Positive parenting today at Live On Purpose TV. Teaching kids responsibility. Positive.. Oh big surprise, right? You’re going to get some positive parenting from Dr. Paul today. Years ago, I created a program called parental power. I’ve had a lot of requests to send out that CD which was discontinued a few years ago, I apologize for that, we’ve got a new program coming, watch for that.
Positive parenting, how do we do that? I think the first thing is to understand the dynamics that happen between control and maturity so this is the content from that parental power CD set that I used to do. You’re getting it right now, okay.
We’re going to start with control and maturity. Control means control over your own life. So you can have zero control or a hundred percent control or somewhere in between and it’s usually somewhere in between. Now this goes for you, it goes for your kids, just think control over your own life.
Now on the other axis, we’ll put maturity. Maturity is a complicated issue but the most common way we think about maturity is in terms of age so think of it as starting at birth and going through adulthood. Now it gets exciting when we compare these two dimensions together, when we put control up against maturity and see what happens.
When you’re first born, how much control do you have over your own life? Right, well not quite zero because you can make a big noise in a big stink but that’s about it when you’re first born. How much control do you have as an adult?
Now little side note when I ask teenagers how much control the adults have, what do you think they answer? Right, it’s a little different answer from us as adults because we know all the small print but the teenagers will almost always say, oh they have a hundred percent control.
Literal with their idea for just a minute and as we plot the control against the maturity, here’s what happened.. We get a line that divides this space starting low, ending high, so the more and more control you get, depends on how mature you are so the more mature you are, the more control you get. Does that make sense? This part under the line is the part you get for yourself, the part over the line is the part other people take in your life.
Now this is true for you and it’s true for your kids. Thinking about your kids for just a moment. How much control do they get to have over their own life? Well, when they’re little babies, they don’t get hardly any. When they’re adults hopefully, they’re in control of their own life by then and and there’s this gradual increase as they grow up.
Okay, so keep that in mind. Now we’re going to take age out of the equation. I want you to think stage, not age, got it? Stage not age. So I’ve divided this graph into three segments and I’ve brilliantly named them stage 1, stage 2 and wait for it, stage
3. Isn’t that brilliant? These three stages represent different stages of maturity or moral development if you want to think about it that way. Stage 1 is the least mature and you’ll see in the graph that stage 1 does not allow for much self-control, most of the control is taken by others.
Stage 2 is kind of a balance, it’s more mature, they get more control. Stage 3 is the most mature of all. Now control is shared almost always, there has to be a hundred percent control, the only question is, who’s going to take that control?
And there’s a lineup for the control. Who gets to have control over your kids for example? Well here’s the lineup, who gets first dibs on the control, always number one in that position is the self. That’s true for you, it’s true for your kids. Self always gets first crack at the control. Who’s second in line? Think about your kids now. Yeah, you are as a parent. Parents are second in line for their kids.
In other words, if the kid can’t take control of their own life, who’s going to do it? The parents are obviously. Who’s third? Yeah, I get a lot of different answers on this one, friends, schools, whatever, right? School is actually closer than friends.
Why? Because third in line is the state, is that a little scary? I mean state agencies like the Division of Child and Family Services, the juvenile court system, the police, friends don’t have the authority or the power to take control.
Sure, they have influence but the state has the authority, whether that’s right or wrong we’re not going to debate today, that’s just how it is. So my preference is that we push that as close to number one as we can. I want to empower those kids in a positive way to take control over their own life. That’s how we teach kids responsibility.
If the kids can’t be in control, my strong preference is that the parents will step up and appropriately in a positive way take control in those kids lives. I don’t want the state showing up, I’ve been in that position before or I’m the guy who had to make the call to get the state involved, that’s not fun so we’re going to push it to number one as close as we can, here’s how we’re going to do it.
First of all, let’s understand what these three stages are. At stage one, it’s all self-centered, it’s all about me me me, what’s in it for me, tends to be very selfish, demanding, manipulative, this is where fighting happens, this is where tantrums occur, does this sounding familiar to anyone?
Yeah, you as parents see this and you can identify it very quickly. This is stage one maturity and remember, it’s not about age, it’s about stage. So could your 13 year old be on stage one? Yeah, absolutely. What if your 17 year old is on stage one? We expect our two-year-old to be there, that’s developmentally appropriate but when these older kids get into stage one, we say that they are immature, right?
