Chapter 10 - Parental Power: Necessary and Justified?

As the child sees it, the parent does not have equal "size," no matter what the age of the child. I am not referring to physical size (though a physical size differential is present until children reach adolescence). I am referring, rather, to "psychological size." A more accurate representation of the parent-child relationship would look like this; the oval for the child being smaller that the oval for the parent.

As seen by a child, the parent almost always has greater "psychological size" than she, which helps to explain such expressions as "Big Daddy," "The big boss," "My mother loomed large in my life," "He was a big man to me," or "I did not miss an opportunity to cut my parents down to size."

To quote from a theme written by a troubled young man in his college composition class and later shared with me when I was his counselor:

• "Being but a small child, I looked toward my parents much as a grown man looks toward God...."

To all children, their parents are first seen as gods of a sort.

This "psychological size" differential exists not only because children see their parents as bigger and stronger, but also as more knowledgeable, more competent. To the young child there seems to be nothing her parents do not know, and nothing they cannot do. She marvels at the breadth of their understanding, the accuracy of their predictions, and the wisdom of their judgment.

While some of these perceptions may at times be accurate, other times they are not. Children attribute many traits, characteristics, and capabilities to their parents that are not based on reality at all. Few parents know as much as young children think they do. Experience is not always "the best teacher," as the child will later conclude when she becomes an adolescent and an adult and can judge her parents against a broader base of her own experience. And wisdom is not always related to age. Many parents find it difficult to admit, but those who are more honest with themselves recognize how exaggerated are children's evaluations of Mom and Dad.

While the cards are stacked in favor of the parents' far greater psychological size to begin with, many mothers and fathers foster the difference. They deliberately hide their limitations and their mistakes in judgment from their children; or the parents promote such myths as "We know what is best for you", or "When you are older, you will realize how right we were."

I have always been intrigued to observe that when parents talk about their own mothers and fathers, they readily see in retrospect their parents' mistakes and limitations; yet they will strongly resist the notion that they themselves are subject to the same kinds of errors of judgment and lack of wisdom in relation to their own children.

However undeserved, parents do assume greater psychological size; and this is an important source of parental power over the child. Because parents are seen as such "authorities," their attempts to influence the child carry a great deal of weight. It might be helpful to think of this as "assigned authority" because the child assigns it to the parent. Whether it is deserved or not is irrelevant- the fact is that "psychological size" gives the parent influence and power over the child.

An entirely different kind of power comes from the parent possessing certain things needed by her children. This also gives her authority over them. A parent has power over her children because they are so dependent upon her to satisfy their basic needs. Children come into the world almost completely dependent on others for nourishment and physical comfort. They do not possess the means for satisfying needs. The means are possessed and controlled by parents:

As the child grows older, and if she is permitted to become more independent of her parents, their power naturally diminishes. Yet at any age, up to the time the child moves into independent adulthood and is capable of satisfying her basic needs almost entirely through her own efforts, her parents have some degree of power over her.

Possessing the means for satisfying the basic needs of the child, a parent has the power of being "rewarding" to a child. Psychologists use the term "rewards" for whatever means are possessed by the parent to satisfy the needs of the child (being rewarding to her). If a child is hungry (has a need for food) and the parent provides a bottle of milk, we say the child is rewarded (her hunger need is satisfied).

The parent also possesses the means for causing pain or discomfort for the child, either through withholding what she needs (not feeding a child who is hungry) or doing something that produces pain or discomfort (slapping the child's hand when she reaches for her brother's glass of milk). Psychologists use the term "punishment" for the opposite of reward.

Any parent knows she can control a small child by using power. Through careful manipulation of rewards and punishment, the parent can encourage the child to behave in certain ways or discourage her from behaving in other ways.

We all know from our own experience that humans (and animals) tend to repeat behavior that brings reward (satisfies a need), and to avoid or discard behavior that either is not rewarding or is actually punished. So a parent can "reinforce" certain behavior by rewarding the child, and "extinguish" other behavior by punishing.

Suppose you want your child to play with her toy cars and do not want her to play with the expensive glass figurines on the coffee table. To reinforce playing-with-toy-cars behavior you might sit down with her when she is playing with the cars, smile, and be pleasant or say, "That's a good girl." To extinguish her playing-with-glass-figurines behavior you might slap her hand, smack her bottom, frown, look unpleasant, or say, "That's a bad girl." The child will quickly learn that playing with toy cars will yield pleasant relations with the parent-power. Playing with glass figurines will not.

