shit down, they need to develop their own custom coping skills, pretty much from scratch.They have to learn how to control their emotional responses and implement the whole social-contract thing, from the ground up.It's a learned skill like riding a bicycle, reading, using a fork or drawing. It's not built-in - as with all skills, it requires practice, feedback, guidance and teaching in order to master.And the point, dear friends, of this long ranty screed, is very simple:Effective guidance and teaching of a skill does not consist of being an asshole to the student when they get it wrong.Imagine someone making their kid stand in the corner every time they fell off their bike.Imagine taking their possessions away every time they got a word wrong.Imagine yelling in their face if they couldn't pick up their spaghetti.Imagine grabbing them and fucking hitting them, because that's not what a bird looks like.Lost track of your long division? No TV for a week!Seriously, what the actual fuck, right?Not only would you call CPS on that motherfucker in a heartbeat, you'd want to yank them out of the gene pool for their amazing stupidity alone.Give them no help, teach them no techniques, don't show them how to gracefully recover when things go pear-shaped, just sit there thinking up ways to make them feel shitty for trying and failing.JUST EXACTLY HOW WELL DO YOU EXPECT THAT TO WORK, ASSHOLE?Oh, but I have to, or they'll never l...BULLSHIT.But how else am I supposed to teach them?I DONT KNOW, FRANKLY YOU COULD DO A BETTER JOB JUST WAVING BROCCOLI IN THEIR GENERAL DIRECTION; AT THE VERY LEAST YOU WOULDNT BE TEACHING THEM TO RESENT AUTHORITY.Are you still shouting?YES.Any other skill, and everyone's right there on the same page with me. But social skills, some of the most complex and nuanced skills your child will ever need to learn? Ha! Hell with 'em, just use a bigger hammer.Fuck everything about that.Your job as a parent is to break the cycle in the short term, then teach them the skill of doing better next time. You're there as a source of emotional resources and motivation. It's frustrating and exhausting, but that's the game, same as every other kind of teaching.So my dear, dear friends of /r/parenting, I beg you: next time you write a post starting with "How should I punish", or "appropriate consequences for", or similarly weasel-worded shit, take a long, hard look in the mirror until the urge goes away.Then take a deep breath, calm down and ask what resources your child needs and what skills they need to practice so this doesn't happen next time.They fell off their bike; help them up, fix their owies, work out why they fell and teach them to balance better.That's your job. I know it's hard, but you can do it.And as a bonus - they actually get much better at it, much faster, once you start teaching with a constructive approach.It's all win here, seriously. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2a0h1X5