If-then contracts
Joyce Fetteroll
I got this question by email and thought I'd share it:
It might help you see it more clearly if you ask yourself what your
goal is. Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of
making a cake? If the goal is a clean kitchen, then it's better not
to have children! ;-)
Ah, but why can't the goal be both a clean kitchen and a cake?
It can be. But ...
When we have two goals there often comes a time when the two goals
conflict: to meet one you need to give up the other. What if your
daughter responded to your contract with, "Okay, then I don't feel
like making a cake." What will you have gained and what will you have
lost? Would you rather when she grew up she had memories of a clean
kitchen or a particularly yummy creation?
When I did crafts with my daughter it did always seem as though there
was more setting up and cleaning up than crafting :-/ but I realized
that if my daughter associated a tedious clean up as a necessary part
of crafts, then she'd choose crafts a lot less. And what would I have
gained? A neat craft cabinet? What's the point of that!?
That said, clean up can be an organic part of creating. You can say
"Could you put the milk back in the refrigerator for me?" and "This
goes on the second shelf of the cabinet."
But *accept* that the clean up is your contribution to helping your
daughter explore. It's like the $30 you spend to get into the science
center. Would you ask her to pay her part of the admission price? And
if she chose not to, what would you have gained?
So rather than thinking about how you can make her clean up, rethink
the process of cake baking. What I do is set all the ingredients out
in the order the recipe calls for them. I read off the directions a
step at a time. When she's done with an ingredient, I put it away.
When she's done with a bowl or cup, I put it in the dishwasher.
There's still some clean up at the end, but it's a lot less. And
since I've focused on trying not to associate helping me with
unpleasantness, she is very willing to help me out. (I have certainly
not been perfect in not getting upset about clean up! But, though
pressuring to clean up lets off steam, I can clearly see it has the
opposite effect on my daughter than I want.)
Joyce
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
> In the "If-then" section you were talking about just that -- "If-Yes, your question makes perfect sense.
> Then" situations, and that made perfect sense to me. But then in a
> later section (parenting or chores, maybe?) You mention Cake
> Baking - and how they should be able to bake/make messes/etc if
> they want, but it would be the Mom's responsibilty to clean it.
> Why wouldn't that just be part of an "If - then" situation? "If
> they want to bake a cake, then they would have to do the whole
> process of cake baking"? My daughter loves to play around in the
> kitchen, and I always thought of the "clean up" as part of the
> whole "process of baking", or what-have-you. The cleaning up of
> making a cake is just part of the whole process of cake making -
> isn't it?
>
> Am I making any sense?
It might help you see it more clearly if you ask yourself what your
goal is. Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of
making a cake? If the goal is a clean kitchen, then it's better not
to have children! ;-)
Ah, but why can't the goal be both a clean kitchen and a cake?
It can be. But ...
When we have two goals there often comes a time when the two goals
conflict: to meet one you need to give up the other. What if your
daughter responded to your contract with, "Okay, then I don't feel
like making a cake." What will you have gained and what will you have
lost? Would you rather when she grew up she had memories of a clean
kitchen or a particularly yummy creation?
When I did crafts with my daughter it did always seem as though there
was more setting up and cleaning up than crafting :-/ but I realized
that if my daughter associated a tedious clean up as a necessary part
of crafts, then she'd choose crafts a lot less. And what would I have
gained? A neat craft cabinet? What's the point of that!?
That said, clean up can be an organic part of creating. You can say
"Could you put the milk back in the refrigerator for me?" and "This
goes on the second shelf of the cabinet."
But *accept* that the clean up is your contribution to helping your
daughter explore. It's like the $30 you spend to get into the science
center. Would you ask her to pay her part of the admission price? And
if she chose not to, what would you have gained?
So rather than thinking about how you can make her clean up, rethink
the process of cake baking. What I do is set all the ingredients out
in the order the recipe calls for them. I read off the directions a
step at a time. When she's done with an ingredient, I put it away.
When she's done with a bowl or cup, I put it in the dishwasher.
There's still some clean up at the end, but it's a lot less. And
since I've focused on trying not to associate helping me with
unpleasantness, she is very willing to help me out. (I have certainly
not been perfect in not getting upset about clean up! But, though
pressuring to clean up lets off steam, I can clearly see it has the
opposite effect on my daughter than I want.)
Joyce
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
Susan
Snips from Joyce's post:
different, JOYFUL way of looking at it - and in turn change the
*feeling* you hold in body about it. One way feels grumbley,
resentful, and coercive (not great energy to carry around or approach
relationships with). The other way feels good - it's loving,
supportive, and allows a little more joy into your life.
