How Children REALLY React To Control

by Dr. Thomas Gordon

When one person tries to control another, you can always expect some kind of reaction from the controlee. The use of power involves two people in a special kind of relationship - one wielding power, and the other reacting to it.

This seemingly obvious fact is not usually dealt with in the writings of the dare-to-discipline advocates. Invariably, they leave the child out of the formula, omitting any reference to how the youngster reacts to the control of his or her parents or teachers.

They insist, "Parents must set limits," but seldom say anything about how children respond to having their needs denied in this way. "Parents should not be afraid to exercise their authority," they counsel, but rarely mention how youngsters react to authority-based coercion. By omitting the child from the interaction, the discipline advocates leave the impression that the child submits willingly and consistently to adults' power and does precisely what is demanded.

These are actual quotes from the many power-to-the-parent books I've collected along the way:

• "Be firm but fair."
• "Insist that your children obey."
• "Don't be afraid to express disapproval by spanking."
• "There are times when you have to say 'no'."
• "Discipline with love."
• "Demonstrate your parental right to lead."
• "The toddler should be taught to obey and yield to parental leadership."

What these books have in common is advocacy of the use of power-based discipline with no mention of how children react to it. In other words, the dare-to-discipline advocates never present power-based discipline in full, as a cause-and-effect phenomenon, an action-and-reaction event.

This omission is important, for it implies that all children passively submit to adult demands, perfectly content and secure in an obedient role, first in relationships with their parents and teachers and, eventually, with all adult power-wielders they might encounter.

However, I have found not a shred of evidence to support this view. In fact, as most of us remember only too well from our childhood, we did almost anything we could to defend against power-based control. We tried to avoid it, postpone it, weaken it, avert it, escape from it. We lied, we put the blame on someone else, we tattled, hid, pleaded, begged for mercy, or promised we would never do it again.

We also experienced punitive discipline as embarrassing, demeaning, humiliating, frightening, and painful. To be coerced into doing something against our will was a personal insult and an affront to our dignity, an act that devalued the importance of our needs.

Punitive discipline is by definition need-depriving as opposed to need-satisfying. Recall that punishment will be effective only if it is felt by the child as aversive, painful, unpleasant. When controllers employ punishment, they always intend for it to cause pain or deprivation. It seems so obvious, then, that children don't ever want punitive discipline, contrary to what its advocates would have us believe. No child "asks for it," "feels a need for it," or is "grateful for it." And it is probably true, too, that no child ever forgets or forgives a punitive parent or teacher. This is why I find it incredible that the authors of power-to-the-parent books try to justify power-based discipline with such statements as:

• "Kids not only need punishment, they want it."
• "Children basically want what is coming to them, good or bad, because justice is security."
• "Punishment will prove to kids that their parents love them."
• "The youngster who knows he deserves a spanking appears almost relieved when it finally comes."
• "Rather than be insulted by the discipline, [the child] understands its purpose and appreciates the control it gives him over his own impulses."
• "Corporal punishment in the hands of a loving parent is entirely different in purpose and practice [from child abuse]....One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility."
• "Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted."
• "Punishment will make children feel more secure in their relationship."
• "Discipline makes for happy families; healthy relationships."

Could these be rationalizations intended to relieve the guilt that controllers feel after coercing or committing acts of physical violence against their children? It seems possible in view of the repeated insistence that the punishing adult is really a loving adult, doing it only "for the child's own good," or as a dutiful act of "benevolent leadership." It appears that being firm with children has to be justified by saying, "Be firm but fair"; being tough is acceptable as long as it's "Tough Love"; being an autocrat is justifiable as long as you're a "benevolent autocrat"; coercing children is okay as long as you're not a "dictator"; and physically abusing children is not abuse as long as you "do it lovingly."

Disciplinarians' insistence that punishment is benign and constructive might be explained by their desire that children eventually become subservient to a Supreme Being or higher authority. This can only be achieved, they believe, if children first learn to obey their parents and other adults. James Dobson (1978) stresses this point time and time again:

• "While yielding to the loving leadership of their parents, children are also learning to yield to the benevolent leadership of God Himself."
• "With regard to the specific discipline of the strong-willed toddler, mild spankings can begin between 15 and 18 months of age....To repeat, the toddler should be taught to obey and yield to parental leadership, but that end will not be accomplished overnight."

