Chapter 9 - Inevitable Parent-Child Conflicts: Who Should Win?

All parents encounter situations when neither confrontations nor changes in the environment will change the behavior of their child; the child continues to behave in a way that interferes with the needs of the parent. These situations are inevitable in the parent-child relationship because the child "needs" to behave in a certain way even though he has been made aware that his behavior is interfering with his parent's needs.

• Eric continues to play his video games even though his mother has repeatedly told him the family has to leave in a half-hour.
• Molly had an agreement with her daughter to clean up the kitchen, yet when Molly arrives home from work, the sink is full of dirty dishes.
• Madeline refuses to give in to her parents' feelings about going to the mountains with a group of her friends over the weekend. She desperately wants to go even though she hears how unacceptable this would be to her parents.

These conflicts between needs of the parent and needs of the child are not only inevitable in every family but are bound to occur frequently. They run all the way from rather unimportant differences to critical fights. They are problems in the relationship- not owned solely by the child nor solely by the parent. Both parent and child are involved in the problem- the needs of both are at stake. So THE RELATIONSHIP OWNS THE PROBLEM. These are the problems that come up when other methods have not modified behavior that is unacceptable to the parent.

Referring back to the Behavior Window, here's where conflicts in the relationship fit:

A conflict is the moment of truth in a relationship- a test of its health, a crisis that can weaken or strengthen it, a critical event that may bring lasting resentment, smoldering hostility, psychological scars. Conflicts can push people away from each other or pull them into a closer and more intimate union; they contain the seeds of destruction and the seeds of greater unity; they may bring about armed warfare or deeper mutual understanding.

How conflicts are resolved is probably the most critical factor in parent-child relationships. Unfortunately, most parents try to resolve them by using only two basic approaches, both of which are ineffective and harmful to the child as well as the relationship.

Few parents accept the fact that conflict is part of life and not necessarily bad. Most parents look on conflict as something to avoid at all costs, whether between themselves and their children or between children. We often hear husbands and wives boast that they have never had a serious disagreement- as if that means theirs has been a good relationship.

Parents tell their children, "All right, there is to be no fighting tonight at the dinner table- we don't want to spoil our dinner." Or they yell, "Stop that fighting, right now!" Parents of teenagers can be heard lamenting that now that their children are older there are many more disagreements and conflicts in the family: "We used to see eye to eye on most things." Or, "My daughter was always so cooperative and easy to handle, but now we don't see things her way and she can't see things our way."

Most parents hate to experience conflict, are deeply troubled when it occurs, and are quite confused about how to handle it constructively. Actually, it would be a rare relationship if over a period of time one person's needs did not conflict with the other's. When any two people (or groups) coexist, conflict is bound to occur just because people are different, think differently, have different needs and wants that sometimes do not match.

Conflict, therefore, is not necessarily bad- it exists as a reality of any relationship. As a matter of fact, a relationship with no apparent conflict may be unhealthier than one with frequent conflict. A good example is a marriage where the wife is subservient to a dominating husband, or a parent-child relationship where the child is so deathly afraid of his parent that he does not dare cross him in any way.

Most people have known families, especially large families, where conflict crops up constantly and yet these families are wonderfully happy and healthy. Conversely, I often see newspaper accounts of youths who committed crimes and whose parents indicate complete astonishment that their boy could do such a thing. They never had any trouble with him; he had always been so cooperative.

Conflict in a family, openly expressed and accepted as a natural phenomenon, is far healthier for children than most parents think. In such families the child at least has an opportunity to experience conflict, learn how to cope with it, and be better prepared to deal with it in later life. As necessary preparation for the inevitable conflicts the child will encounter outside of the home, family conflict may actually be beneficial to the child, always provided that the conflict in the home gets resolved constructively.

This is the critical factor in any relationship: how the conflicts get resolved, not how many conflicts occur. I now believe it is the most critical factor in determining whether a relationship will be healthy or unhealthy, mutually satisfying or unsatisfying, friendly or unfriendly, deep or shallow, intimate or cold.

THE PARENT-CHILD POWER STRUGGLE: WHO WINS, WHO LOSES?

Rarely do we find a parent in our classes who does not think of conflict resolution in terms of someone winning and someone losing. This "win-lose" orientation is at the very root of the dilemma of today's parents- whether to be strict (parent wins) or to be lenient (child wins).

