A History of Violence

My generation grew up in a society that had a different idea of developing a positive self-image than society does today. In the 1950s, Canadians had just come out of a huge war. In order to cope with this war, the whole society held to the military ideals that rules were rules, and standards were standards, and you had to stick to them rigidly, no matter what. If you had a problem, it could be solved by putting your nose to the grindstone, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and getting on with the job. If you didn’t complete the grade, you flunked. If you misbehaved, you got the strap. If you didn’t finish your work, you were lazy. Alcoholism was simply a matter of lack of willpower.

That kind of attitude wins wars, but it doesn't create a very pleasant, productive, or democratic society.

Some teachers back then probably noticed that it didn’t do too much good to fail a student, because a 15-year-old in Grade 8 usually just dropped out of school. Of course, since the school had nothing to offer a “stupid” 15-year-old, and there were jobs in the mill, that was just as well.

Then came 1965, and that old stuff was thrown out the door. Suddenly self-image was everything. Nobody was held back, because they wouldn’t be happy, and unhappy children can’t learn. Curriculum became secondary to social interaction. Marks were de-emphasized. By the the early eighties, when I started teaching, things had gone pretty far.

Report cards, right up to Grade 7, were anecdotal, and “can-do”. It was forbidden to tell the parents what children couldn’t do, because that would be bad for their self-image. Notice that “their”, in this case, probably means the parents. Dr. Spock told us how to raise children and spare the rod. Punishment was out. "Consequences" were in. Praise was the cure for every problem.

Over the last 10 years or so we seem to have gotten over that. The pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction.

As I write this, Canada is at war in Afghanistan. The US and Britain are at war in Iraq as well, and looking askance at Iran. The US has been losing the War on Drugs for quite a while. More about the War on Poverty in a later posting. Countries at war need to bring up their little soldiers differently. Discipline becomes important. Individualism is out, conformism is in.

School is all tests, data and statistics. “Accountability” is the watchword.

Ho hum. Here we go again. The band leaders roll out the same old wagons and paint different jargon in big gold letters on the sides, the camp followers jump on with glee, and they all steam off in whatever direction is popular. Somewhere in the middle, most of us muddle through. Good teachers take whatever is good from whatever bandwagon the administration is riding on, and keep on teaching. Good parents find a blend of the tried-and-true and the new ideals, and raise good children.

So what is a “good child”? What kind of a child are we trying to raise? We can no longer teach a child a list of things to beware of, a catalogue of sins to eschew. New problems and temptations move in too fast, through television, popular culture, and the internet. Like the internet anti-virus programs, the "List of Dangers" approach is doomed to a life of catch-up, always reacting to find a protection against each new threat.

In a society where change is the watchword, how will we teach a child to be able to succeed, no matter what happens in the society? If we push the computer comparison a bit further, perhaps we could agree that the best way to protect your computer against viruses is to create a computer operating system that is more independent, less likely to be affected by outside influences, and thus less susceptible to damage from external forces.

Apply that to the children we are trying to bring up.

In my day, it was enough to teach your kid to be tough. If he is bullied, beat up on the bully. Follow the rules and be a good little patriot, and you can be proud of yourself.

Nowadays, it is necessary to create an independent child who thinks for himself, does not look to the outside world for approval, and will thus not be led astray by the influences that bombard him.

How do we do this?

The major factor in the social, economic, and personal success of any individual is the development of a healthy self-image: a well-rounded sense of self and solid self-esteem. The rest, as they say, is details.

I do not pretend to be able to fill in those details for you, when you are dealing with the children in your life. I will present examples, at times, to fill out my arguments, but I will not provide a formula which you can memorize, to learn to treat your child “properly”. In the first place, that is impossible. Second and most important, it flies directly in the face of what I have just argued above.

I'm sorry to make it sound difficult, but you have to do this yourself. As any teacher will tell you, the mnemonic you develop yourself works twice as well as one someone else gave you. Same with your dealing with children. If you agree with my principles, and you develop, on your own, methods to make these principles work in your dealings with children, you will find those methods much easier to apply. Plus, you will be modelling good behaviour for those children, which is probably more important,

Motivation and Manipulation

Before you read this, be prepared to find yourself feeling that all this sounds very manipulative. You will be right. When you, as you are now doing, sit down to look for advice on how to get anybody else to do what you want, you are taking part in a highly manipulative exercise. If you are the kind of person who is bothered by this, don’t stop reading. Read this blog, ignore all the information it tells you on how to act. Just think about the discussion on why you are acting in a given way when you deal with a child. This should be enough. You can think about these ideas, and apply them in your own, individual, manner, whatever that is. If the ideas are too different from your own, at least they will give you something to argue against, and maybe firm up some of your own thoughts. Then you can write your own blog, and we can provide some interesting talk-show material when we argue about our conflicting techniques.

Also, think about the term, “manipulation”. Manipulation just means arranging things. The negative connotation comes from its use to describe the kind of activity involved in influencing people who are unaware of your real motivation, to act in ways counter to their own good.

A coach who fires his team up to their highest point of motivation before a game is manipulating them. A teacher who plans a pre-lesson exercise that gets the class interested in the topic is manipulating them. The key, of course, is that the team and the class have willingly given the adults the right, in fact even expect them to perform this task, and the adults are motivated to do it to the benefit of the group. And that is the big difference between good and bad manipulation. To be simplistic: if the arranging of people’s minds is for their betterment, it is good. If it is against their betterment, and especially if it is for the betterment of the manipulator, it is bad.

So if you would like, we can use the word motivate, as having much more positive connotations, instead of manipulate. After all, nobody is going to read a page sub-titled, “How to Manipulate Your Child”.

At least nobody who is going to find this book the slightest bit useful.