This is what parents often do to modify the behavior of children. They usually call it "training the child." Actually, the parent is using her power to get the child to do some thing the parent wants her to do or to prevent the child from doing what the parent doesn't want. The same method is used by dog trainers to teach obedience and by circus people to teach bears to ride bicycles. If a trainer wants a dog to heel, she puts a rope around the animal's neck and starts walking, holding on to the other end of the rope. Then, she says, "Heel." If the dog doesn't stay close to the trainer he receives a painful jerk at his neck (punishment). If he does heel, he gets patted (reward). The dog soon learns to heel upon command.

No question about it: power works. Children can be trained this way to play with toy cars rather than expensive glass figurines, dogs to heel on command, and bears to ride bicycles (even unicycles, amazingly).

At a very young age, after being rewarded and punished enough times, children can be controlled just by promising them they will be rewarded if they behave in a particular way, or threatening them with future punishment if they behave in an undesirable way. The potential advantages of this are obvious: the parent does not have to wait until the desired behavior occurs in order to reward it (reinforce it), nor wait until the undesired behavior occurs in order to punish it (extinguish it). She now can influence the child merely by saying in effect, "If you behave one way you'll get my reward; if you behave another way, you'll get my punishment.

SERIOUS LIMITATIONS OF PARENTAL POWER

If the reader is thinking that the parent's power to reward and punish (or to promise reward and threaten punishment) looks like an effective way of controlling children, she will be right in one sense, and very wrong in another: The use of parental authority (or power), seemingly effective under certain conditions, is quite ineffective under other conditions. (Later, I will examine actual dangers of parental power).

Many, if not most, of these side effects are unfortunate. Children often become cowed, fearful, and nervous as a result of "obedience training"; often turn on their trainers with hostility and vengeance; and often break down physically or emotionally under the stress of trying to learn behavior that is either difficult or unpleasant for them. The use of power can produce many harmful effects as well as risks for the trainer of animals- or children.

Parents Inevitably Run Out of Power

Using power to control children works only under special conditions. The parent must be sure to possess the power- the rewards have to be attractive enough to be wanted by the child and the punishments have to be potent enough to warrant avoidance. The child must be dependent upon the parent; the more the child depends on what the parent possesses (rewards), the more power the parent has.

This is true in all human relationships. If I need something very badly- say money to buy food for my children-and I must depend solely on another person for money- probably my employer, then obviously he will have a great deal of power over me. If I am dependent on this one employer, I will be inclined to do almost anything he wants in order to insure getting what I need so desperately. But a person has power over another only as long as the second is in a position of weakness, want, need, deprivation, helplessness, dependency.

As a child becomes less helpless, less dependent upon the parent for what she needs, the parent gradually loses power. This is why parents discover to their dismay that re wards and punishment that worked when their child was younger, become less effective as she grows older.

"We've lost our influence over our son," a parent complains. "He used to respect our authority, but now we just can't control him." Another says, "Our daughter has be come so independent of us- we have no way of making her listen to us." A father of a sixteen-year-old boy told his P.E.T. class how impotent he felt:

• "We have nothing to use any more to back up our authority except the family car. Even that doesn't work too well, because he took our car key and had one made for himself. When we're not home, he sneaks off with the car anytime he feels like it. Now that we don't have anything left that he really needs, I can't punish him anymore."

These parents expressed feelings that most parents experience as their children begin to grow out of their dependency. This inevitably occurs as children approach adolescence. Now they can acquire many rewards from their own activities (school, sports, friends, achievements). They also begin to figure out ways to avoid their parents' punishments. In those families where the parents have relied principally on power to control and direct their children throughout their early years, the parents inevitably come in for a rude shock when their power runs out and they are left with little or no influence.

The Teen Years

I am now convinced that most theories about the "stress and strain of adolescence" have focused incorrectly on such factors as adolescents' physical changes, their emerging sexuality, their new social demands, their struggle between being a child and an adult, and so on. This period is difficult for children and parents largely because adolescents become so independent of their parents that they can no longer be easily controlled by rewards and punishments. And since most parents rely so heavily on rewards and punishment, adolescents react with much independent, resistive, rebellious, hostile behavior.

Parents assume that adolescent rebellion and hostility are inevitably a function of this stage of development. I think this is not valid- it is more that adolescents become more able to resist and rebel. They are no longer controlled by their parents' rewards because they don't need them so much; and they are immune to threats of punishment because there is little parents can do to give them pain or strong discomfort. The typical adolescent behaves as she does because she has acquired enough strength and resources to satisfy her own needs and enough of her own power so that she need not fear the power of her parents.