It's the familiar story of believing that the ends justify the means. Obedience to parental authority first, and then later to some higher authority, is so strongly valued by some advocates of punitive discipline that the means they utilize to achieve that end are distorted to appear beneficial to children rather than harmful.

The hope that children eventually will submit to all authority is, I think, wishful thinking. Not all children submit when adults try to control them. In fact, children respond with a wide variety of reactions, an assortment of behaviors. Psychologists call these reactions "coping behaviors" or "coping mechanisms".

The Coping Mechanisms Children Use

Over the years I have compiled a long list of the various coping mechanisms youngsters use when adults try to control them. This list comes primarily out of our Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) and Teacher Effectiveness Training (T.E.T.) classes, where we employ a simple but revealing classroom exercise. Participants are asked to recall the specific ways they themselves coped with power-based discipline when they were youngsters. The question yields nearly identical lists in every class, which confirms how universal children's coping mechanisms are. The complete list is reproduced below, in no particular order. Note how varied these recurring themes are. (Can you pick out the particular coping methods you employed as a youngster?)

• Resisting, defying, being negative
• Rebelling, disobeying, being insubordinate, sassing
• Retaliating, striking back, counterattacking, vandalizing
• Hitting, being belligerent, combative
• Breaking rules and laws
• Throwing temper tantrums, getting angry
• Lying, deceiving, hiding the truth
• Blaming others, tattling, telling on others
• Bossing or bullying others
• Banding together, forming alliances, organizing against the adult
• Apple-polishing, buttering up, soft-soaping, bootlicking, currying favor with adults
• Withdrawing, fantasizing, daydreaming
• Competing, needing to win, hating to lose, needing to look good, making others look bad
• Giving up, feeling defeated, loafing, goofing off
• Leaving, escaping, staying away from home, running away, quitting school, cutting classes
• Not talking, ignoring, using the silent treatment, writing the adult off, keeping one's distance
• Crying, weeping; feeling depressed or hopeless
• Becoming fearful, shy, timid, afraid to speak up, hesitant to try anything new
• Needing reassurance, seeking constant approval, feeling insecure
• Getting sick, developing psychosomatic ailments
• Overeating, excessive dieting
• Being submissive, conforming, complying; being dutiful, docile, apple-polishing, being a goody-goody, teacher's pet
• Drinking heavily, using drugs
• Cheating in school, plagiarizing

As you might expect, after parents and teachers in the class generate their list, and realize that it was created out of their own experience, they invariably make such comments as:

• "Why would anyone want to use power, if these are the behaviors it produces?"
• "All of these coping mechanisms are behaviors that I wouldn't want to see in my children [or my students]."
• "I don't see in the list any good effects or positive behaviors."
• "If we reacted to power in those ways when we were kids, our own children certainly will, too."

After this exercise, some parents and teachers undergo a 180-degree shift in their thinking. They see much more clearly that power creates the very behavior patterns they most dislike in children! They begin to understand that as parents and teachers they are paying a terrible price for using power: they are causing their children or students to develop habits, traits, and characteristics considered both unacceptable by most adults and unhealthy by mental health professionals.

Excerpted from "Teaching Children Self Discipline", by Dr. Thomas Gordon

Do You Need To Use Preventive I-Messages?

Holiday Season and Communication

The holidays. What can be a very stressful time of the year - with family/friends visiting, traveling, holiday shopping and everything in between - it is important to remember what the upcoming festivities are about. Self-disclosure and effective communication will benefit healthy relationships. This is where we all could practice using our Preventive I-Messages.

Self-disclosure is direct and congruent communication and action. It involves sharing with other people what’s going on inside you (needs, feelings, wants). The Preventive I-Message is a communication to someone who is significant in your life, someone who can help you in getting your needs met. It is a direct, clear, and congruently strong expression, avoiding either submissive or aggressive overtones. It contains, to a greater or lesser degree, a possible solution to your need, representing the responsibility you have taken to understand and then act to meet your own needs.

The benefits or advantages of the Preventive I-Message extend to you, the other person, and the health of the on-going relationship, including the following results:

You maintain awareness, responsibility and control of your needs and feelings.

Others know your needs and the strength of your feelings about them.

You model openness, directness, thus encouraging reciprocal self-disclosure by others.

