Options Part 2 - Age Appropriate Structure and Responsibility

Preface:

In the previous lesson, I reported that healthy bonding is a natural desire of children, and when reciprocated by parents it actually nurtures and increases obedience. If that is your desire, too, this article is for you.

Often the evidence of bonding vs rebellion shows up in chore assignments and struggles. Parents wisely often want to teach responsibility and the “standard” tasks we often choose for those lessons are “chores”. But, too much responsibility, and emotionally charged responsibility (ie anger, disappointment, and guilt trips), equals too much emotional stimulation for a brain with too little ability. On the other hand, too little responsibility lacks the stimulation kids need and desire for problem solving.

So what chores are appropriate for what age? (For more specific explanations and suggestions, I recommend Daniel Siegel’s books, The Whole Brain Child and Brainstorm.)

While the following analogies are not perfect representations of a child’s brain anatomy, they will help us have a visual on what may be at the root of parent/child struggles. And while I won’t give you a list of specific age-appropriate tasks, you’ll be able to apply this foundational philosophy to any age child and any task you choose.

A good place to start is to understand how much children’s brains can absorb and process. For the developing child's brain (birth to around 11), it’s like a simple calculator which gets more sophisticated as the body matures. While a calculator that can perform simple formulas such as 2+2, it can’t check your email on the internet unless the processor is upgraded to an actual computer. So consider, if you get mad at a calculator for not being able to access your email, you are creating your own frustration because it’s too high of an expectation for that simple processor. Unfortunately, while calculators won’t feel rejection because of high expectations, your child will. So to expect adult responsibilities and attitudes from them, and to show them your emotional disappointment when they don’t deliver, is overwhelming to their little minds and hearts. They are doing the best they can with the brain capacity they have! And this bombardment of emotionally charged high expectations and subsequent disappointment often weakens their bond with you, which also impacts their desire to obey you.

So before age 12, think of your child’s brain as a simple calculator processor, rather than a computer. When your child reaches puberty, there is more of a computer type processor developing with “internet capabilities”. But honestly there are some massive “upgrade” changes that are happening in the teenage brain that cause them to “look” and sound less sophisticated and more like an arcade game from the 80s - more sophisticated than a calculator for sure, but less predictable with more of a landline speed internet hook up. I’ll address the teenage changes in the brain in a lesson called, The Gutted Mall.  

For now, no matter the level of processor for your child’s brain, a universal approach to teaching responsibility is to teach your child “how to think”, not “what to think”. That is skillfully done through Options.

Offering options is a way of limiting the amount of demands that needs to be dealt with and removes the emotional element that often unnecessarily weighs down your relationship your child. It also limits the amount of emotional overstimulation coming to the child's “simple processor” brain. Options also makes the task the “enemy” instead of you. Kids tend to associate negative emotions for a task with the one who is “making” them do the dreadful deed. If there are options, however, the attention of resistance shifts, because now it’s not about the parent, but about the task.

When we talk about options, we're talking about helping their little rudimentary brain learn how to weigh the pros and cons of any decision. Later in life especially when they become young adults and go off on their own like to college, we want them to be able to make decisions that have sound judgment behind them. Developing sound judgment is accomplished through the exercise of weighing options, and weighing pros and cons with household chores in their childhood is a foundational way of teaching them how to make wise, informed decisions later in life, because it’s practice.

It’s important to note that a “punishing emotionality” from parents actually kicks in the fight or flight brainstem response for your child. For each of us, when our lives are threatened, our brain stem acts automatically on our behalf to survive. That means our logic functions take a back seat to reacting in order to survive in a moment’s notice. When a parent is angry with the child, it can feel life threatening to the child, and their little brain stem kicks in causing logic functions to “go offline”. So no matter what you logically say to them at this point, it will not be heard because of flight or fight. Their little biology is doing exactly what it is designed to do, keep them alive. But when the parent shows frustration, typically from not seeing the child perform or respond as they expect, they are actually setting the child’s brain up for fight or flight, and then punishing the child for doing what comes natural to all of humanity, including the parent! In essence, the parent is creating their own monster. In a later lesson I’ll introduce the idea of “emotional charades”, which is basically the child's emotional reaction due to a lack of vocabulary to articulate their emotions. Sometimes we want our children to have all the words that we have, but it's just not possible.