An adolescent, therefore, does not rebel against her parents. She rebels against their power. If parents would rely less on power and more on non-power methods to influence their children from infancy on, there would be little for children to rebel against when they become adolescents. The use of power to change the behavior of children, then, has this severe limitation: parents inevitably run out of power, and sooner than they think.

Training by Power Requires Strict Conditions

Using reward and punishment to influence a child has another serious limitation: it requires very controlled conditions during the "training."

Psychologists who study the learning process by training animals in the laboratory have great difficulty with their "subjects" unless the most strict conditions prevail. Many of these requirements are exceedingly difficult to meet in training children through rewards and punishment. Most parents, every day, violate one or more of the "rules" for effective "training."

• 1. The "subject" must be highly motivated- she must have a strong need to "work for the reward." Rats must be quite hungry to learn how to get through a maze and reach the food at the end. Parents often try to influence a child by offering a reward that the child doesn't much need (promising a child you will sing to her if she goes to bed promptly and finding she doesn't buy it).
• 2. If punishment is too severe, the subject will avoid the. situation entirely. When rats receive a shock to teach them not to go into a blind alley in a maze, they will "stop trying" to learn their way through the maze if the shock is too strong. If you severely punish a child for a mistake, she may "learn" to stop trying to do something well.
• 3. The reward has to be available to the subject soon enough to affect behavior. In training rats to push the correct lever that will bring them food, if you delay producing the food too long after they push the right lever, the rats will not learn which is the correct lever. Tell a child she can go to the beach three weeks from now if she does her chores today, and you may discover that such a far-off reward lacks strength to motivate the child to do those chores right now.
• 4. There must always be a great deal of consistency in giving reward for the desired behavior or punishment for the undesired behavior. If you give your dog food at the dining-room table when you don't have company and punish him if he begs when you do have company, the dog will become confused and frustrated (unless he learns the difference between having company and not having company, as our dog did). Parents are frequently inconsistent in using reward and punishment. Example: sometimes allowing the child to snack between meals but denying her this privilege on days when there's something special for dinner and Mom does not want her to spoil "her" dinner (or had we better call it Mom's dinner?).
• 5. Reward and punishment are seldom effective in teaching complex behaviors, except by using very complex and time-consuming "reinforcement" methods. True, psychologists have succeeded in teaching chickens to play ping-pong and pigeons to guide missiles, yet such achievements require amazingly difficult and time-consuming training conducted under the most controlled conditions.

Readers who have owned animals will appreciate how difficult it would be to train a dog to play exclusively in his own yard, to fetch his sweater whenever he sees it is raining outside, or to be generous in sharing his dog biscuits with other dogs. Yet these same people would not even question the feasibility of trying to use reward and punishment to teach their children the same behaviors.

Reward and punishment can work to teach a child to avoid touching things on the coffee table or to say "please" when asking for things at the dinner table, but parents will not find this effective to produce good study habits, to be honest, to be kind to other children, or to be cooperative as a member of the family. Such complex behavior patterns are really not taught children; children learn them from their own experience in many situations, influenced by a variety of factors.

I have pointed out only a few of the limitations of using reward and punishment to train children. Psychologists who specialize in learning and training could add many more. Teaching animals or children to perform complex acts through reward and punishment is not only a specialty of its own, requiring extensive knowledge and an inordinate amount of time and patience, but what is far more important to us is this: the skilled circus animal trainer and the experimental psychologist are not very good models for parents to copy in training their own children to behave as mothers and fathers would like.

THE EFFECTS OF PARENTAL POWER ON THE CHILD

Despite all the serious limitations of power, it strangely enough remains the method of choice for most parents, no matter what their education, social class, or economic level.

P.E.T. instructors invariably find that parents in their classes are surprisingly aware of the harmful effects. of power. All we have to do is ask parents to draw from their own experience and tell us how they were affected when their parents used power over them. It is a strange paradox that parents remember how power felt to them as children but "forget" when they use power with their own children. We ask those in each class to list what they did as children to cope with their parents' use of power. Each class develops a list of coping mechanisms not too dissimilar from the following:

• 1. Resistance, defiance, rebellion, negativism.
• 2. Resentment, anger, hostility.
• 3. Aggression, retaliation, striking back.
• 4. Lying, hiding feelings.
• 5. Blaming others, tattling, cheating.
• 6. Dominating, bossing, bullying.
• 7. Needing to win, hating to lose.
• 8. Forming alliances, organizing against parents.
• 9. Submission, obedience, compliance.
• 10. Apple-polishing, courting favor.
• 11. Conformity, lack of creativity, fear of trying some- thing new, requiring prior assurance of success.
• 12. Withdrawing, escaping, fantasizing, regression.