Others are better able to meet your needs when they have a clear picture of what you want.

Others have advance notice of your need and can adjust their behavior accordingly.

You and others reduce the chances of future conflicts that can result from unknown or uncommunicated needs.

You reduce the element of surprise, unpreparedness, and unexpected conflict from the relationship.

You save yourself and others time, energy and resources that can result from unanticipated conflicts.

You plan your life, take responsibility and prepare for future needs.

The Preventive I-Message generally consists of two parts: (1) the self-disclosure ("I want..." or "I need...") and (2) the reason (usually desired consequence) for the self-disclosure ("I want...because...").

Here is an example of a Preventive I-Message:

"I'd really like to visit my folks this year as part of our vacation...I miss them and really feel out of touch with their lives."*

*Excerpt from Gordon Training International's Be Your Best Participant Workbook

Benefits You Can Look Forward To

Many young people who have learned the Gordon Model of building democratic relationships have willingly shared the benefits and rewards they have experienced.

They always begin by talking about their own family:

• "When my Mom and Dad and I don't agree on everything, it (the skills) really helps because we don't let things get out of control and everyone's feelings are less likely to get hurt."
• "I have learned not to yell as much and have learned to be patient until finding a compromise."
• "I know what to do when an argument starts."
• "I can now talk to my parents about anything, and I know they will listen without preaching--even if what I tell them might upset them or disappoint them."
• "My friends find it hard to believe that I have really good relationship with both of my parents."
• "I feel that my parents are my best friends."
• "Nobody in my family is the boss."

These young people also describe the benefits they have received in their relationships with their friends or at work:

• "All my friends know they can come to me with any kind of problem and get heard. They know I am a good Active Listener."
• "I know that any conflict that comes up with my friends can be resolved using the skills I've learned."
• "I'm able to distance myself from my friends' problems and let them be the owners of their problems."
• "The training has made me a better problem-solver when things go wrong in my life. I know how to brainstorm."

There is one final benefit you may not be aware of. Young people, like yourself, raise in a non-punitive and democratic family will themselves to create such a family when they marry and have children. Then those children will do the same, and the next generation of children will follow, and so on.

Can you see that you can make a valuable contribution to society? In successive generations there will be more and more young people like yourself and more and more democratic families. You will be helping create a whole "new species" of young people, clearly different from the typical youth of today. There will be fewer acts of injustice and violence, few juvenile delinquents, fewer divorces, and so on.

In short, you can now contribute to our society by being one of the people who makes democracy a way of life.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's F.E.T. Young Adult Resource Book

Winning vs Losing

Winning vs Losing

How we solve conflicts and problems is not a reflection on our being "good" or "bad" parents. Our approach comes from what we have learned from interactions with our own parents, teachers, friends, bosses, coworkers and others in our work and life. We are doing our best with the tools we have been given. For many parents, there is a fear of losing control and becoming victims of their children's demands. For other parents, it is a fear of becoming too dictatorial and controlling. both fears come from the win-lose way of thinking that is ingrained in today's world, work and life.

As a result of this thinking, the two most common ways to solve problems are Parent Wins and Child Loses - Method I in P.E.T. language, and Parent Loses and Child Wins - Method II. P.E.T. offers an alternative to these win-lose methods. The core idea in P.E.T. is: Parents have the right to get their needs met and, equally, so do children. Both must win; neither must lose. And the way to insure that this happens is deceptively simple and straight forward: Parent and child must commit themselves to search together until a solution is found that will meet their equally important needs, resolve the conflict, and preserve the relationship.

Learning to resolve conflicts effectively, in ways that enhance the parent-child relationship, can actually transform most conflict into positive events in a family--an opportunity for parents and children to learn about each other and the process of solving problems effectively.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's P.E.T. Participant Workbook

How Do Children React to Control?

How Children Really React to Control

by Thomas Gordon, Ph.D.

When one person tries to control another, you can always expect some kind of reaction from the controllee. The use of power involves two people in a special kind of relationship - one wielding power, and the other reacting to it.

This seemingly obvious fact is not usually dealt with in the writings of the dare-to-discipline advocates. Invariably, they leave the child out of the formula, omitting any reference to how the youngster reacts to the control of his or her parents or teachers.

