8. Give up the Power

Parents today are caught in a terrible bind. I hear it from young parents a lot. They want to be different from their parents, they all remember parental mistreatment, they all want to be nicer to their kids, they want to avoid the mistakes they see their parents as having made. When it comes down to it, though, they can't help it, they still want their own kids to behave, and they can't find a different way to make it happen.

So when little Samantha won't get into her car-seat, or little Nathan keeps pulling off his shoes making them late for dinner at Grandma's house, they try talking, begging, distracting. When none of that works, they look into their parenting toolkit, and there's only one thing left in there, and guess what it is. Only the club left. Force.

Of course, it works, usually. That's part of the problem, but it gets worse.

The big problem here is, it's over. It can go either direction, but what I hear most is, that this is the end of the young parent's non-violent dream. This is when many parents give up the idea, and end up saying, OMG, my parents were right.

Of course there is a world of reinforcement for this "realization." And there seems to be no way out of this dilemma, except one, and it's bad news.

Of course, some parents go the other way. Some, after resorting to force, after forcing Samantha into the car-seat or whatever, will stubbornly hold onto their dream, and try to find another way, and they will move toward what I have already mentioned, non-violent punishments, or what are euphemistically called “consequences.” Of course, non-violent punishments rest, ultimately, on the other kind. (See section 3.) So that is not really the way out, either. Again, the news is not good.

We have to give up. If we want to raise our kids without force, without punishment, we have to lose. Little Nathan is not going to wear his shoes and you're going to be late for dinner at Grandma's. I know: inconceivable. Ludicrous. But that's it, a big part of it at least. If we want to stop the cycle of violence, we need to stop making the control it provides our non-negotiable priority. In terms of the psychology of abuse, we need to not get our power back. I'm afraid that's our job, if we want to make this huge change, to lose to our authoritarian parents - and LOSE AGAIN to our children. We need to sacrifice our power, we need to not win, in order to break the cycle.

I never said it was going to be easy.