Three Rules for Control Battles 1. Avoid a control battle at all costs.
2. If you’re going to get into one, win at all costs.
3. Pick the issue carefully. Whenever a control battle is lost, it’s because the issue was not chosen carefully.
Choices Change Everything
Winnable war is waged through choices, not demands. Choices change the entire complexion of the control struggle. They allow us to give away the control we don’t need and gain the control we do. With choices, kids have no demands to react against, and the control we need is established.
One parent said, “As soon as I give my three-year-old a choice, everything changes. It works every time. I see a complete personality change in Gabrielle when she has a choice — when I change my words from fighting words to thinking words. I’m still setting the limit, and I’m still getting what I want, but I’m eliminating the fighting.”
Why Choices Work
One reason choices work is that they create situations in which children are forced to think. Kids are given options to ponder, courses of action to choose. They must decide. Second, choices provide opportunities for children to make mistakes and learn from the consequences. With every wrong choice the children make, the punishment comes not from us but from the world around them. Then children don’t get angry at us; they get
angry at themselves.
Another reason choices work is because they help us avoid getting into control battles with our children. Finally, choices provide our children with opportunities to hear that we trust their thinking abilities, thus building their self-confidence and the relationship between us and them.
Dealing with choices and being held responsible for their own decisions prepare youngsters for the lifetime of decision making that awaits them in adulthood. However, parents should offer choices only when they are willing to ensure that their children are forced to live with the consequences.
Picking Fights and Losing Battles
Are some kids born stubborn, or do they become that way as a result of the way they are raised? Well, the answer is yes. Some children, as a condition of inborn temperament, are less cooperative and more prone to resisting being told what to do. And some kids, as a result of how they are raised, become more and more defiant and stubborn as they grow older.
The question is, “Is there a way we can get better cooperation from our kids regardless of how strong-willed they were born?” Yes, there is a way. A small change in the way we talk can result in much better cooperation, fewer fights, fewer temper tantrums, less need for disciplinary action, less hate, and more loving relationships. Great bosses and leaders rely on what we are about to talk about. Great teachers use this technique every day.
Don’t Set Yourself Up to Lose
Let’s work backward on this. We will study a situation in which a teacher creates a minor disaster in her classroom. Her attempts to control a situation result in a blowup by the student, creating a need for other professionals to be involved. Then we will look at how this could have been avoided in the first place. Once we have done this, we will take a look at the use of this technique in our own homes with our own children:
TEACHER: (speaking from across the room) “Megan, why are you
moving your chair? You don’t need to do that. Move it back to where it was!”
MEGAN: “Brittany is going to help me.”
TEACHER: “You don’t need her help. Now, move your chair back to where it was!”
MEGAN: “But I need help on this.”
TEACHER: “Move that chair or you’re going to get sent to the recovery room.”
MEGAN: “I don’t have to. You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother!”
At this point, the situation deteriorated. Megan was ordered to leave the room. She refused and was threatened with disciplinary action.
Hearing this, she ran screaming out of the room, and other professionals were drawn into the situation.
A “Nobody Loses” Approach
Here is another approach to the very same situation. No battle line is drawn. Regardless of how the child reacts, she is actually obeying the adult’s request. Both the dignity of the adult and the dignity of the child can be maintained. Disciplinary action to help Megan learn the wisdom of cooperating with the teacher can be provided at a later time if necessary:
TEACHER: (walking up to the student and whispering) “Megan, I need you to move your chair back. Would you consider doing that for me? Thank you.” (The word consider takes away any threat and eliminates the opportunity for Megan to be defiant.)
MEGAN: “But I want Brittany to help me.”
TEACHER: (still whispering) “I’m sure that’s true, and I’d like you to consider moving.”
MEGAN: “No. I don’t have to.”
TEACHER: (still whispering) “Thanks for considering it. Do you
really think that it’s wise to refuse when I ask in a nice way?