Resistance, Defiance, Rebellion, Negativism

A parent recalled this typical incident with her father:

Some children rebel against parents' use of authority by doing exactly the opposite of what their parents desire them to do. One mother told us:

• "There were three main things we used our authority to try to get our daughter to do- be neat and orderly, go to church, and refrain from drinking. We were always strict about these things. Now we know that her house is a mess, she doesn't set foot in church, and she has cocktails almost every night."

An adolescent revealed in one of his therapy sessions with me:

• "I won't even try to get good grades in school, 'cause my parents have pushed me so hard to be a good student. If I got good grades it would make them feel pleased- like they were right or like they won. I'm not going to let them feel that way. So I don't study."

Another adolescent talked about his reaction to his parents' "hassling" him about his long hair:

• "I guess I might cut it if they didn't hassle me so much. But as long as they try to make me cut it, I'm going to keep it long."

Such reactions to adult authority are almost universal. Children have been defying and rebelling against adult authority for generations. History suggests little difference be tween today's youth and those at other times. Children, like adults, fight furiously when their freedom is threatened, and there have been threats to the freedom of children at all stages in history. One way for children to cope with threats to their freedom and independence is to fight against those who would take it away.

Resentment, Anger, Hostility

Children resent those who have power over them. It feels unfair and often unjust. They resent the fact that parents or teachers are bigger and stronger, if such advantage is used to control them or restrict their freedom.

"Pick on someone your own size" is a frequent feeling of children when an adult uses his or her power.

It seems to be a universal response of human beings at any age to feel deeply resentful and angry toward someone on whom they are, to a greater or lesser degree, dependent for providing gratification of their needs. Most people don't respond favorably to those who hold power to dispense or withhold rewards. They resent the fact that someone else controls the means for satisfying their needs. They wish they themselves were in control. Also, most people crave this independence because it is risky to depend on another.

There is the risk that the person on whom one is dependent will turn out to be less than dependable- unfair, prejudiced, inconsistent, unreasonable; or the person with the power may demand conformity to her own values and standards as a price of her rewards. This is why employees of highly paternalistic employers- those who are generous in giving "benefits" and "bonuses" (on condition that the employees will gratefully accede to management's efforts to control by authority) are frequently resentful and hostile "to the hand that feeds them."

Historians of industrial relations have pointed out that some of the most violent strikes hit companies where the management had been "benevolently paternalistic." This is also why the policy of a "have" nation giving handouts to a "have-not" nation so frequently results in the dependent nation's hostility toward the stronger one, much to the consternation of the "giver."

Aggression, Retaliation, Striking Back

Because parental domination by authority often frustrates the needs of the child, and frustration so often leads to aggression, parents who rely on authority can expect their children to show aggression in some way. Children retaliate, try to cut the parent down to size, are severely critical, talk back nastily, employ "the silent treatment," or do any one of the hundreds of aggressive things that they feel may get back at the parents or hurt them.

The formula for this way of coping seems to be "You hurt me, so I'll hurt you- then maybe you won't hurt me in the future." Its extreme manifestation are cases, frequently reported in newspapers, of children who kill their parents. No doubt many acts of aggression against school authorities (vandalism), against the police, or against political leaders are motivated by a desire to retaliate or get back at someone.

Lying, Hiding Feelings

Some children learn early in life that if they he they can avoid a great deal of punishment. On occasion lying can even bring them rewards. Children invariably begin to learn their parents' values- they get to know accurately what their parents will approve or disapprove of. Without exception, every child I have seen in therapy whose parents used a heavy dose of rewards and punishment, revealed how much they lied to their parents. One adolescent girl told me:

• "My mother won't let me go out with this one guy, so I have my girlfriend pick me up and tell Mom we're going to the movies or something. Then I go meet my boyfriend."

Another said:

• "My mother won't let me wear low-cut shirts, so I wear another shirt over the low-cut one, and when I leave the house, I take it off a few blocks away and then put it back on before I come home."

While children lie a lot because so many parents rely heavily on rewards and punishment, I firmly believe that the tendency to lie is not natural in youngsters. It is a learned response- a coping mechanism to handle the parents' attempts to control by manipulation of rewards and punishment. Children are not likely to lie in families where they are accepted and their freedom is respected.

Parents who complain that their children do not share their problems or talk about what is going on in their lives are also generally parents who have used a lot of punishment. Children learn how to play the game, and one way is to keep quiet.