All it takes is a shift in perspective! Charles Swindell said, "I am
convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent
how I react to it." Another way of saying it is, "Life is ten percent
situation, 90% attitude - how we *choose* approach it." Attitude is
*big*.
DH and I were talking about this. If I complain about my daughter
leaving her dishes on the coffee table, if I make a point of telling
her that *I* had to pick them up and walk all the way over to the sink
and clean them up, etc, then I make it that much *less* appealing for
her to do it herself because I've made such a big deal of how
unpleasant it was for me to do it, and my resentment is clearly
showing her that it's a joyless chore that I prefer to avoid. So even
if she does it next time, will she be doing it with a light heart or
will she be thinking about what a PITA it is to have to clean up? Plus
there was the time and energy I expended to fuss at her, and the
critical, conditional messages she heard in my complaining.
If, instead, I think of how picking up her dishes is a small way of
helping to care for her, and it leaves her with more uninterrupted
time to play the game she enjoys so much, and how it's not difficult
at all because I'm walking right past them on my way into the kitchen
anyways, and I just joyfully pick them up without saying anything,
then not only have I saved myself from harboring all those negative
feelings, I've spared her from them, too, and found joy in my heart by
doing something small and simple for someone I love, but I've also
modeled that picking up our messes can be just a routine,
uncomplicated part of living together.
And, lo and behold, she takes the dishes to the sink much, much more
than she ever did when I spent time fussing at her about it. My goal
is not to raise a daughter that always takes her dishes to the sink
but to raise a child who feels loved, within family that lives
joyfully. And that starts with my *attitude* when I interact her, the
way I think about things and the corresponding feelings I bring into
our relationship. Sometimes the dishes are a side effect of that. :)
~ Susan
> It might help you see it more clearly if you ask yourself what yourTHIS is the stuff I love - take a common situation and find a
> goal is. Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of
> making a cake?
> What will you have gained and what will you have
> lost? Would you rather when she grew up she had memories of a clean
> kitchen or a particularly yummy creation?
> if my daughter associated a tedious clean up as a necessary part
> of crafts, then she'd choose crafts a lot less. And what would I have
> gained? A neat craft cabinet? What's the point of that!?
> But *accept* that the clean up is your contribution to helping your
> daughter explore.
> So rather than thinking about how you can make her clean up, rethink
> the process of cake baking.
different, JOYFUL way of looking at it - and in turn change the
*feeling* you hold in body about it. One way feels grumbley,
resentful, and coercive (not great energy to carry around or approach
relationships with). The other way feels good - it's loving,
supportive, and allows a little more joy into your life.
All it takes is a shift in perspective! Charles Swindell said, "I am
convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent
how I react to it." Another way of saying it is, "Life is ten percent
situation, 90% attitude - how we *choose* approach it." Attitude is
*big*.
DH and I were talking about this. If I complain about my daughter
leaving her dishes on the coffee table, if I make a point of telling
her that *I* had to pick them up and walk all the way over to the sink
and clean them up, etc, then I make it that much *less* appealing for
her to do it herself because I've made such a big deal of how
unpleasant it was for me to do it, and my resentment is clearly
showing her that it's a joyless chore that I prefer to avoid. So even
if she does it next time, will she be doing it with a light heart or
will she be thinking about what a PITA it is to have to clean up? Plus
there was the time and energy I expended to fuss at her, and the
critical, conditional messages she heard in my complaining.
If, instead, I think of how picking up her dishes is a small way of
helping to care for her, and it leaves her with more uninterrupted
time to play the game she enjoys so much, and how it's not difficult
at all because I'm walking right past them on my way into the kitchen
anyways, and I just joyfully pick them up without saying anything,
then not only have I saved myself from harboring all those negative
feelings, I've spared her from them, too, and found joy in my heart by
doing something small and simple for someone I love, but I've also
modeled that picking up our messes can be just a routine,
uncomplicated part of living together.
And, lo and behold, she takes the dishes to the sink much, much more
than she ever did when I spent time fussing at her about it. My goal
is not to raise a daughter that always takes her dishes to the sink
but to raise a child who feels loved, within family that lives
joyfully. And that starts with my *attitude* when I interact her, the
way I think about things and the corresponding feelings I bring into
our relationship. Sometimes the dishes are a side effect of that. :)
~ Susan