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Old June 8th 04, 01:58 PM
Nathan A. Barclay
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Default Parent-Child Negotiations


"Chris" wrote in message
...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


With regard to your three points, I question your assumptions. You
make mutual rulemaking between parents and children sound like class
struggle, like labor negotiating with management, or rival warlords
carving up respective spheres of influence. In a loving relationship of
any kind, both parties either win more intimacy, harmony and joy with one
another, or both lose. "Strength" is not the issue here. In this kind of
negotiation the aim is for everyone to win not because everyone's
"strength" is "reasonable" but because it is in the common interest of
everyone for there to be no losers in the negotiation.


What you describe is certainly the best-case scenario for what can happen.
It reminds me a bit of when my mother and her siblings fight over a check in
a restaurant - with everyone trying to insist that they be the ones who will
pay. When both sides are willing to voluntarily concede enough to find a
solution that works, not only is "strength" irrelevant, but what happens
isn't really something I'd normally characterize as a negotiation.

But for the purposes of this newsgroup, best-case scenarios really aren't
all that interesting - except, perhaps, for the value of reminding people to
look for opportunities when they can be made to happen. "Carol, would you
please load the dishwasher?" "Sure, Mom. I'll start on it right away."
It's great when life works that smoothly, but the times when parents start
thinking about using spanking are times when it doesn't.

There are times when parents and children have genuine conflicts in their
needs and desires, when solutions in which both sides can achieve a complete
win are impossible. Actually, your labor analogy is not entirely off
target - or would not be if labor and management treated each other like
family instead of like enemies. The real problem in too many
labor-management negotiations, and in too many parent-child negotiations as
well, is that the two sides each focus on getting as much as possible for
themselves without regard to the cost to the other. Negotiations are more
constructive, more productive, and more mutually beneficial if both sides
keep each other's needs and desires in mind and try to find ways to meet
each other's needs without an unacceptable cost to themselves. The trick in
both cases is to look for a solution that, while probably not ideal from
either side's perspective, is acceptable to both sides and that will give
both sides as much of what they need and want as is possible considering the
fact that the other side has competing needs and desires.

The reason why I view the balance of power as important is to help make sure
that both sides will negotiate in good faith when their needs and desires
compete. A good compromise is one in which each side gets as much of what
they want as possible, and in which both sides give up a reasonably equal
amount in return for making the compromise work. And for that to happen,
the balance of power has to be such that the two sides both have more to
gain from negotiating in good faith than from demanding to get things mostly
their way "or else." (And while it is traditionally the parents who say "or
else," it is quite possible for children to do so too - especially if
parents are unwilling to exercise their authority.)

Regarding your third point about parties to the negotiation
"threatening" each other with extraneous issues, you are back to your view
of parent/child negotiation sounding a lot more like a parlay between
adversaries than a mutually rewarding process of processing away conflicts
in a loving relationship. And given the fact that your point in all of
this is to defend the use of physical pain on children by parents, I find
your concern about "threatening" rather ironic.


My "point in all of this" is a lot more complicated than you give it credit
for being. Yes, I defend spanking. But I also argue that there are other
tools parents can use that are better in many situations. Indeed, I'm
probably actually closer to agreeing with you than I am to agreeing with a
lot of people who support spanking in regard to what parenting styles work
best.

So why is my energy focused toward opposing you rather than opposing them?
Because I think you, and people like you, are far more dangerous in the long
term.

People like Dr. Dobson, and even those who support spanking more strongly
than he does, are not trying to close off the lines of debate. They try to
persuade, but they do not attempt to use the force of law to impose their
preference onto those who disagree with them. Thus, in the long term, they
can be dealt with in the free market of ideas. The more people succeed
using parenting techniques that are at least primarily cooperative, the
harder it will be to convince people that a more confrontational appraoch to
parenting is good.