Blaming Others, Tattling, Cheating

In families with more than one child, the children are obviously competing to get parental rewards and avoid punishment. They soon learn another coping mechanism: put the others at a disadvantage, discredit the other children, make them look bad, tattle, shift the blame. This formula is simple- "By making the other guy look bad, maybe I will look good." How defeating for parents; they want cooperative behavior from their kids, but by using rewards and punishment they breed competitive behavior- sibling rivalry, fighting, ratting on brother or sister:

• "She got more ice cream than I did."
• "How come I have to work in the yard when Joe doesn't?"
• "He hit me first- he started it all."
• "You never punished Ericka when she was my age and did the same things I'm doing now."
• "How come you let Eddie get by with everything?"

Much of the competitive bickering and mutual blaming among children can be attributed to the parents' use of rewards and punishment in child-rearing. Since no one has the time, temperament, or wisdom to dispense rewards or punishments fairly and equally at all times, parents are inevitably going to create competition. It is only natural that each child wants to get most of the rewards and see her brothers and sisters get most of the punishment.

Dominating, Bossiness, Bullying

Why does a child try to dominate or bully younger children? One reason is that her parents used their power to dominate her. Therefore, whenever she is in a power position over another child, she too tries to dominate and boss. This can be observed when children play with dolls. They generally treat their dolls (their own "children") as their parents treat them, and psychologists have known for some time that they can find out how a parent treats a child by watching that child play with dolls. If the child is dominating, bossy, and punitive to her doll when she plays the role of a mother, she has almost certainly been treated the same way by her own mother.

Parents, therefore, unwittingly run a high risk of rearing a child who will be authoritarian with other children if they use their own authority to direct and control their child.

Needing to Win, Hating to Lose

When children are reared in a climate full of rewards and punishment, they may develop strong needs to look "good" or to win, and strong needs to avoid looking "bad" or losing. This is particularly true in families with very reward-oriented parents who rely heavily on positive evaluation, money rewards, gold stars, bonuses, and the like.

Unfortunately, there are many such parents, particularly in middle- and upper-class families. While I do find some parents who philosophically reject punishment as a method of control, I seldom find parents who even question the value of using rewards. The American parent has been inundated by articles and books advising frequent praise and rewards. Most parents have bought this advice unquestioningly, with the result that a large percentage of children in America are daily manipulated by their parents through commendation, special privileges, awards, candy, ice cream, money, and the like. It is no wonder that this generation of "brownie point" children is so oriented to winning, looking good, coming out on top, and above all, avoiding losing.

Another negative effect of reward-oriented child-rearing is what generally happens to a child who is so limited in ability, intellectually or physically, that it is difficult for her to earn brownie points. I refer to the child whose siblings and peers are genetically better endowed, which makes her a "loser" in most of her endeavors at home, on the play-ground, or at school. Many families have one or more such children, who are destined to go through life experiencing the pain of frequent failure and the frustration of seeing others get the rewards. Such children acquire low self-esteem, and build up attitudes of hopelessness and defeatism. The point is: a family climate heavy with rewards may be more harmful to children who cannot earn them than to those who can.

Forming Alliances, Organizing Against Parents

Children whose parents control and direct by authority and power learn, as they grow older, yet another way of coping with that power. This is the all-too-familiar pattern of forming alliances with other children, either in the family or out of it. Children discover that "in union there is strength"- they can "organize" much like workers in America have organized to cope with the power of employers and management.

Children frequently form alliances to present a common front to parents by:

• Agreeing among themselves to tell the same story.
• Telling their parents that all the other kids are permitted to do a certain thing, so why can't they?
• Influencing other children to join them in some questionable activity, hoping that then their parents won't single them out for punishment.

Today's crop of adolescents feels the real power that comes from organizing and acting in union against parental or adult authority- witness the growing numbers of kids doing drugs with their friends, not doing homework, ditching school with friends to go to the mall, and the proliferation of cliques and gangs.

Because authority has continued to be the preferred method of controlling and directing the behavior of children, parents and other adults bring about the very thing they most lament- adolescents forming alliances to pit their power against the power of adults. And so society is polarizing into two warring groups- young people organized against adults, or, if you will, the "have-nots" against the "haves." Instead of children identifying with the family, they are increasingly identifying with their own peer group to combat the combined power of all adults.

