The story of Cain and Abel is a perfect example of what parents face every day. It begs the question that if Cain felt his Lord’s action was not fair, WHY did he feel that way? WHY was it fair from his Maker’s point of view, but not from Cain’s? What action from his Lord would have made it fair in Cain’s eyes? And most perplexingly: Could there have been any action from the Lord that would have been considered fair by everyone?
Everyday parenting presents us with many dilemmas about how to deal with undesirable behavior. For example, if a child misbehaves and it leads to an altercation, how should parents react? How should a parent mediate a situation that clearly requires disciplining one child for their behavior and at the same time praising another for theirs? What if one child is denied a treat because they misbehaved, but when their sibling earns a treat for their good behavior, they protest that “It’s not fair”? What is a parent to do if one child continually instigates fights with them or siblings? How should a parent break up a sibling argument or fight? Should parents persist in enforcing disciplinary measures when they know their child will be Angry, balk, protest IT’S NOT FAIR, pout, cry, wail or become alienated?
Every parent is also mindful that an Angry child may retaliate by increasing their bad behavior. They may act out or defy their parents, hit them, hurt a more vulnerable sibling, or worse yet, hold a grudge, only to vent their Anger later on by taking extreme action, such as Cain did by killing his brother, or the Unabomber did by murdering strangers many years later. Or, a disgruntled child might react with Depression. They may sulk and cry, or suffer damage to their self-esteem because of our actions. But in Emotional terms as per the Mind of a Child, another dilemma becomes: How should parents treat a situation when they are beginning to feel LESS LOVE or DISFAVOR for their misbehaving child? In other words: How should parents handle their own feelings of Anger toward their Disfavored child? And how will their Disfavored child feel toward them after all is said and done?
Because its premises are based on the Mind of a Child, the DOLIF advice to parents represents a vast departure from our natural urge to react to unruliness with discipline. It challenges conventional advice of “spare the rod and spoil the child”, as well as suggestions from Behavioral theorists that we should follow through with disciplinary actions without giving in, and then try to rectify our position by explaining to the hapless child WHY we did it and WHY they must endure the punishment! DOLIF recognizes that there is a lack of logical reasoning capability in the Mind of a Child and that we should therefore cater to our children’s Emotional state rather than go by our logical Intellectual beliefs. Speaking the limited Emotional language of the child then, we are left with only two choices. Either we can choose to give the unruly child LESS LOVE by punishing them, or focus in on or her/him and give them MORE LOVE. In DOLIF the ultimate remedy for achieving social compliance is to give the unruly child MORE LOVE, and NEVER LESS LOVE. The explanation is that since DOLIF tells us that the misbehaving child is actually acting instinctively by seeking MORE LOVE through their unruly behavior, the appropriate Emotionally-rooted response is for the PLG to give the child MORE LOVE. Moreover, if they really want to suit the needs of the disobedient child and calm them down, rather than abiding by adult social demands, responding to their own Anger, and limiting their precious LOVE, they should make every effort CHANGE THEIR LOVE. That is, as much as they possibly can, they should divert their LOVE and attention away from their Favored child and onto their Disfavored child!
Although it is decidedly counterintuitive and may even be irksome to parents at the time when an obvious transgression is being committed and punishment seems necessary and justifiable, DOLIF advises parents to start changing their own mental attitude toward child-rearing. DOLIF recommends that parents first abandon their expectation that they will significantly influence an unreasonable child’s demanding and undesirable behavior with the use of disciplinary actions. It advises that parents should NEVER expose themselves to a situation where they pit their WILL against the WILL of their child. They should NEVER try to to impose their chosen punishments on a child who is showing clear signs of Anger and/or Depression. Rather, parents should cater to the Mind of a Child by inwardly understanding that NO action they take will actually change a child’s feelings, attitudes and reactions, since the urge it behave badly is rooted in the child’s fundamental Instincts and permanently imprinted in their brains. Research with a single-celled organism called amoeba supports the idea that these urges may even be imprinted into every cell in their bodies. Therefore, parents can expect that the child’s feelings of rivalry and self-comparison with their adjacent sibling will persist regardless of the actions they choose for reprimand. Consequently, they should be prepared to accept that their children’s behavior will continue and that these same feelings, attitudes and reactions will endure no matter what action the parents take to try to stop it. When placed under pressure or duress, the most undesirable outcome of these exchanges will be that the Anxiety, Depression and Anger they arouse in the child now will and make their appearances in increasingly more skilled and socially hidden forms in the future.