But when large numbers of people put on a mantle of science to make claims
that go beyond what scientific methodology can justify, that seriously
undermines society's ability to consider an issue objectively. Worse, if
spanking would be outlawed, the debate would be all but shut down because it
is hard to engage in scientific study of something that no longer exists.
(I suppose studies could be done by looking at parents who spank illegally,
or by giving parents special permission to spank as part of a scientific
study. But in either of those cases, the fact that the parents involved
would not be normal parents operating under normal conditions would raise
serious questions about the validity of the results.)

If we continue to allow spanking, and non-spanking methods work best,
non-spanking methods can be expected to win out over time. But if the best
parenting methods, at least for some children, do involve the use of
spanking, a ban on spanking could easily keep us from ever learning about
them.

Anyhow, in the context of a newsgroup as polarized as this one, I can see
how it can seem ironic to have a person who supports spanking in some
situations but also supports parents' trying to do things that reduce (and
maybe eliminate) their need to spank. But I see nothing inherently
inconsistant or contradictory about such a position.

Looking into the way I view things a bit more deeply, I suppose my view
might be explained as a sort of hierarchy of ways of resolving conflicts
between parents and children. (I haven't really thought of it this way
before, so this is as much an exercise in organizing my own thoughts as it
is an explanation.) At the top of the hierarchy are mutually desirable
solutions - solutions that both sides genuinely like. Next are solutions
that involve voluntary concessions, where one or both sides have to give up
a little but don't really mind giving it up. Third on the hierarchy are
negotiated solutions in which each side agrees to make concessions in
exchange for the other side's making concessions. Next would be the "choose
from these options" approach, in which the parent defines what options are
available for the child to choose from. And finally, the least desirable
type of solution is something imposed unilaterally by the parents.

At the first two stages of the hierarchy, punishment is completely
unnecessary. If the child wants to do something that the parents consider
acceptable, or is voluntarily willing to stay within the limits of what the
parents consider acceptable, there is no need for punishment.

With negotiated settlements, the child does have to give up something he or
she didn't want to, so whether or not a possibility of punishment is needed
depends on whether or not the child is willing to abide by the agreement
without that possibility. Also, if the child abides by the agreement
strictly on his or her own, or if just reminding the child of the agreement
and of why keeping the agreement is important is enough, there is no need to
bring up the issue of punishment. But if the child is not willing to abide
by the agreement voluntarily, punishment may be necessary.

With the lowest two levels of the hierarchy, the child is being forced to
accept something without his or her consent, or with only a very limited
form of consent. That gives the child a bit less of a stake in making
things work without the threat of punishment, and thus increases the risk
that threats or actual punishment will be needed.

The way I look at it, it is best for parents (and children) to look for
solutions as high in that hierarchy as is practical, but when they have to
settle for something lower in the hierarchy, punishment may be necessary.
So on the one hand, I support ideas that help parents avoid the need to
spank (or punish in other ways). While on the other hand, I think there are
times when punishment is necessary, and I view spanking as a form of
punishment that has advantages in some types of situations (at least
depending on the personalities of the people involved).

I would also note that there is one other thing about my hierarchy that
makes the issues involved a whole lot more complicated: time. Solutions
imposed unilaterally by parents are the least desirable on a conceptual
level, but they are also the quickest. To some extent, it can actually make
sense for parents to unilaterally tell their children what to do because the
value added in a solution higher in the hierarchy would not be worth the
time required to find it. And there are times when external time
constraints make finding a workable solution "now" a lot more important than
finding a perfect solution that is "too late."

On the other hand, there are also things parents can do to mitigate the time
issue. If parents can see an issue coming in advance, they can start the
process of looking for a good solution with the child before they start
running out of time. Parents can talk with their children about what sorts
of things it is okay with the children for the parents to decide
unilaterally and what kinds of things need to be discussed together. And
families could arrange something the children can say if they have a special
reason why they want to discuss a type of decision a parent normally makes
unilaterally. Such approaches can't entirely eliminate the time issue, but
they could help move more of the decision-making process higher up the
hierarchy.

