Amy, the mother of twelve-year-old Brooke, parents in the “Do what
I tell you to do” style. Amy thinks she should be in control of
everything in her daughter’s life. She controls when Brooke gets up,
when she goes to bed, what kinds of clothes she wears, who her
friends are supposed to be, what grades she is supposed to get, and
how much television she watches.
Parents like Amy, when they come home from a night out,
don’t rush to hug their kids and say, “We missed you.” They
run to the television set and hug it to see if it’s still warm from
being on when it was supposed to be off! Kids will take this
stuff for a while, but eventually they shake off this blanketlike
control. One day Brooke said to herself, Mom is getting out of
line. It’s about time to reel her in. Maybe it’s time for her to get
a C on the report card. Brooke received the C, and Amy came
unglued. She ranted, raved, grounded, withheld, lectured, yelled
at the teachers, and recruited her husband to deliver his “Get
good grades now or you’ll never cut it in college” speech.
Brooke sat back and thought, You haven’t seen anything yet.
Wait until Mom gets an F.
Poor Amy. She has yet to discover that kids get report cards,
parents don’t. Amy cannot make her daughter learn. Amy
actually loses control over Brooke with every ounce of effort
she pours into her quest for controlling her. It’s one of the many
battles Amy, and all parents, will eventually lose.
The battles we can’t win are those that center on children’s
brain activity. If kids can hook us into trying to make them talk,
think, learn, go to sleep at a certain time, or like certain foods,
they’ve got us. We’ll never win those battles, and moreover,
we’ll expend needed energy fighting them — energy that can be
effectively channeled into battles we can win.When parents pull in the reins, these children resist and are filled with
anger. Kids who start with too much power force us to tighten the limits
around them, and that makes them angry. Adults are no different. When