I’m here to write fiction, but I’ll include non-fiction here.
Doing vs Being—Originally written June 14, 2011
Recently, I was on a plane and overheard a woman say to her daughter, who was about 8 years old, “Honey, you’re just not smart enough yet to understand it all.” I have no idea what they were talking about, but I do know that Mom made her comment tenderly and sweetly, as if she were trying to diffuse a building conflict. It worked. The girl relented and as far as I could hear, didn’t say another word.
There are a lot of times during the course of raising our children when we say things that we know will end an argument or a period of questioning. We have to. There are limits to our time and to our patience that have to be honored, and lessons about those limits which our children have to learn in order to become functional adults. My eavesdropping, however, caused me to reflect on the ways that we do that—on the ways that I make those conversation ending statements—and because of it, I want to share some thoughts with you. These apply not only to kids, but to employees or contractors or anyone else who we are trying to sway to our control.
My point of reference is based in nearly 30 years of managing people on one level or another. It began in college, working for Boys and Girls Clubs and trying to control dozens of kids all trapped in a game room, and progressed throughout my life until today when, among other things, I run a company with hundreds of employees and 30+ managers who report to me.
This is a very simple idea, but one that most people don’t keep in the fronts of their minds.
When you correct someone, whether it is to discourage something that they are doing or to encourage something that they are learning to do, talk only about their behavior and not about them.
The difference may not be easy to grasp at first so I’ll use my overheard conversation on the plane as an example. The mother told her daughter that she was not smart enough to understand. That comment speaks not to what the girl was doing—asking about something that the mother either couldn’t or didn’t want to explain—but about the girl and her mental capacity. The message was “You’re not smart,” not “Your question is inappropriate.”
Especially with our children, it’s difficult sometimes to remember or even to accept that we are not trying to change the person, we are trying to change what they are doing. It’s driven in part by cultural bias—we have been taught and tend to accept that describing personal traits is part of describing behavior. We do it in both positive and negative situations—“My kid is so athletic. He scored twice in Friday’s game,” or “My kid is really undisciplined. He forgot his homework again today.” Teachers, doctors, other parents, etc. surrounding us perpetuate the idea that behavior is linked necessarily to personality or talent when in fact it’s not. Athletic kids sometimes don’t score in games. Undisciplined kids often remember homework.
Focusing on changing behavior without including comments about the “person” does a couple of things. First, it creates an opportunity for success. If you tell your child “I don’t want you to hit your sister anymore,” you can celebrate in small ways (stickers, extra story time, or even just pats on the back) every day that the sister goes un-hit. It’s an easy goal to understand and to pursue, and an easy thing for you to reinforce. In contrast, if you say “I don’t want you to be mean with your sister anymore,” the direction is much vaguer. What if I think that hitting is justified, not mean? What if I continue to hit her, but in the arm instead of the face? And how can you, as a parent, reinforce me? How do you know, and how do I know, when I am no longer mean?
Secondly, and way more importantly for our kids, when we address their personalities—their “selves” instead of their behaviors, they tend to accept what we’re telling them as fact even if we don’t mean it that way. I inherited a tendency from my father, when I am under parental stress, to ask “What’s WRONG with you?” I don’t mean it—our children are as close to perfect as is possible—and I kick myself every time I do it. I knew I had to break the habit a few years ago when, in one of those moments of parental bewilderment and frustration, I asked it of my son and he replied, shoulders shrugging and eyes focused on the floor in defeat “I don’t know. “ Suddenly, I realized that I had made him think that there was something wrong with him, something broken that made it impossible for him to do things properly, and I realized that if I didn’t take immediate action to explain that I didn’t mean what I said, he might go through the rest of his life accepting the idea that he could not perform at a high level because there was something “wrong” with him.
The same potential exists for many of the hundreds of things that we say as parents and that we don’t mean literally. “You’re a bad boy/girl.” “Why are you so loud?” “You are getting on my nerves.” Etc. All of these things speak to the child as a person, not to what they’re doing. If we change them to “What you did was a bad thing.” “Stop yelling!” and “Please stop doing what you’re doing because I am becoming frustrated,” we change the entire dynamic of the situation. The child doesn’t feel personally attacked and so is more likely to comply, he/she has a clear objective to work toward and leaves the situation knowing that the behavior is unacceptable, not that they are unacceptable.
I will admit, in some cases it is the child in general and not a specific behavior that is at issue. Some days, kids just wake up squirrely or mean or mischievous. I suppose we all do, but as adults, we can control our outward behavior better. Nonetheless, it is important to focus on the behavior. Sit the kid down and ask “What’s going on with you today? I’ve noticed that you are doing _____more than usual. How come?” it doesn’t really matter what the answer is—making them aware that something has triggered their overall behavior teaches them to step back and to realize that their emotions are driving how they’re acting. No one wants to be “bad,” or “annoying,” and so over time, they’ll learn to control what their emotions are driving them to do.
I’ll also concede that reinforcing positive traits is good for kids—telling them that they’re smart, and attractive, and kind and etc. is extremely important and should be done as often as you can think about it. Just don’t do it when you’re actually trying to get them to do something different. “You’ve been practicing!” holds a lot more value and is much more to the point when your child counts to 10 by themselves for the first time than “You’re so smart!” They may be smart, but reinforcing the practice, the study, the repetition is the behavior that will stay with them a lifetime.
The point is simple. I am 46 years old, and I know that I am a good writer, charming, good looking, smart, lazy, clumsy, cold (as in emotionally shallow) and un-artistic. I know these things because my parents told me so when I was a kid during their efforts to guide my behavior. Even now, even though I haven’t lived with them for nearly 30 years, I am surprised when people have contrary opinions about me, and am still sure, even though I have heard many hundreds of times people talk about how sloppy my writing is or how industrious I am, that they are wrong and that what I know to be true about myself is the truth. I’m sure that my parents never intended to label me or to form my self-opinions—certainly not the negative parts—but they did. Whether it has worked out well or not is immaterial. What’s really important is that, because I have always believed that I am un-artistic, I have never pursued art and for all anyone knows, I might be the next Picasso. Maybe if my drawing behavior had been addressed and engaged instead of my innate ability, I would have had more confidence to pursue art more aggressively. Maybe, instead of writing all of this, I would have painted a picture to express it. Maybe, at the very least, I would draw more with my kids and as a result, maybe one of them would become the next Picasso.
Try to talk to your kids and to anyone else who you might be an authority to about what they’re doing, not who they are. No one knows where it might lead in the long run.