Manipulation...am I missing something? - Page 10

[Shami]

Originally Posted by seawind

Yes, it's quite possible!

I think so, too.
I've gone back to read some of the threads and several times we have agreed on things, but it wasn't apparent.

DD is only one, so everything I say is still theory to me. I don't plan to go around all day saying do x before y, not that anyone implied that--just making an extreme example because I think we are somewhat jumping on each other assuming that we are all in the opposite corners of extremes.

I suspect we are all sort of in the middle somewhere.
For example, like stickey, I don't plan to use a lot of rewards like a toy for you if you behave in the restaurant. My thought is that if my dd can't behave in the rest. then we leave--not as a punishment, but as a consequence. Just like if I don't feel like being quiet, I won't go to an art museum--I'll go to the zoo instead.
Also, I think we all got mixed up in age appropriate stuff. We were all using different examples with different ages and I couldn't process it very well.

In my op I was talking about how I was raised. I remember being about 8 or 9 and getting up every Saturday morning and doing my chores as fast as I could so that I could go outside. Saturday was chore day for the whole family. I also got an allowance for it. Mom taught us to make our bed and do our dishes and I don't remember it being a struggle (from a kid's pointdon't know about my mom--I'll have to ask her). It was just what we did. We could watch a few cartoons after school, but then it was homework time. After homework we could watch tv again or play Atari (can you tell how old I am?).
When I was a toddler, mom said the first time I had a meltdown in the grocery she just left...basket and everything and took me home. She had to do that two times and then I never did that again.
Mom never yelled, but she did a whole lot of reminding...'that doesn't belong there, it goes in your room'.
Now I am an adult and being neat is not easy for me, I really struggle with it. I can't imagine how I would be if mom didn't work with me. My mom is my hero and I hope to be as gentle and loving as she was and is.

I just can't bring myself to view her as manipulating me into doing chores. I guess in the LITERAL sense of the word one could say that it is manipulation. But the way it came across to me as a kid was, gotta do this first and then I can have fun and mom was a gentle leader reminding and encouraging us to take care of our responsibilities in a timely fashion.

I hope North of 60 is still here! If not I thought that was a cute way to exit! Maybe she's still at the park?

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by Shami

When I was a toddler, mom said the first time I had a meltdown in the grocery she just left...basket and everything and took me home. She had to do that two times and then I never did that again.
Mom never yelled, but she did a whole lot of reminding...'that doesn't belong there, it goes in your room'.
Now I am an adult and being neat is not easy for me, I really struggle with it. I can't imagine how I would be if mom didn't work with me. My mom is my hero and I hope to be as gentle and loving as she was and is.

I just can't bring myself to view her as manipulating me into doing chores. I guess in the LITERAL sense of the word one could say that it is manipulation. But the way it came across to me as a kid was, gotta do this first and then I can have fun and mom was a gentle leader reminding and encouraging us to take care of our responsibilities in a timely fashion.

I hope North of 60 is still here! If not I thought that was a cute way to exit! Maybe she's still at the park?

I hope this doesn't come across as smarmy (and I wish I'd had your mom!) but I do think we have to be careful about trying to judge our parenting in the present by the past.

Memory edits a lot. My mum told me when my son was about 10 months old that she used CIO and it was great. So at about 18 months we were staying over and I laid down with my son and he fell asleep really quickly, and she was amazed. So I asked a bit more and she shared that she did CIO... once a month for two years. HmmmMMMmmm. Of course on some kids I am sure it did work. Just not me. But this did not come out of my mother the first time.

It is entirely possible that leaving the store twice worked for you and might work for your child, it doesn't mean that is a universal standard that is always going to work. Leaving once did work on my son - at 3. No problems since. But at 18 months when the argument was about Getting To Walk, leaving did not work. But given that I barely remember that now I wonder if in 20 years I'll remember that brief crazy walking stage.

With grocery shopping too I could name 5 things off the top of my head that are different now: different lighting, more garish packaging, product placement specifically designed to throw kids into conflict with their parents (i.e. the sugared cereals at 4 year old eye level), more electronic noises, and child-sized shopping carts.