Submission, Obedience, Compliance

Some children choose to submit to the authority of their parents for reasons that are not usually well understood. They cope through submission, obedience, and compliance. This response to parental authority often occurs when the parents have been very severe in their use of power. Particularly when punishment has been strong, children learn to submit out of a strong fear of the punishment. Children may react to parental power just as dogs become cowed and fearful from severe punishment. When children are quite young, severe punishment is more likely to cause submission because a reaction such as rebelling or resisting may seem too risky. They almost have to respond to parental power by becoming obedient and compliant. As children approach adolescence, this response might change abruptly because they have acquired more strength and courage to try resistance and rebellion.

Some children continue to be submissive and compliant through adolescence and often into adulthood. These children suffer the most from early parental power, for they are the ones who retain a deep fear of people in power positions wherever they encounter them. These are the adults who remain children throughout their lives, passively submitting to authority, denying their own needs, fearing to be themselves, frightened of conflict, too compliant to stand up for their own convictions. These are adults who fill the offices of psychologists and psychiatrists.

Apple-Polishing, Courting Favor

One way of coping with a person who has power to reward or punish is to "get on her good side," to win her over by special efforts to make her like you. Some children adopt this approach with parents and other adults. The formula: "If I can do something nice for you and get you to favor me, then perhaps you will give me your rewards and withhold your punishment." Children learn early that rewards and punishments are not meted out equitably by adults. Adults can be won over; they can have "favorites." Some children learn how to take advantage of this and resort to behavior known as "buttering someone up," "getting to be teacher's pet," and other terms less acceptable in polite society.

Unfortunately, while children may become quite skillful in winning adults over, this is usually strongly resented by other children; the child who "butters up" people is often ridiculed or rejected by her peers, who suspect her motives and envy her favored position.

Conformity, Lack of Creativity, Fear of Trying Something New, Requiring Prior Assurance of Success

Parental authority fosters conformity rather than creativity in children, much as an authoritarian work climate in an organization stifles innovation. Creativity comes from freedom to experiment, to try new things and new combinations. Children reared in a climate of strong rewards and punishment are not as likely to feel such freedom as children reared in a more accepting climate. Power produces fear and fear stifles creativity and fosters conformity. The formula is simple: "In order to get rewards I will keep my nose clean and conform to what is considered proper behavior. I dare not do anything out of the ordinary- this would risk my getting punished."

Withdrawing, Escaping, Fantasizing, Regression

When it becomes too difficult for children to cope with parental authority, they may try to escape or withdraw. The power of parents may cause withdrawal if punishment is too severe for the child, if parents are inconsistent in administering rewards, if rewards are too difficult to earn, or if it is too difficult to learn behaviors required to avoid punishment. Any of these conditions may cause a child to give up trying to learn "the rules of the game." She simply quits trying to cope with reality- it has become too painful or too complex to figure out. This child cannot find suitable adjustment to the forces in her environment. She can't win. So her organism somehow tells her it is safer to escape.

The forms of withdrawal and escape may range from almost total to only occasional withdrawal from reality, including:

• Daydreaming and fantasizing.
• Inactivity, passivity, apathy.
• Regressing to infantile behavior.
• Excessive TV watching and video game playing.
• Solitary play (often with imaginary playmates).
• Getting sick.
• Running away.
• Joining gangs.
• Using drugs.
• Eating disorders.
• Depression.

SOME DEEPER ISSUES ABOUT PARENTAL AUTHORITY

Even after parents in our classes are reminded of their own coping mechanisms as children and even after they use our list to identify specific coping methods being used by their own children, some remain convinced that authority and power are justified in raising children. Consequently, in most P.E.T. classes additional attitudes and feelings about parental authority are brought into the open for discussion.

Don't Children Want Authority and Limits?

A belief commonly held by both laypeople and professionals is that children actually want authority- they like parents to restrict their behavior by setting limits. When parents use their authority, so the argument goes, children feel more secure. Without limits, they not only will be wild and undisciplined but also insecure. An extension of this belief is that if parents do not use authority to set limits, their children will feel the parents do not care and will feel unloved.

While I suspect this belief is embraced by many because it gives them a neat justification for using power, I do not want to discredit the belief as a mere rationalization. There is some truth in the belief and so it must be examined rather carefully.

Common sense and experience strongly support the idea that children do want limits in their relationship with parents. They need to know how far they can go before their behavior will be unacceptable. Only then can they choose not to engage in such behaviors. This applies to all human relationships.

For example, I am much, more secure when I know which of my behaviors are unacceptable to my wife. One that comes to mind is playing golf or going to my office to work on a day when we entertain guests. By knowing ahead of time that my absence will be unacceptable because my wife needs my help, I can choose not to play golf or go to the office and avoid her displeasure or anger and probably a conflict.