They insist, "Parents must set limits," but seldom say anything about how children respond to having their needs denied in this way. "Parents should not be afraid to exercise their authority," they counsel, but rarely mention how youngsters react to authority-based coercion. By omitting the child from the interaction, the discipline advocates leave the impression that the child submits willingly and consistently to adults' power and does precisely what is demanded.

These are actual quotes from the many power-to-the-parent books I've collected along the way:

• "Be firm but fair."
• "Insist that your children obey."
• "Don't be afraid to express disapproval by spanking."
• "There are times when you have to say 'no'."
• "Discipline with love."
• "Demonstrate your parental right to lead."
• "The toddler should be taught to obey and yield to parental leadership."

What these books have in common is advocacy of the use of power-based discipline with no mention of how children react to it. In other words, the dare-to-discipline advocates never present power-based discipline in full, as a cause-and-effect phenomenon, an action-and-reaction event.

This omission is important, for it implies that all children passively submit to adult demands, perfectly content and secure in an obedient role, first in relationships with their parents and teachers and, eventually, with all adult power-wielders they might encounter.

However, I have found not a shred of evidence to support this view. In fact, as most of us remember only too well from our childhood, we did almost anything we could to defend against power-based control. We tried to avoid it, postpone it, weaken it, avert it, escape from it. We lied, we put the blame on someone else, we tattled, hid, pleaded, begged for mercy, or promised we would never do it again.

We also experienced punitive discipline as embarrassing, demeaning, humiliating, frightening, and painful. To be coerced into doing something against our will was a personal insult and an affront to our dignity, an act that devalued the importance of our needs.

Punitive discipline is by definition need-depriving as opposed to need-satisfying. Recall that punishment will be effective only if it is felt by the child as aversive, painful, unpleasant. When controllers employ punishment, they always intend for it to cause pain or deprivation. It seems so obvious, then, that children don't ever want punitive discipline, contrary to what its advocates would have us believe. No child "asks for it," "feels a need for it," or is "grateful for it." And it is probably true, too, that no child ever forgets or forgives a punitive parent or teacher. This is why I find it incredible that the authors of power-to-the-parent books try to justify power-based discipline with such statements as:

• "Kids not only need punishment, they want it."
• "Children basically want what is coming to them, good or bad, because justice is security."
• "Punishment will prove to kids that their parents love them."
• "The youngster who knows he deserves a spanking appears almost relieved when it finally comes."
• "Rather than be insulted by the discipline, [the child] understands its purpose and appreciates the control it gives him over his own impulses."
• "Corporal punishment in the hands of a loving parent is entirely different in purpose and practice [from child abuse]....One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility."
• "Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted."
• "Punishment will make children feel more secure in their relationship."
• "Discipline makes for happy families; healthy relationships."*

*Writings from Dr. Thomas Gordon

Understanding"Discipline"

The Noun and the Verb of "Discipline"

__________________________________________

As a noun, discipline is usually understood as:

• behavior in accordance with rules and regulations
• instruction to obtain proper action
• the training effect of experience or adversity
• behavior maintained by training

Example: "The basketball team showed a lot of discipline."

As a verb, "to discipline" is usually understood by parents as:

• to bring to a state of order and obedience
• to punish or penalize in order to train and control

Example: "Parents discipline their children when they misbehave."

You seldom get much controversy about the noun, because it makes us think about order, cooperation, knowing and following correct procedures--such as the discipline of a marching band or symphony orchestra.

However, the verb "to discipline" makes us think of control, punishment, penalty. The controlling and punishing type of discipline creates a lot of controversy. Here is a list of its synonyms: curb, restrain, keep in line, correct, harness, inhibit, chastise, reprimand, criticize, punish.

Think of the "teach-train-guide" kind of discipline as an effort to influence, while the "restrain-restrict-punish" kind of discipline is an effort to control.

Obviously, most parents strongly want to have the ability to influence kids have a positive effect on their lives. But in practice, most parents fall into the trap of trying to control kids by making rules, imposing limits, giving orders and commands, punishing or threatening to punish.

Such control-type methods don't influence children; they only coerce or compel them. This is a crucial difference.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's Family Effectiveness Training Adult Resource book

What Are the Benefits of I-Messages?

Benefits of I-Messages

• Foster self-discipline and self-control
• Foster high self-esteem, not self-blame
• Effective in reducing children's disruptive behaviors
• Help children control temptation
• Encourage creative solutions
• Influence instead of control
• Reduce anger

Keep sending those I-Messages! :)

Why Is Method II Ineffective?