Most parents see the whole problem of discipline in child-rearing as a question of being either strict or lenient, tough or soft, authoritarian or permissive. Because they are locked into this either-or approach to discipline, they see their relationship with their children as a power struggle, a contest of wills, a fight to see who wins- a war. Today's parents and their children are literally at war, each thinking in terms of someone winning and someone losing. They even talk about their struggle in much the same way as two nations at war.

One father illustrated this clearly in a P.E.T. class when he forcefully stated:

• "You have to start early letting them know who's boss. Otherwise, they'll take advantage of you and dominate you. That's the trouble with my wife she always ends up letting the kids win all the battles. She gives in all the time and the kids know it."

The mother of a teenager tells it in her words:

• "I try to let my child do what he wants, but then usually I suffer. I get walked on. You give him an inch and he takes a mile."

Another mother is convinced that she is not going to lose the "battle of the tattoo"!

• "I don't care how she feels about it, and it doesn't make any difference to me what the other parents do- no daughter of mine is going to get a tattoo! Here's one thing I am not going to back down on. I am going to win this fight."

Children, too, see their relationship with parents as a win-lose power struggle. Cathy, a bright fifteen-year-old, who is worrying her parents because she won't talk to them, told me in one of our interviews:

• "What's the use of arguing? They always win. I know that before we ever get into an argument. They're always going to get their way. After all, they're the parents. They always know they're right. So, now I just don't get into arguments. I walk away and don't talk to them. Course it bugs them when I do that. But I don't care."

Ken, a middle-school student, has learned to cope with the win-lose attitude of his parents in a different way:

• "If I really want to do something, I never go to my mom, 'cause the first thing she says is 'No.' I wait until Dad comes home. I can usually get him to take my side. He's easier, and I usually get what I want with him."

When conflict arises between parents and children, most parents try to resolve it in their favor so that the parent wins and the child loses. Others, somewhat fewer in number than the "winners," consistently give in to their children out of fear of conflict or frustrating their children's needs. In these families the child wins and the parent loses. The major dilemma of parents today is that they see only these win-lose approaches.

The Two Win-Lose Approaches

In P.E.T. we refer to the two "win-lose" approaches to conflict resolution simply as Method 1 and Method 2. Each involves one person winning and the other losing- one gets his way and the other does not. Here is how Method 1 operates in parent-child conflicts:

• Parent and child encounter a conflict-of-needs situation. The parent decides what the solution should be. Having selected the solution, the parent announces it and hopes the child will accept it. If the child does not like the solution, the parent may first use persuasion to try to influence the child to accept the solution. If this fails, the parent usually tries to get compliance by employing power and authority.

The following conflict between a father and his ten-year-old daughter was resolved by Method 1:

The father got his way. His solution- that Jane wear her coat- prevailed, although Jane did not want to. The parent won and Jane lost. Jane was not at all happy with the solution, but she surrendered in the face of her parent's threat to use power (punishment).

Here is how Method 2 operates in parent-child conflicts:

Parent and child encounter a conflict-of-needs situation. The parent may or may not have a preconceived solution. If he does, he may try to persuade the child to accept it. It becomes obvious that the child has his own solution and is attempting to persuade the parent to accept it. If the parent resists, the child might then try to use his power to get compliance from the parent. In the end the parent gives in.

In the coat conflict, Method 2 would work like this:

Jane was able to get her own way- she won and her parent lost. The parent certainly was not happy with the solution, yet he surrendered in the face of Jane's threat to use her power (in this case, being mad at her father).

Method 1 and Method 2 have similarities even though the outcomes are totally different. In both, each person wants his own way and tries to persuade the other to accept it. The attitude of each person in both methods is "I want my way and I'm going to fight to get it." In Method 1, the parent is inconsiderate and disrespectful of the needs of the child.

In Method 2, the child is inconsiderate and disrespectful of the needs of the parent. In both, one goes away feeling defeated, usually angry at the other for causing the defeat. Both methods involve a power struggle, and the adversaries are not loath to use their power if they feel it will be necessary in order to win.

Why Method 1 Is Ineffective

Parents who rely on Method 1 to resolve conflicts pay a severe price for "winning." The outcomes of Method 1 are quite predictable low motivation for the child to carry out the solution, resentment toward his parents, difficulties for the parent in enforcement, no opportunity for the child to develop self-discipline.