Another note, some parents prefer to parent using fear, i.e. creating a fear-based atmosphere, believing they get better results from their children to be obedient. Unfortunately what fear does to the brain and the body does not create a permanent bond or obedience, it creates a temporary survival response. It looks like obedience, but it's really thoughtless reactions and it does not teach a child how to problem solve, but only to avoid that stimulus with that parents at all costs. It doesn't work long term, and it hurts both the child in relationship with you, and their relationships later in life!

It’s natural to have emotions, such as anger and frustration when a child is disobedient, but often those emotions are manageable and even avoidable with the age appropriate expectations, rather than the high expectations like wanting your 7 year old to be able to reason and respond like a 35 year old. Sometimes as their bodies grow and their vocabulary increases, we are fooled into believing they actually comprehend adult concepts. But educating yourself on what they are truly capable of will help you put their responses into developmental perspective.

Practical ideas:

So here are some practical ideas of options for chore completion. In general it’s basically offering your child two alternatives to timing, tasks, or both. Let's start with a simple chore as an example, which is unfortunately often something we don't like to do ourselves, like taking out the trash or doing the dishes. (Be careful of your own double standard here. When our children react negatively, most likely it’s in the same way we would (or even did as children) and we may want to punish them for their “poor attitude”.  But if we felt the same way when we were made to do the same chores without alternatives, wouldn’t it be hypocritical to get mad at them for their bad attitude? It feels very unfair to them and like a double standard, and often is a double standard. And who wouldn’t have a bad attitude toward a double standard?)

An example of offering options with chores would be to ask them questions like "when would you like to take out the trash, before you play your video game or after?” Or, “do you want to take out the trash Monday night after supper or Tue morning before school?” Three things happen with these kinds of options:

1st, there is no question about whether they want to take out the trash, it virtually becomes the understood that they WILL take out the trash and that battle is off the table. With a simple processor type brain, their focus goes to where you take it. If you ask or tell them to take out the trash, the trash is the focus. But when you point to two options for taking out the trash, the focus is on the two options and the trash becomes the problem to solve rather than the issue of do or not to do.

Second, having options gives them a little bit of control which they desire desperately in all areas of their lives as they become more independent, but may not be ready to handle yet. Two options are a limited way to give them some control, just enough to stimulate problem solving, but not too much to overwhelm them when they don’t even really know what are reasonable alternatives. You, as the adult, get to narrow this broad field of options so they can use their skills, feel trusted with a little bit of control, and maintain a bond with you.

And the 3rd, options gets them to start weighing the benefits and the costs, the pros and cons of what they are faced with. This is practice for later in life. And it’s very important! While choosing when to take out the trash is not a matter of life and death, it does stimulate discernment and reasoning.

I hope you get the idea of what I am attempting to accomplish here. It’s to help you give your child some sense of control in an area of life you can comfortably allow, while teaching them to practice making sound judgments by weighing the pros and cons of the task they’ve been given. Remember, my illustrations are simply examples to explore, not hard and fast rules for following.

You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t actually give you specific age appropriate tasks to teach with, mainly because one size does not fit all with any given task. The uniqueness of your child, and your home environment will actually be where you get a chance to experiment and determine what works and what doesn't work for you and your child. What I've offered for you here is a basic philosophy that will work for any situation you are exploring with your child, a foundational principle. Whether it works or not will require your desire to teach problem solving more than demanding obedience, to strengthen the bond and help your child's brain develop and grow in the decision-making process. Obedience will follow when the relationship is strong and the expectations are reasonable.