The Cost of Command and Control

Alice Miller, a swiss psychologist and author wrote in her book For Your Own Good: the Hidden Roots of Child Abuse the following "parenting at the turn of the last century recommended, no demanded, that parents break the spirit of their child by the time they were three (3) years old so that they would then be maleable enough to do as the prent asked without question." Break their child's spirit! I can only imagine what was done to children to accomplish that objective.
Closer to home as I read those words for the first time a few years ago I immediately got a heavy sick feeling in my stomach and recalled when those very words were said to me! It was the final day of my three year, hospital based, Nursing training prgram. My last task was to complete an interview with the Director of Nursing who would verify that I had completed the required number of days of training. I was terrified to show up in her office! She and I had had a run in or two over the pevious three years and I was afraid that something would happen in the interview to keep her from signing the paper work I needed in order to write my registration exams. So as I approached her office in my freshly starched uniform and crisp cap shaking inside, I knocked on the door and was told to come in. After a few words she looked at me over her wimple, sisters wore habits in my day that only left their eyes, nose, mouth and chin uncovered, and said these words which I have never forgotten. "I have been a complete failure with you. I did everything in my power to break your spirit over the past three years and I was completley unable to do so." I sat paralysed. I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to that comment so I wisely said nothing. She signed my form, gave me a holy picture with her name on it and I got out of there! Years later, like 25 years later as I read those words in Alice Miller's book I understood what Sister meant that day! What strength and yes guts I had even then without ever realizing it! So 40 years ago command and control was certainly alive and well in my world and the sad thing is it is still alive and present on a daily basis in the lives of many of the children my colleagues and I see every day in our counselling consulting business. We have parents bringing their children to our office so that we can help them "make" their child do what they are told, tow the line and do what they are "commanded" to do with out question. We don't. We know that command and control kills our children. In desperation to have their voice heard our children turn to all kinds of other more risky to their health and well being behaviour....sex, drugs, alcohol, cutting, adrenalline rushes and the like whose purpose is to invite the adults in their lives to to find ways to build a respectful relationship that creates space to hear their many voices. Are we ready? Ready to step beyond what was done to us to create a different world, one that accords children their place the place of their unbounded potential. It is up to us will we step up to the plate? I certainly hope so the alternative is pretty awful.....more gravestones and much more grief enough for everyone.

Voice for Children

Children have rights did you know that? As soon as a child takes their first breath they have exactly the same rights under The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as any other citizen of this country. And Canadian children have even more rights as outlined in The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Children because Canada signed that declaration. Did you know about that? Who enforces those rights on behalf of children? Do those rights keep children safe? Not for one second! Why not? Why don't the lovely words in all those documents keep children safe? What do the words mean in our day to day lives? I would say not much in New Brunswick this past week. Not much for the young child whose mother did nothing while she died an agonizing death from a perforated bowel cause by a mechanical pencil inside her or for the infant who sustained a gash on her forehead so deep the bone could be seen and whose father told a wild story about how it happened. Why can't we as a civilized society, what ever that means, move beyond the behaviour of previous generations. We can't because we are still running the same strategies that our parents did. I agree that we may not know we are running them but we are running them all the same and what I run I own. When we run the same outdated command and control parenting strategy that was "done to us" that we hated, that we vowed we would never do to our kids, if we ever had any kids that is. And yet we are doing the same things. Why? Our children hate it are they trying to get our attention...they are telling us that they hate what we are doing. Are we listening or are we just doing the same things our parents did to us...sending them to their room without supper, yelling at them, grounding them, threatening them or in the utter out of control frustration of the moment "cuffing them on the side of the head" or maybe even worse. And when what we are doing doesn't work we just do it harder, longer and the more out of control we feel the harder we try to control our children. How much louder must our children's message get before we hear it? How many of our children will turn to alcohol, sex, drugs, street gangs or even suicide before we start listening, really listening to our children, the loves of our life, that we birthed and bathed and fed and cuddled and began to turn away from as they developed minds of their own with opinions that differed from ours. That we thought should be seen and not heard the refrain of our parents...the refrain that is killing our kids. The system is broken...don't fix it. It doesn't work. We need a new way to interact with our children a way that begins with us! Not them, us.
"Sometimes your job isn't to reason with your children or to teach them or even to offer them a sterling example or maturity you simply must be with them. That is all it takes." (The Devil's Teardrop. Jeffery Deaver)