That doesn't mean we can't leave if there's a meltdown or address issues so that there aren't meltdowns... it just means that it may not be working the same way.

Anyways sorry to derail the thread a bit; I just hate hate hate the nostalgia/reality clash that I run into myself.

[Shami]

Originally Posted by GuildJenn

I hope this doesn't come across as smarmy (and I wish I'd had your mom!) but I do think we have to be careful about trying to judge our parenting in the present by the past.

Memory edits a lot. That doesn't mean we can't leave if there's a meltdown or address issues so that there aren't meltdowns... it just means that it may not be working the same way.

Anyways sorry to derail the thread a bit; I just hate hate hate the nostalgia/reality clash that I run into myself.

GuildJenn, I was a little surprised by your post. I guess I am not sure where your coming from.

I think we can learn a lot from the past and not make the same mistakes our parents made. OR, we can follow our parents' pattern if it's a good one. Maybe my post sounded a little dreamy (today's been an emotional day for me) to you, but I am pretty sure that it really happened that way.

I do agree with you that parenting is different today. We have a very different atmosphere to deal with than our parents. I also agree that the same parenting technique doesn't work with every kid, but I will def. give my mom's techniques a shot.

[hippymomma69]

Well I haven't read all the posts yet (just the beginning and end LOL) but I did want to throw one thing out if it hasn't already been mentioned that has helped me with this kind of issue....

I've been reading online about "principles versus rules" in parenting and it has definitely been a light bulb and I think might be helpful in talking about manipulation. Here's a nice link with lots of background links worth reading:
http://www.naturalattachment.com/wor...renting-logic/

The basic idea is that you can analyze your interactions with your kids from the perspective of Rules or of Principles. So an example would be:

Principle: Long-term health (or We take care of our bodies)
Rule: You must eat a healthy dinner before having dessert.

If you are focusing on the principle, it just seems like you might have alot more creative solutions to the "problem" you are having. And really, it's the principles that you want your kids to inherit, not necessarily the rules.

I love this Ben Lovejoy quote:

Principles sustain a life; rules will constrain that very same life.

http://sandradodd.com/benrules

Anyway, I think that the manipulation stuff is related because I often find myself manipulating my kids to get them to obey a "rule" (however well-intentioned). But I think it might be easier to find a solution if I focused on the principle I was trying to teach/instill.

FWIW, this is all new reading to me and I haven't put it into action yet so I have no idea if I can be successful at this - but it is kind of a watershed idea for me and I thought others might be interested in it with regards to manipulation/consensual living....
peace,
robyn

[stickywicket67]

sounds awesome, hippymomma69... thanks for sharing!

[jackson'smama]

aaaaahaaaaa - rules vs. principles - i like that!

sticky: just wanted to clarify what i said about your sister. i think i may have fumbled my words b/c i *meant* what you *said*! my thoughts were that since you said your parents "manipulated" that it obviously didn't fully "work" for her, for lack of a better word. while she may have been more "compliant" while under your parents' roof, her personality has dominated over the discipline she was raised by.

[stickywicket67]

Originally Posted by jackson'smama

aaaaahaaaaa - rules vs. principles - i like that!

sticky: just wanted to clarify what i said about your sister. i think i may have fumbled my words b/c i *meant* what you *said*! my thoughts were that since you said your parents "manipulated" that it obviously didn't fully "work" for her, for lack of a better word. while she may have been more "compliant" while under your parents' roof, her personality has dominated over the discipline she was raised by.

yes. i got that. i didn't take it offensively at all! i hope didn't offend with my answer,

in my response i wanted to point out two aspects to that thought about my sister which were

-personality and temperament play a big role in who we grow up to be

(ftr- she wasn't all that 'compliant' about cleaning up after herself when she was a kid either )

-no matter what our parents try to *instill* in us we will ultimately manifest the "consequences" for ourselves

i was using her as an an example to illustrate the quote i included from GuildJenn.

my mom has said many times how different we all are and marvels at how she could have raised 4 kids (i have a brother, too) who are so unalike.