Without suggesting that a parent should embrace and indulge a child who behaves badly, DOLIF advises parents and educators to adopt a far more generalized, global vision and long-range perspective toward child-rearing. At the root of this approach is a novel type of parental thinking that involves DETACHING FROM HOPE. It means that parents should resign themselves to the fact that, because they are powerless to substantially change the SIBLING RIVALRY program as well as their children’s inborn Instinct to be Opposite to each other, they should work within these forces rather than against them. Psychologically, the prescription for DETACHING FROM HOPE means that parents should first expect and tolerate negativity as much as they can. They should never expect that there will be good behavior on the part of their Disfavored child that will match that of their Favored child. Therefore they should embrace the reality that neither this unruly child nor their well-behaved sibling has any real judgment or grasp of the situation at hand, but will always simply seek to behave differently from their sibling, with the underlying misguided intent to seek LOVE. For the hard truth of the matter is that in this battle between parents and their children, because children’s instincts to WIN the SIBLING RIVALRY WAR and be different from their sibling are always first and foremost on their minds, parents cannot hope to change their children’s basic feelings and attitudes until they themselves accommodate the SIBLING RIVALRY problem and react accordingly by changing their own LOVE. They should detach from their naive hope that things will naturally run smoothly. They must accommodate the fact that, regardless of the amount of force or strategic power they might choose to try to control their child’s behavior, they must first accept the reality of SIBLING RIVALRY and consequent bad behavior. They should steer away from using discipline altogether as a tool for behavioral control and commit to lesser methods of control, methods that will be suggested in …………….a future blog.
If we immerse ourselves in our knowledge of DOLIF and the instincts that govern the Mind of a Child, we find that NO MATTER WHAT PARENTS DO, or through which course of action they choose to handle their child’s discontent, the child’s protest will continue. So too will the negative behavior of their Disfavored child, whose unfortunate purpose it is to gain LOVE and social acclaim. For conflict between parents and children, such as what is allowed and what is not allowed and what children will and will not do to comply is first and foremost always subject to the priority and steadfastness of the children’s instincts. These instincts are constant in all children and all humans, just as they are in all animals. Since children are at all times gripped by their SIBLING RIVALRY mentality, adults must understand that children’s urge to RIVAL with their next born SIBLING is immutable and eternal! Any child’s SIBLING-RIVALRY-infused attitude toward their sibling and all the behavior that ensues from it, such as their fury with each other when they fight, or their complaints that they are not being treated ‘fairly’, are permanent, etched in stone and are telltale signs that the feelings and reactions the child can NEVER be changed with discipline. The only sensible answer then is LOVE. This is true no matter what ours or any person’s immediate response, such as Anger, disgust or repulsion, is to any situation. The children’s native instincts absolutely come first to trump all else and command them to a) COMPETE TO HOG ALL THE PARENTAL LOVE and b) BEHAVE IN DIFFERENT WAYS FROM THEIR SIBLING. These are the attitudes that continually induce them to become upset with each other’s mere existence. Swallowed up in their SIBLING RIVALRY world at all times, they are beyond the reach of coaxing or reasonable arguments. In short, in the world of a child, their WILL always reigns supreme in their psyche, and OUR logic and OUR WILL not only can never win, but cannot even come under consideration.
As a example, let’s say we threaten a child or immature person by warning them that if they do a bad deed, we will punish them by taking away their pleasures, slapping them, calling the police, incarcerating or otherwise penalizing them. Let’s assume that, contrary to our expectation of control and compliance, they ‘choose’ to defy us and suffer the consequences, as many do. We may warn them and faithfully carry out all our threats, but they still grit their teeth in opposition, tolerate the consequences and absolutely refuse to change. It is a scenario that is routinely observed in criminals and substance abusers. All our efforts are futile and all our well-intentioned logic and adult reasoning fails. Somehow we find that it never works when we say “See what you’re doing to yourself and your family?” Shocking to us, they are never moved by our words and threats. Warnings and punishments go unheeded. Rarely are fundamental changes made in the attitudes of the child or socially immature adult who is feeling Disfavored.
For these reasons DOLIF advises that as their superiors, it is incumbent upon US, as their superiors and caregivers on whom they are dependent, to adjust OUR thinking to accept the fact that there really is NO logical solution to their fighting or protest, and that NO reactions or efforts on our part will ever truly resolve their conflicts. Nothing will change their behavior. WE MUST CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM FIRST.
**************************A Life-long Process Of Growth******************
It is important to note too that parents’ endeavors to change the behavior of their child carry with them not only the obligation to put in a sincere effort to respect this child’s point of view, but also require an extended, long-range plan of action. Parents need to accustom themselves to the hard fact that abiding by the DOLIF protocol to change the way they treat their children is a lifelong process and NOT a momentary peace-making exchange. For equalizing LOVE toward both children is one of the most challenging and arduous tasks, not only of parenting, but of life itself. It may take years to incorporate and ingrain these new adjustments into the interactional patterns of the nuclear family enough to definitively change their child’s personality. Moreover, it will require persistence that will surely cover the entire lifetime of the parents.