Why Method II 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 I 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 II 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 of 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 II 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 I. Children accustomed to Method II 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 I, backed up with authority and power.

Probably the most serious effect of Method II 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 I homes resentment radiates from child to parent; in Method II homes from parent to child. The child of Method II 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 II homes are likely to be more creative than children from Method I homes, parents pay a dear price for having creative children; they frequently cannot stand them.

Parents suffer greatly in the Method II 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 II parents is seldom a joy--how unfortunate and sad it is to raise children you cannot love, or hate to associate with.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's P.E.T. book

Any Research Confirming the Benefits of P.E.T.?

SOME RESEARCH FINDINGS CONFIRMING THE BENEFITS OF THE P.E.T. STYLE OF PARENTING

Cedar, Robert B.

A Meta-Analysis of the Parent Effectiveness

Training Outcome Research.

Twenty six studies of P.E.T. were analyzed, using the "meta-analytic technique" of integrating the statistical findings from all the studies. The results showed the P.E.T. training to have strong positive effects on parent attitudes and parent behavior significantly greater than the effect of alternative training approaches. This effect endured at least up to 26 weeks after the course was completed.

Coopersmith, Stanley

Antecedents of Self-esteem.

Mothers whose children had a high self-esteem when compared with mothers whose children had low self-esteem were found to use more reasoning and verbal discussion and less arbitrary punitive discipline.

Strauss, M., Gelles, R. and Steinmetz, S.

Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family.

Nearly 50% of children whose parents employed frequent physical punishment to control them were found to have used retaliatory physical violence (hitting) against their parents, while less than one out of every 400 children whose parents did not employ physical punishment had hit their parents.

Only 20% of children whose parents did not use physical punishment were found to have severely assaulted a brother or sister, while nearly 100% whose parents did use physical punishment were found to have severely assaulted a brother or sister.

Baumrind, D.

Child Care Practices Anteceding Three Patterns of Preschool Behavior.

Children who related high in self-control and self-discipline were found to have parents who refrained from punitive punishment, using instead a reasoning approach - that is, messages that told the children the negative effects of their behavior on others (P.E.T. I-Messages).

Baldwin, A.L. Kalhorn, J. and Breese, F.

Patterns of Parent Behavior.

Children of democratic parents, as compared with those of autocratic or permissive parents, received higher ratings from teachers in originality, planfulness, patience, curiosity. They also held more leadership positions in school, scored higher in emotional adjustment and maturity, and showed an increase in I.Q. over the years.

Parke, R.

Effectiveness of Punishment as an Interaction of Intensity, Timing, Agent Nurturance and Cognitive Structuring.

"Cognitive messages" (P.E.T. I-Messages) were more influential than punishment in preventing children from playing with prohibited toys, even in the absence of the researcher. The effects of I-Messages as a deterrent continued over time, whereas the effects of punishment wore off.

*Excerpt from P.E.T. Participant Workbook

What is the Difference from Control vs. Influence?

What is the Difference from Control vs. Influence

(from a child's perspective)

There is interaction amongst the entire family, parent-to-child, parent-to-parent, and child-to-child/sibling-to-sibling. Let's focus on the siblings perspective. I like to call it "sibling rivalry"--families deal with this often, perhaps on a regular basis or enough to find a solution for the problem.

Control vs. Influence

When people use control to get others to do something, they use threats, praise or punishment; the controller gives the other person no choice.

When people use influence to get others to do something, they share information, give advice, teach or suggest to the other person; influencers give the other person a choice to accept or reject their influencing.

Example:

Control: You lend your brother your motorbike with the understanding that he'll be back by a certain time. He brings the bike back later than he said he would. You tell him he can't borrow it again. (Brother feels resentful.)

Influence: You give your brother an I-Message about how his not bringing the bike back on time caused you to be late for soccer practice. (Brother feels bad he caused this problem.)

Ask yourself these questions about control in your life:

Who can keep you from getting something you really want?

Who can give you something you need or want very much?

Who can make life most unpleasant/pleasant for you?

And these questions about influence:

Whom do you look up to and really listen to what they have to say?

Whose advice, experience or knowledge do you ask for and often follow?