When a parent imposes his solution to a conflict, the child will have very little motivation or desire to carry out that decision because he has no investment in it; he was given no voice in making it. Whatever motivation the child may have is extrinsic- outside himself. He may comply, but out of fear of parental punishment or disapproval. The child does not want to carry out the decision, he feels compelled to. This is why children so often look for ways to get out of carrying out a Method 1 solution. If they cannot get out of it, they usually "go through the motions" and carry it out with minimal effort, barely doing what was required and no more.

Children generally feel resentful toward their parents when Method 1 decisions have made them do something. It feels unfair to them, and their anger and resentment natu rally are directed to the parents, whom they feel to be responsible. Parents who use Method 1 sometimes get compliance and obedience, but the price they pay is their children's hostility.

Observe children whose parents have just resolved a conflict by Method 1; they almost invariably show resentment and anger in their faces or say something hostile, or they may even physically assault their parents. Method 1 sows the seeds for a continuously deteriorating relationship between the parent and child. Resentment and hate replace love and affection.

Parents pay another heavy price for using Method 1: they generally have to spend a lot of time enforcing the decision, checking to see that the child is carrying it out, nagging, reminding, prodding. Parents who come to P.E.T. often defend their use of Method 1 on the ground that it is a fast way to resolve conflict. This advantage is frequently more apparent than real, because it takes so much of the parent's time afterward to make certain the decision is carried out. Parents who say that they constantly have to nag their children are invariably the ones who use Method 1. I could not count how many conversations I have had with parents that are similar to this one that occurred in my office:

Few parents see the connection between their children's lack of motivation to help and the fact that decisions about chores are generally made by Method 1. An "uncooperative" child is simply a child whose parents, through Method 1 decision-making, have in effect denied him a chance to cooperate. Cooperation is never fostered by making a child do something.

Another predictable outcome of Method 1 is that the child is denied the opportunity to develop self-discipline- inner-directed, self-initiated, responsible behavior. One of the most universally accepted myths about child-rearing is that if parents force their young children to do things, they will turn out to be self-disciplined and responsible persons. While it is true that some children cope with heavy parental authority by being obedient, conforming, and submissive, they usually turn out to be persons who depend upon external authority to control their behavior. As adolescents or adults, they show an absence of inner controls; they go through life jumping from one authority figure to the next to find answers to their lives or seek controls on their behavior. These people lack self-discipline, inner controls, or self- responsibility because they were never given a chance to ac- quire these traits.

If parents could learn only one thing from this book, I wish it were this: Each and every time they force a child to do something by using their power or authority, they deny that child a chance to learn self-discipline and self- responsibility.

Charles, a seventeen-year-old son of two very strict parents who used their power constantly to get Charles to do his homework, made this admission:

• "Whenever my parents are not around, I find it impossible to pull myself out of the chair in front of the TV set. I am so used to their making me go do my homework, I cannot find within myself any power to make me go do it when they are not at home."

I am also reminded of the pathetic message scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror by the child murderer William Heirens of Chicago, after he had just killed still an other of his victims: "FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, CATCH ME BEFORE I KILL MORE."

Most parents in our P.E.T. classes have never had the opportunity to examine critically these outcomes of their "strictness." Most of them think they have been doing what parents are supposed to do- using their authority. Yet, once they are helped to see the effects of Method 1, it is a rare parent who does not accept these truths. After all, parents were once children who themselves developed these same habits of coping with their own parents' power.

Why Method 2 Is Ineffective

What does it do to children to grow up in a home where they usually win and their parents lose? What are the effects on children of their generally getting their way? Obviously these children will be different from those in homes where Method 1 is the principal method of conflict resolution. Children who are allowed to get their way will not be as rebellious, hostile, dependent, aggressive, submissive, conforming, withdrawing, and so on. They have not had to develop ways to cope with parental power. Method 2 encourages the child to use his power over his parents to win at their expense.

These children learn how to throw temper tantrums to control the parent; how to make the parent feel guilty; how to say nasty, deprecating things to their parents. Such children are often wild, uncontrolled, unmanageable, impulsive. They have learned that their needs are more important than anyone else's. They, too, often lack inner controls on their behavior and become very self-centered, selfish, demanding.

These children often do not respect other people's property or feelings. Life to them is get, get, get- take, take, take. "I" comes first: Such children are seldom cooperative or helpful around the house.

These children often have serious difficulties in their peer relationships. Other children dislike "spoiled kids"- they find them unpleasant to be around. Children from homes where Method 2 predominates are so accustomed to getting their way with their parents that they want to get their way with other children, too.

