Parenting Tools - The Lecture

The Lecture
by Ron Huxley

I know that in today's society, spanking your child is no
longer in vogue. As a parent educator and family therapist,
I accept this decision as rational. But as a child, when my
parents would lecture me for my moral wrongdoings, I would
have gladly let them exercise their societal right to spank. I
would have volunteered to run and get the official, wooden
spoon used for such purposes, if that would have stopped
the speeches. Today, as a parent, I find myself giving
similar, if not the exact lectures, to my children. And I still
hate it. One night, exhausted from preaching to one of my
children on the need for taking responsibility and doing
one's homework, I told my wife how I hated the image of
myself, one hand on my hip, the other outstretched with
finger pointing, and fiery breath spewing from my mouth. It
was an ugly image. I felt ugly.

The child’s age doesn’t even matter. I used to laugh at
parents who lectured to tiny children, necks ready to snap
from the backward arc as they stared up at their parent
trying to morally guide them. Don’t get me wrong. Morals
are good. Guidance is great. But one look into the eyes of
the child would quickly tell you that no one was home. The
child was thinking about the candy they saw on the last
aisle of the supermarket or why their parent had such long
nose hair. How do I know? Hey, that’s what I used to do.

So if I am so smart, why am I doing the same thing, to my
children, knowing that it doesn’t work either? In family
therapy, we call it “doing more of the same.” We learn how
to parent, right or wrong, from our own parents. We do the
same thing they did to us, because we don’t know what else
to do. Helplessness drives us.

But there is one difference. When I was a child, I didn’t
believe anything my parents told me. At least, the part I
heard. Now, I find myself thinking that maybe my parents
were right about one or two things. Could it have been that
some of the incessant lecturing held a gem of wisdom or
two? Is it possible that my parents had something important
to say and I missed most of it?

Perhaps the problem was the delivery and not the
message. Maybe that moral posturing (one hand on my hip,
the other outstretched with finger pointing, and fiery breath
spewing from my mouth), not to mention the whole lording
attitude, was what turns the mind of a child off. What if
sitting down, hands at my side or around my child’s
shoulder could change the interaction? I could take a walk
and talk. I could go out for a soda and chat. Would my child
listen then and would I alter how I communicated to him or
her?

The real question here is who owns the problem! I assumed
as did my parents and their parents before them, that the
child owned the problem. After all, he was acting
irresponsibly. Right? My child’s actions do not take away my
responsibility for how I communicate. When I lecture my
son, his face transforms into a mask of confusion and
innocence. This makes me angry. I lecture louder or longer
or with more passion. He acts defensive or tunes me out. In
the end, we are both hurting and sulking. No one wins.

When I embrace him, even as I discipline him, I get much
better results. He responds to correction, not lecturing. So
try an experiment with me. Forget about dusting off the
wooden spoon and try changing your posture, position,
tone of voice, vocabulary, tense, timing, location, activity,
method, or anything else that you usually do. It doesn’t
work anyway, so what do you have to lose? Don’t do more
of the same. Do something different. Anything but lecturing!

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led by Dr. Lyle Becourtney, licensed psychologist