Personally, I don’t think that’s a wise decision. We’ll talk about that later.” (The teacher walks away, and Megan remains where she is, provided she does not create a disturbance.)
Because Megan was not ordered to move, she has already complied with the teacher’s request. She was not told to move, only to consider moving. Nobody has lost a battle at this point. The other students are not aware of the problem, and the teacher’s authority has not been challenged in front of the group. Megan’s teacher now has the time to figure out how to deal with Megan’s lack of cooperation. If discipline is necessary, it can be done in private.
Applying This Technique to Parenting
How many parents do you know who set themselves up for the same kind of battles by barking orders that may not be enforceable at the time? This can lead to deadly results. Children who recognize that they can defy their parents become increasingly insecure and prone to test limits. Each time a parental request can be ignored or defied, the authority of the parent is reduced in the eyes of the children. It does not take long before these kids think, I don’t have to do anything my parent says.
It is important to remember that Love and Logic parents are not permissive. Even though they treat their children with dignity and seldom bark orders, they expect that their wishes and requests will be honored.
Their children believe in the old saying “Your wish is my command.”
Children who live in Love and Logic homes have learned through experience that everybody wins when they are cooperative. Now, have these kids ever tested authority? Sure they have. How else did they learn that defiance doesn’t pay?
Just like the teacher in the second scenario, parents can set themselves up to be winners as authority figures by using some of the following
“Thinking Word Requests” instead of “Fighting Word Demands”:
FIGHTING WORD DEMAND: “Take out the trash, and do it now!”
THINKING WORD REQUEST: “I’d appreciate your taking out the trash before bedtime. Thanks.”
FIGHTING WORD DEMAND: “Don’t you talk to me that way! You go to your room!”
THINKING WORD REQUEST: “Would you mind taking those words to your room? Thank you.”
FIGHTING WORD DEMAND: “You come here right now!”
THINKING WORD REQUEST: “Hey, would you mind coming here? Thank you.”
FIGHTING WORD DEMAND: “Go help your little sister. Do it now. I mean it!”
THINKING WORD REQUEST: “Would you mind helping your sister now? I’d appreciate it.”
Some readers might consider these “Thinking Word Requests” as showing no authority at all. In fact, some readers might even say, “What a wimpy way to talk. How is any authority maintained when you speak so nicely to kids?” Our answer is, “Don’t be so quick to judge.”
Let’s take one of these examples and follow it through to show how kids can learn that it is always best to comply when parents ask in a nice way:
MOM: “Would you mind taking those words to your room? Thank you.”
SON: “No! I don’t have to.”
MOM: “Did I ask in a nice way?”
SON: “Yeah, so what? I’m not leaving!”
MOM: “Not wise, son. I am learning a lot from this.”
Mom walks off and allows her son to temporarily believe he has won the battle. However, he will learn later about the foolishness of his decision. The following day he asks his mom to take him across town to his soccer game and discovers the results of being uncooperative:
SON: “Mom, will you take me to my game? Mrs. Howarth can’t drive today.”
MOM: “I don’t know. Did you ask in a nice way?”
SON: “Sure. What’s this all about?”
MOM: “Yesterday I learned from you that asking in a nice way
doesn’t get the job done. Remember that little episode when I asked, in a nice way, for you to go to your room? What did you teach me at that time?”
SON: “I don’t know.”
MOM: “You taught me that asking in a nice way doesn’t mean all that much. I’d appreciate your giving that some thought. And some day when I feel better about your level of cooperation, I’ll be glad to help out.”
This brave mom did this expecting her son to start begging, complaining, grumbling, and laying on guilt, which of course he did! You probably wonder, Did she give in and drive him to his game after hearing his begging and complaining? Did she ask, “Now, have you learned your lesson?” Absolutely not! His angry behavior proved to her that she needed to provide this important lesson for her son. Think about this. Do kids learn best from hearing about consequences, or do they learn best from experiencing them?