Because we expect them to be at a higher level of development. That’s stage one, got it? Now let’s move to stage two. At stage two, we stop fighting and start cooperating, at stage two we don’t want any problems, we want to keep the peace, at stage two we’re willing to negotiate and we’re willing to work out some kind of a win-win solution. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. It’s a very complimentary, very workable stage of development. Are you excited for stage 3? Now let’s look at stage 3.
Stage 3 is where true responsibility kicks in, this is where our behavior is driven by morals and ethics and values, it’s where we actually do the right things for the right reasons. Stage 3 is where initiative kicks in. Initiative is where you see what needs to be done and you do it, you don’t even have to be asked.
Stage 3 is this amazing stage where you get to have a whole lot of control over your own life. Now can you correctly identify those three stages in your own kids or is the case maybe in yourself? Let’s watch out for that too but in your kids, let’s say that you’ve got a 13 year old kid, okay.
What stage is that person on? Ha! Trick question. It’s not about age, it’s about stage. Any kid of any age could be in any of these stages. 13 years old, you’d expect him to be reasonably mature, right? So what if I approach my 13 year old, we’ll call him Ber Fleur. Hey, Ber Fleur, would you please take out the garbage?
Now if Ber Fleur is on stage 1, what kind of a response am I going to get? We’d be glad you’re slave? Nobody else ever asked to do anything around here, it’s always me. Why are you always picking on me? This isn’t fair, I want another family or it might be more subtle.
Whatever, I don’t even know what that means deal. Either way at stage 1, he’s not going to cooperate. Okay, what if he’s on stage 2? Hey, Ber Fleur, would you take out the garbage? Yeah, okay. Or he’s not happy about it.. Fine and then he does it with heavy feet, you know, so you hear every step as he comes out to take out the garbage but he’s going to cooperate, that’s the key at stage 2. What if he’s on stage 3?
Hey, Ber Fleur, would you take out the garbage? Dad, I already did that. I know that it goes out every Thursday. Is there anything else I could help you do today? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Kids can figure this out and when they do, guess what? Their parents want to give them more control, meaning freedom, right? Now why does this work?
Because what do kids want? They want freedom, okay. That’s written up on our graph as control. They want control. What do parents want? Now I asked kids this and they say, “Oh my parents want to control my life.” I’m looking at mom or dad over there and they’re like, “I got too much to do. I wish they would control their life so I don’t have to.”
Parents don’t want control, parents want maturity, don’t they? Yeah, that means we’ve got a deal in the making because kids can have control and parents are happy to give it to him if kids will give their parents maturity. See how true that is? And kids understand this too. The positive parenting approach to teaching kids responsibility has to do with understanding these three stages so that you can do the right thing as a parent.
Now there’s three C’s I’m going to share with you as to what your job is as a parent and it depends on what stage your kids are on so if you’re confident that you know, let’s look at stage one first. Consequences, it’s the only thing that works on stage one. Why? Because this is their stage of moral development, this is why they do what they do, it’s all about externalized consequences.
We’ll do some other videos about some of the possibilities for what those might look like. Consequences bleed over to stage 2 but there’s a big difference in the kind of consequences we use at stage 2 versus stage 1 and it has to do with control. At stage 1, you have to use consequences that do not require cooperation. Why? Because you don’t get it until stage 2.
By definition, stage 2 will still use consequences but they can be the kind that require cooperation. You see the difference? And when they move to stage 2, we’ll add communication because now they’re at the stage of development where they can rationally communicate and we can have some conversation with them about the morals or the principles or the purposes behind whatever it is that we’ve asked them to do.
Stage 3, that one’s easy. Consultation, this is where your kids come to you and they ask you for your wise sagely advice and as you share that with them, they say, “Oh, thank you, dear mother, I will do that.” Then they go home to their own five kids.
Now maybe they can learn it before they’re adults. I think they can and I’ve seen many kids do this but the point at stage three is that it’s self discipline so you get to back off as a parent and just allow them to do their thing because they’re at that stage of moral development.
Positive parenting, this is an affirming approach that acknowledges the moral developmental stage of your child and then all you have to do is discern where they are so that you can come in on the top half of that diagram and take however much control is needed;. It’s a great theory to start with our positive parenting.
Wow, what an adventure this parenting thing is. Now with some positive entities, we’ll be able to teach those kids responsibility even better. Share this episode with someone you love.