Experience shows, that even if the picture does change substantially, the challenge of levelling out the groundwork around LOVE is actually never complete. That is, as they grow up, the Favored child tends to retain their characteristics of joviality, easy-going temperament and empathic nature, while the Disfavored one maintains their symptoms of Anxiety, Depression and Anger. These are the characteristics that become permanently etched into their personalities. All that parents can hope for by changing their pattern of LOVE and indulging their Disfavored child’s neediness is that they will eventually succeed in equalizing or balancing the siblings’ personalities to some degree. The goal is that the Favored one is not as soft and compliant as they used to be, and more able to incorporate Anger into their personality. In the meantime the Disfavored one will have a reduced likelihood of falling into the throes of the 3 negative Emotions of Anxiety, Depression and Anger and be more likely as an adult to turn out either less Anxious, less Depressed or less Angry, and NOT retain the intensity they would have had otherwise, or that would have been likely to lead to outcomes such as mental illness, substance abuse, criminal behavior and more.
From this point of view then, ANY ACTION that a parent might choose to pursue to manage the behavior of a misbehaving child at the moment of disturbance, or in the case of a sibling fight is entirely acceptable, as long as it is not harmful to either child and settles the problem of the moment, Appropriate responses recommended by DOLIF for dealing with children’s strife or misbehavior include: distraction, joining in the game, monitoring them from a distance, using a stopwatch, bribing one or both siblings, separating them and helping them reach a negotiated solution. If siblings are fighting, DOLIF advises that they NOT be left to their own devices nor allowed to follow their own vicious intents, which are always geared toward decimating their opponent and rarely if ever lead to an equitable resolution. DOLIF recommends that parents either separate the children, closely monitor or intervene in sibling disputes, or somehow try to help them agree on an equitable settlement. Distinctly NOT desirable and lacking in consideration of the children’s Emotional state are actions such as serious threats of deprivation of important privileges that may require the parent to follow through to save face, serious scolding that undermines the children’s self-respect, humiliation or insults, teasing, social isolation such as Time Out, corporal punishment, or continued discrimination and punishment of one of the participants, usually the older, who is most often viewed as the aggressor and manipulator. (However, it is not unusual for a younger child to manipulate an older one, most often if the older sibling is a naive Favored one. This is a situation that again highlights the importance of parents’ awareness of, and intervention in, their children’s affairs at all times.)
As to threats from parents, DOLIF emphatically recommends that empty threats or warnings without consequences are an excellent strategy. Contrary to the recommendations of Behavioral Theory, DOLIF informs that while being “consistent” about punishment may seem perfectly logical to adults and be good for training animals, it is a mistake that betrays a complete lack of appreciation of the Mind of a Child. This is because, in contrast to an animal that learns through repetition and punishment and ultimately can be dominated or domesticated, a human child is extremely intelligent and knows exactly what they are asked to do. However as stated, children are urgently compelled by their proprietary instincts to feel like they do not WANT to do it. Therefore, it is a futile battle to try to impose punishment because punishment has no meaning for a child and makes no cognitive sense to them the way we believe it does. Rather, DOLIF recommends that empty threats that can pass the time, overcome the dispute of the moment or defusing the situation, such as by distraction or separation, are ideal. DOLIF recommends that it is NOT advisable for parents to posit threats when they actually plan to carry them out, since this forces the superior to follow through with punishments even though they may be reluctant to do so. In effect, it pits the WILL of the adult against the WILL of the child, which is a losing battle. The adult will always lose because of the sheer thrust of childhood instinct. The child is incapable of giving in and we only succeed in driving them further into their area of Emotional reaction which is either Anxiety, Depression or Anger, in their various combinations. For as mentioned in many contexts, in the Mind of a Child, logical reasoning, reality and the “behavior-leads-to-consequences” paradigm is not grasped nor understood. Unfortunately, because children inhabit a world of pure Emotion and irrationality, they cannot connect the dots between their misbehavior and our logic-based punishments. They simply are unable to understand our motives, which they perceive as ganging up, and so conclude that we must HATE them. And they react in self defense by HATING us back. So when we adopt the DOLIF way of thinking we begin to see that it is most adaptive to hurl threats and warnings about impending punitive actions without having any intentions of ever carrying them out such as “I’m going to get you”, or “Stop it or you won’t get any dinner”, “Wait ’til your Daddy gets home!” or “How would you like it if I did that to you?”, without actually following through on any of these declarations.
Our conclusion then is that the only “fair” action on our part as parents and educators is to genuinely LOVE and appreciate each child in a set of warring siblings “for who they are”. From their point of view it is all they want, and from ours it means respecting each one’s need to be different, independent and maintain their completely identity completely separate from the other.