However, it is one thing for a child to want to know the "limits of her parents' acceptance" and an entirely different thing to say that she wants her parent to set those limits on her behavior. To return to the example involving my wife and me: I am helped when I know her feelings about my playing golf or going to the office on days we entertain. But I certainly will bristle and be resentful if she tries to set a limit on my behavior by some such statement as, "I cannot permit you to play golf or go to the office on days we are having guests. That's a limit. You are not to do those things."

I would not appreciate this power approach at all. It is ridiculous to suppose that my wife would even try to control and direct my behavior this way. Children respond no differently to limit setting on the part of the parent. Equally strong is their bristling and resentment when a parent unilaterally tries to set a limit on their behavior. I have never known a child who wants a parent to set a limit on her behavior like this:

• "You must be in by midnight- that's my limit."
• "I cannot permit you to take the car."
• "You cannot play with your truck in the living room."
• "We must demand that you not smoke pot."
• "We have to restrict you from going with those two boys."

The reader will recognize all these communications as our familiar "sending the solution" (also, all are You-Messages).

A much sounder principle than "children want their parents to use their authority and set limits" is the following:

• Children want and need information from their parents that will tell them the parents' feelings about their behavior, so that they themselves can modify behavior that might be unacceptable to the parents: However, children do not want the parent to try to limit or modify their behavior by using or threatening to use their authority. In short, children want to limit their behavior themselves if it becomes apparent to them that their behavior must be limited or modified. Children, like adults, prefer to be their own authority over their behavior.

One further point: children actually would prefer that all their behavior were acceptable to their parents, so that it would be unnecessary to limit or modify any of their behavior. I, too, would prefer that my wife would find all my behavior unconditionally acceptable. That's what I would prefer, but I know it is not only unrealistic, but impossible.

So parents should not expect, nor will their children expect of them, that they will be accepting of all behavior. What children have a right to expect, however, is that they always be told when their parents are not feeling accepting of a certain behavior ("I don't like to be tugged and pulled when I'm talking to a friend"). This is quite different from wanting parents to use authority to set limits on their behavior.

Isn't Authority All Right If Parents Are Consistent?

Some parents justify the use of power by their belief that it's effective and not harmful as long as parents are consistent in using it. In our classes, these parents are surprised to learn that they are absolutely correct about the need for consistency. Our instructors assure them that consistency is essential, if they choose to use power and authority. Furthermore, children prefer parents to be consistent, if those parents choose to use power and authority.

The "ifs" are critical. Not that the use of power and authority is not harmful; the use of power and authority will be even more harmful when parents are inconsistent. Not that children want their parents to use authority; rather, if it is to be used they would prefer it to be used consistently. If parents feel they have to use authority, consistency in applying it will give the child much more chance of knowing for certain what behaviors will be consistently punished and what others will be rewarded.

Considerable experimental evidence shows the harmful effects of inconsistency in using rewards and punishment to modify the behavior of animals. A classic experiment by a psychologist, Norman Maier, is one example. Maier rewarded rats for jumping from a platform and through a hinged door on which was painted a particular design, like a square. The door opened to food and the rat was rewarded. Then Maier punished rats who jumped from the platform toward a door that was painted with a different design, a triangle. This door did not open, causing the rats to hit their noses and fall a considerable distance into a net. This "taught" rats to discriminate between a square and a triangle- a simple conditioning experiment.

Now Maier decided to be "inconsistent" in using rewards and punishment. He deliberately changed the conditions by randomly alternating the designs. Sometimes the square was on the door that led to food, sometimes it was on the door that did not open and made the rats fall. Like many parents, the psychologist was inconsistent in applying reward and punishment.

What did this do to the rats? It made them "neurotic"; some developed skin disorders, some went into catatonic states, some ran around their cages frantically and aimlessly, some refused to associate with the other rats, some would not eat. Maier created "experimental neuroses" in rats by being inconsistent.

The effect of inconsistency in the use of rewards and punishment can be similarly harmful to children. Inconsistency gives them no chance to learn-the- "proper" (rewarded) behavior and to avoid the "undesirable" behavior. They cannot win. They may become frustrated, confused, angry, and even "neurotic."

But Isn't It the Parents' Responsibility to Influence Children?

Probably the attitude about power and authority expressed most frequently by parents is that it is justified because of parents' "responsibility" to influence their children to behave in certain ways considered desirable by parents or "society" (whatever that means). This is the age-old issue of whether power in human relationships is justified as long as it is used benevolently and wisely- "for the other person's welfare or best interests" or "for the good of society."