These children also frequently have difficulty adjusting to school, an institution whose philosophy is predominantly Method 1. Children accustomed to Method 2 are in for a rude shock when they enter the world of school and discover that most teachers and principals are trained to resolve conflicts by Method 1, backed up with authority and power.

Probably the most serious effect of Method 2 is that children often develop deep feelings of insecurity about their parents' love. It is easy to understand this reaction when one considers how difficult it is for parents to feel loving and accepting toward a child who usually wins at the expense of the parent. In Method 1 homes resentment radiates from child to parent; in Method 2 homes from parent to child. The child of Method 2 senses that his parents are frequently resentful, irritated, and angry at him. When he later gets similar messages from his peers and probably other adults, it is no wonder he begins to feel unloved- because, of course, so often he is unloved by others.

While some studies have shown that children from Method 2 homes are likely to be more creative than children from Method 1 homes, parents pay a dear price for having creative children; they frequently cannot stand them.

Parents suffer greatly in the Method 2 home. These are the homes in which I have frequently heard parents say:

• "He gets his own way most of the time, and you just can't control him."
• "I'll be glad when the children are all in school so I can have some peace."
• "Parenthood is such a burden- I spend all my time doing things for them."
• "I must say, sometimes I just can't stand them- I just have to get away."
• "They seldom seem to realize that I've got a life, too."
• "Sometimes- and I feel guilty saying this- I wish I could ship them off to someone else."
• "I'm so ashamed to take them anywhere or even have friends come to our home and see those children."

Parenthood for Method 2 parents is seldom a joy- how unfortunate and sad it is to raise children you cannot love, or hate to associate with.

Some Additional Problems with Method 1 and Method 2

Few parents use either Method 1 or Method 2 exclusively. In many homes one parent will rely heavily on Method 1 while the other parent leans toward Method 2. There is some evidence that children brought up in this type of home have an even greater chance of developing serious emotional problems. Perhaps the inconsistency is more harmful than the extreme of one approach or the other.

Some parents start out using Method 2, but as the child grows older and becomes more of an independent and self-directing person they gradually shift to Method 1. Obviously, it can be harmful to the child to get used to having his own way most of the time and then start to experience a reversal. Other parents start out using mostly Method 1 and gradually shift to Method 2. This is especially frequent when parents have a child who early in life resists and rebels against parental authority; gradually the parents give up and begin to give in to the child.

There are also parents who rely on Method 1 with their first child and switch to Method 2 with their second, hoping that this will work better. In these homes, one often hears the first child express strong resentment toward the second, who is allowed to get by with things that the first child was not. Sometimes the first child thinks this is evidence that the parents strongly favor the second child.

One of the most common patterns, particularly among parents who have been strongly influenced by the advocates of permissiveness and the opponents of punishment, is for parents to let a child win for long periods of time until his behavior becomes so obnoxious that the parents move in abruptly with Method 1. Then they feel guilty and gradually move back to Method 2, and then the cycle starts all over again. One parent expressed this clearly:

• "I am permissive with my children until I can't stand them. Then I become strongly authoritarian until I can't stand myself."

Many parents, however, are locked in to either Method 1 or Method 2. By conviction or tradition, a parent may be a strong Method 1 advocate. He discovers from his experience that this method does not work very well and may even feel guilty about being a Method 1 parent; he does not like himself when he is restrictive, dominating, and punishing. Yet the only alternative he knows is Method 2- letting the child win. Intuitively this parent knows that would be no better or maybe even worse. So he stubbornly sticks with his Method 1, even in the face of evidence that his children are suffering from this approach or that the relationship is deteriorating.

Most Method 2 parents are unwilling to switch to an authoritarian approach because they are philosophically opposed to using authority with children or because their own personalities will not permit them to exercise the necessary strength or to experience conflict. I have known many mothers, and even a few fathers, who find Method 2 more comfortable because they are afraid of conflict with their children (and usually with anyone else, too). Such parents, rather than run the risk of exercising their own will over their children, take the approach of "peace at any price"- giving up, appeasement, and surrender.

The dilemma of almost all parents seems to be that they are locked in to either Method 1 or Method 2, or oscillate between the two, because they know of no other alternative to these two ineffective "win-lose" methods. We find that most parents not only know which method they use most frequently; they also realize both methods are ineffective. It is as if they know they are in trouble, whichever method they use, but do not know where else they can turn. Most of them are grateful to be released from their self-imposed trap.