Who really influences what you think and do?

Now this about relationships in which you are either a controller or an influencer.

Be aware of the times when you behave as a controller or an influencer of someone and also of those times when you are controlled or influenced by someone else.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's Family Effectiveness Training, Young Adult Resource Book

What is the Difference in Self-Discipline and Imposed Discipline?

Self-Discipline versus Imposed Discipline

Almost everyone wants children who are capable of self-discipline--self-regulation, self-control. But where does it come from? Unfortunately, most parents believe that children will eventually develop self-control as a direct result of adults controlling and disciplining them. They think that outer-control will produce self-control and self-discipline.

The evidence is to the contrary. Children who have been extensively controlled and disciplined by parents and other adults often become rebellious and defiant to all adult authority. So disciplining kids does not produce self-disciplined kids.

Unfortunately, discipline by adults does produce some children who are obedient, fearful, shy and submissive, very different from self-disciplined children.

Studies show that self-disciplined children are those who were given a lot of freedom to make many of their own choices and decisions.*

*Excerpt from Family Effectiveness Training (F.E.T.) Adult Resource Book

Do Families Need Rules?

All groups, of whatever size or nature, need laws, regulations, rules, policies, and standard operating procedures. Without them, groups may very well fall into confusion, chaos and conflict. The functions that rules and policies can serve are indispensable. They can prevent misunderstandings and conflicts between people; define rights and privileges; legislate what is considered appropriate, fair and equitable in human relationships; and provide guidelines to help people know what limits they must set on their own behavior.

The issue is not whether groups need rules. They do need them. The real issue is how to motivate all group members to comply with them.

At some time in our lives we all have felt unmotivated to comply with some rule or policy that we had no voice in making. Denied the opportunity to participate in establishing a rule, most people feel imposed upon and resentful of the new rule. But when people actively participate in setting a rule or making a decision that will affect them, they are more highly motivated to comply with it. We call this the Principle of Participation, and it has proven its effectiveness in numerous research studies.

When children are given the opportunity to participate in setting rules or making decisions that will affect them, several good things happen. Children feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem and self-confidence. Most important, they feel they have gained more "fate control"--more personal control over their own lives. They also feel they are equal members of the family with an equal voice in making decisions and establishing rules--they're part of a team, not second-class citizens. This means that families that function collaboratively and democratically will have closer and warmer relationships than those in which the adults act as bosses or authorities expecting the children to obey the rules made for them.

Another important reason for encouraging the full participation of family members in decision making is that it often produces higher-quality solutions to problems. Two heads (or three, or four) are better than one; shared decisions will be based not only on the knowledge and experience of the adults but also on the knowledge and experience of the children.

The admonition "Father knows best", which implies that father knows better than son or daughter, should be challenged with the more reasonable, "Yes, but does father know better than father and children?"

Enlisting the participation of children in rule-setting results in important benefits:

• A higher motivation on the part of all family members to implement or comply with the rules
• Decisions of higher quality
• Closer, warmer relationships between family members
• Higher self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of control over fate on the part of the children
• More personal responsibility and self-discipline
• Less need for parents to enforce compliance

Obviously, not all decisions that affect the family are open for participative rule-setting and decision-making. These will be issues that don't affect all the family members or issues that are not negotiable (because they're against the law, etc.). In other words, some issues will be outside the Area of Freedom for family rule-setting and decision-making. For example, how the family income gets spent, whether one of the parents looks for another job or if and what kind of exercise family members get are probably outside the Area of Freedom of other family members to decide.

The most important rule of thumb is that family rule-setting and decision-making meetings should include all the members who will be affected by the rule or decision, and only those members.

It's important that your family agree on which issues, situations and tasks are within the Area of Freedom of the family members.

The list of items that potentially can be handled by participative rule-setting or decision making are many and vary from family to family.

Here's a list of just some of the issues that lend themselves to family rule-setting and decision-making:

• Bedtime
• Household chores
• Ownership and care of pets
• Yard work
• How to spend family vacation time, holidays or other free time
• Use of car/s, bicycles, etc.
• Allowances
• TV watching
• Use of computer

Please Note: Participative Rule-Setting requires some communication skills that you will can learn in the P.E.T. program. These skills are:

• Expressing your needs and problems
• Hearing others when they have needs or problems
• Solving problems and conflicts