The problem is who is to decide what is in the best interest of society. The child? The parent? Who knows best? These are difficult questions, and there are dangers in leaving the determination of "best interest" with the parent.

She may not be wise enough to make this determination. All people are fallible- and that includes parents and others who possess power. And whoever is using power may falsely claim that it is for the other's welfare. The history of civilization has recorded the lives of many who claimed to use their power for' the welfare of the person on whom the power is used. "I'm only doing this for your own good" is not a very convincing justification for power.

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" wrote Lord Acton. And from Shelley, "Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate'er it touches." Ed mund Burke maintained that "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."

The dangers of power, perceived by statesmen and poets alike, are still present. The use of power is seriously questioned today in relations between nations. World government with a world court may someday come to pass out of the necessity for mutual survival in the information age. The use of the power of one race over another is no longer considered justified by our judicial system. In industry and business, management by authority is considered by many an outmoded philosophy. The power differential that has existed for years between husband and wife has been gradually but surely reduced. Finally, the absolute power and authority of the church has been attacked both from without and from within that institution.

One of the last strongholds for the sanction of power in human relationships is in the home- in the parent-child relationship. A similar pocket of resistance is in the schools- in the teacher-student relationship, where authority still remains the principal method for controlling and directing the behavior of students.

Why are children the last ones to be protected against the potential evils of power and authority? Is it because they are smaller or because adults find it so much easier to rationalize the use of power with such notions as "Father knows best" or "It's for their own good"?

My own conviction is that as more people begin to understand power and authority more completely and accept its use as unethical, more parents will apply those understandings to adult-child relationships; will begin to feel that it is just as immoral in those relationships; and then will be forced to search for creative new non-power methods that all adults can use with children and youth.

But quite apart from the moral and ethical issue of using power over another, when parents ask, "Isn't it my responsibility to use my power to influence my child?" they reveal a common misunderstanding about the effectiveness of power as a way of influencing their children. Parental power does not really "influence" children; it forces them to behave in prescribed ways. Power does not "influence" in the sense of persuading, convincing, educating, or motivating a child to behave in a particular way. Rather, power compels or prevents behavior. Compelled or prevented by someone with superior power, a child is not really persuaded. As a matter of fact, she will generally return to her former ways as soon as the authority or power is removed because her own needs and desires remain unchanged. Frequently she will also be determined to get back at her parent for the frustration of those needs as well as the humiliation inflicted on her. Therefore, power actually empowers its own victims, creates its own opposition, fosters its own destruction.

Parents who use power actually lessen their influence on children because power so often triggers rebellious behavior (children coping with power by doing the opposite of what the parent desires). I have heard parents say, "We would have more influence over our child if we had used our authority to make her do just the opposite of what we want her to do. Then she might end up doing what we wanted her to do."

It is paradoxical but true that parents lose influence by using power and will have more influence on their children by giving up their power or refusing to use it.

Parents obviously will have more influence on their children if their methods of influence do not produce rebellion or reactive behavior. Non-power methods of influence make it much more likely that children might seriously consider their parents' ideas or their feelings and as a result modify their own behavior in the direction desired by the parent. They won't always modify their behavior, but then again sometimes they will. But the rebellious child will seldom feel like modifying her behavior out of consideration for her parent's needs.

Why Has Power Persisted in Child-Rearing?

This question, raised so often by parents, has puzzled and challenged me. It is difficult to understand how anyone can justify the use of power in child-rearing, or in any human relationship, in the face of what is known about power and its effects on others. Working with parents, I am now convinced that all but a small handful hate to use power over their children. It makes them feel uneasy and often downright guilty. Frequently, parents even apologize to their children after using power. Or they try to assuage their guilt with the usual rationalizations: "We did it only because we have your own welfare in mind," "Someday you'll thank us for this," "When you are a parent, you'll understand why we have to keep you from doing these things."

In addition to having guilt feelings, many parents admit that their power methods are not very effective, especially parents whose children are old enough to have begun rebelling, lying, sneaking, or passively resisting.

I have come to the conclusion that parents over the years have continued to use power because they have had very little, if any, experience in their own lives with people who use non-power methods of influence. Most people, from childhood on, have been controlled by power-power exercised by parents, schoolteachers, school principals, coaches, Sunday School teachers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, Scout leaders, camp directors, military officers, and bosses. Parents therefore persist in using power out of a lack of knowledge and experience with any other method of resolving conflicts in human relations.