Punishment and threats of punishment do nothing to enhance
cooperative win/win methods of discipline and do everything to undermine
it and render it unworkable. You invoke the need for "consequences" if a
child doesn't keep their end of a bargain. What you seem to miss it that
there is a natural consequence built in to the breaking of a promise to a
loved one, regardless of the ages and nature of the relationship of the
interactants. One damages the harmony of ones relationship with a special
and important figure in one's life, loses some of their trust and regard,
and sacrifices the harmony of one's relationship with them. Children
certainly do sometimes engage in behaviors which have this effect, but
when they do there is always a reason. It behooves parents to uncover the
reason by means of I messages, active listening etc. and deal with the
underying cause rather than mindlessly punish the surface behavior.


Now we're getting into the question of the fundamental nature of human
beings, something that has been debated by theologians and philosophers for
millennia. For me accept the position you are taking here, I would have to
accept two things.

1) Human beings do not have free will, and cannot choose for themselves
whether to follow a path of good or evil.

2) Human beings are naturally good, and as long as people love each other
and communicate their needs effectively, no one will ever choose to do evil.

If your religion and your philosophy accept those principles, I am not
prepared to take the time to try to convince you otherwise. But I do not
accept either of them. I believe that mankind does have free will, and that
while the way children are reared helps influence their behavior, even
perfect parents could not make it impossible for their children to choose to
do wrong. And I believe that human beings are born with a mixture of
competing desires such that no matter how loving and harmonious an
environment they are reared in, they will face real and serious temptations
to put other types of self-interest ahead of their desire for harmony.

Unless you can convince me to change my religious and philosophical beliefs
regarding the fundamental nature of mankind, you have no hope of convincing
me with this line of argument because it is based on a foundation that I
regard as invalid. Likewise, if you truly do accept the
religious/philosophical basis that would have to be valid for the argument
you make here to be logically sound, I have no chance of changing your mind
without first convincing you to change your religious/philosophical basis.
In that case, we are probably essentially in a state of deadlock, each with
a position that is logically sound relative to our own beliefs about the
nature of mankind but unsound relative to the other's beliefs.

If we are indeed in such a deadlock, we could still attempt to discuss the
issue relative to each other's beliefs. However, I am inclined to concede
that if the interpretation of the nature of mankind that you are relying on
is accurate (in practice, not just in theory with perfect parents), there
are indeed always better options than spanking. The only real potential
point of debate left would be whether those better techniques would always
be worth the time they require, but that realm is so hypothetical that it
does not seem worth the time to debate it. And if your interpretation does
not work reliably in practice, than in practical terms, we are back to what
I believe is the case, namely that there are times when children's desire
for harmony will not be sufficient to produce acceptable behavior in spite
of their parents' best efforts with positive methods..

For you to debate relative to my beliefs, you would have to accept as an
operating hypothesis that even if parents try their best with positive
techniques, some children will deliberately choose to behave unacceptably in
spite of their parents' efforts. And you would have to make a case that
even starting from that hypothesis, there are still always better options
than spanking.

Win/win cooperative methods of discipline are not an abstract concept
not yet tried in practice, nor are they anything new. Thomas Gordon's
classic, "Parent Effectiveness Training," has been in print for four
decades now and many thousands of families have used this sort of approach
successfully.


Anecdotal evidence. The interesting thing about Thomas Gordon's approach is
that the extent to which it works depends very heavily on how willing the
child is to cooperate. Thus, even if tens of millions of children would be
willing to cooperate enough for that approach to be considered effective
with them, that does not address the question of how to handle children who
are unwilling to cooperate sufficiently. You may be willing to accept on
faith that no such children exist, that Dr,.Gordon's methods always work on
every child if parents do their best to use them. But you cannot persuade
me to accept that assumption without compelling evidence to support it.