• “Because I said put your boots on, that’s why! It’s snowing
outside.”
• “I’m trying to watch this football game, so be quiet!”The difference between thinking words and fighting words may be
subtle; after all, the limit in each case is the same, but the child’s reaction
is usually different. Kids fight against commands. They see an implied
threat in them. When we tell them to do something, they see our words as
an attempt to take control of the situation. Anytime we usurp more
control, it means that they have less control. They exert themselves to
regain the control they see slipping away.
The Threat Cycle
The temptation is oh so great. We desperately want to assail our kids with
commands and threats to limit their behavior. The reasons are simple:
- Using threats doesn’t make us feel like the wimp we feel like if
we whimper, cry, beg, or plead with our kids. - Threats sometimes work.
In Jim’s early years as a teacher, he frequently used threats to motivate
students to do their work. To one student, he would say, “You get that
work done or you’re not going to lunch,” and the kid’s pencil became an
instantaneous cyclone of activity. To another he would say the same
thing, and the kid would say, “Who cares?” Some kids respond to threats,
and some don’t. They may do as they’re told, but they’re angry with the
person who gave the order. Or they may perform the task in a way that is
unsatisfactory simply to regain some of the control they had taken from
them. In either case, they’re breaking the limit we’re trying to set.
In fact, what really started us on the Love and Logic quest back in the
1970s was an incident that happened to some local teens. Two girls were
caught shoplifting, and both sets of parents handed down the same sets of