The important question of why DOLF theory grew out of experience and empirical observation rather than rigorous research is one with which I am constantly confronted. First and foremost, let me say that I am deeply indebted to my education at McGill University, and especially the open-mindedness and breadth of knowledge offered at the University of Montreal, where I did my graduate studies. I have immense gratitude for all the years of academic training that formed the grounding for my interminable curiosity about psychology. For without my training I would not have had the intellectual framework, professional experience nor the confidence to launch such a drastic departure from accepted knowledge as I am attempting to do. Yet after being educated to the highest point of knowledge in my field, and coming from both a Freudian and Behavioral background, once I faced the reality of actually raising children and coping with my own family life as a parent, I was seriously disillusioned. I could tell that what I had learned was not working and that all my hard studies had no relevance whatsoever to real life!
Another part of my answer to the interminable question of “Where’s your research?” is that DOLF Theory began with my empathy for my children, for when they behaved badly, they seemed to have no idea what they had done wrong. When I punished them, such as with Time Out or taking away their privileges, instead of understanding their folly, they seemed to feel that they had been wronged. It did not increase their show of empathy toward those they had hurt, as I might have expected. I felt their distress, bewilderment and sadness, and my personal sense of morality kicked in. I simply decided it was unfair to treat children in the cold, coercive manner advocated by Behaviorism. I could only feel pangs of guilt when I or my spouse tried to administer our agreed-upon punishment, since it seemed we were punishing an entity who obviously had neither the capacity to appreciate the reasons for her own actions, nor understood the consequences we were trying to impose. It was evident to me, amid the flood of tears and yelling, that she could not connect the dots between her behavior and our reaction to it, nor fathom our reasons for punishing her. It seemed, even after the punishment was explained and ended, that she was still asking herself: “Why are my parents doing this to me?” and answering herself “It must be because they don’t LIKE me!”
Behaviorists instruct us to explain to the child who thinks we don’t like them that: We still love you, but we don’t like what you’re doing. The sheer absurdity of this statement is beyond explanation. If anyone truly believes that a little child, who is dependent on our LOVE and care, can differentiate between how much we like them as opposed to how much we love them – which are after all merely Intellectual reckonings that we can hardly distinguish ourselves as adults – those people need not continue reading this material!
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Here then is the mindset behind DOLF. Consider that when we ask a child to pick up their toys or clean their room, we are assuming that they can appreciate what they are doing, and that they feel these are desirable goals to work toward. We hope that they will eventually internalize our values of cleanliness and neatness and conduct their own lives by these values. In other words, we believe we are “training” them for later life. But this is obviously not the case while the child is still young, since children are not born with a built-in sense of cleanliness or propriety. Surely they have to mature and be trained to appreciate the worth of such activities, for example through toilet training, using manners, washing their hands, picking up after themselves or others, etc. So if they don’t value what we are asking of them, but comply anyways, WHY on earth are they complying? If they comply because they fear our reprisal, this supports the Behavioral view that the punishment-and-consequences paradigm does actually work and yields concrete results. Maybe so, but we cannot deny that at the same time our demands are a form of coercion and that by threatening punishment we are forcing them to behave in the ways we require.
So in the alternative, the DOLF explanation of why they might choose to comply with our demands at any point in time is that, in line with their Mind of a Child, they do it because they hope to please their parents as part of their real, underlying and very desperate quest to gain their parents’ LOVE.
In this connection I relate an anecdote from television that is a classic model of Behaviorism where some parents were discussing their unruly children’s behaviors. On the program was a father who was very adamant about teaching his oppositional son, about 3-4 years old, to clean up after playing with his toys. After he finished playing, the child, sitting on a chair, flung his toy to the ground in an obvious bid to taunt his parents. Then upon prodding, he refused to pick it up. Now his loving father, strictly following Behavioral advice was, first and foremost, extremely careful to ‘do no harm’ to the child. At the same time he felt determined to teach his child NOT to throw his toys about. What a dilemma for the father! How could he get this stubborn, unruly child to pick up the toy and teach him a lesson in proper behavior without harming him? So he picked up the boy allowing him to cling to his body frontally, approached the toy, bent down and demanded that the child pick it up, at which point the child flung the toy even farther in a different direction. Again, with the child in his arms, this dedicated father approached the toy, bent down and demanded that the child pick it up, at which point the child again flung the toy as far away as he possibly could in a different direction and waited for the father’s response. This scenario continued for about 8 repetitions as I watched, incredulous. Now I ask you, the reader, to be the judge: Which one of these two is the greater fool?
Other examples of “punish without doing harm” clearly show that a Behavioristic approach can actually lead to great harm. It happens especially when children are forced to obey without internalizing the values behind their actions. Some Behaviorists have advocated “Tough Love” , a technique that is slowly declining in popularity, or at least as a phrase. However Tough Love is still recognized and extensively practiced since it seems to make intuitive sense to parents. In actuality a method such as Tough Love merely condones and encourages parents’ natural urge to punish their children, but disguises this parental urge as a justifiable psychological technique. In these instances, children are driven to extreme behaviors because they are given a “choice” or ultimatum by their parents, such as the “choice” of complying with a curfew or being locked out of their home. (With regard to “choice”, see the blog titled The Pursuit of Parental Love, Part 2). In the meantime the parents, whether they like it or not, are also forced to save face by following through with the restrictions they set. The case of Leslie Mahaffy was one such instance where the teenager returned home a few minutes after her midnight curfew, and on finding the door locked because of Tough Love, walked out into the darkness and was snatched by two prowling serial killers, Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka. The dilemma is the same when children become substance abusers, gang members or display uncontrolled Anger toward their family members, siblings, parents or others. Exasperated and unable to tolerate the disruption they bring into the home, desperate parents end up facing them with the “choice” of either complying with the rules of the house, or leaving home. Then the parents are bound by Behavioral tactics to follow through with the punishments they promise. In the meantime the Prime Loving parent or PLG, usually ends up feeling guilty and reluctant to enforce the punishment, but not only must save face but this emotion-motivated parent (who often conceals their tears) is many times overruled by the non-prime parent who is in favor of being strict and adhering to the Behavioral advice of surrounding professionals.
Other examples of extreme but “punish without harming” techniques suggested by Behavioral approaches are “boot camp”, where children and young adults are subject to extreme environments or physical strain that borders on abuse or even torture. Another technique called “scaring them straight” places them in a pseudo-military environment where orders are continually shouted into their ears.
While the DOLF explanation of the motivation behind negative behavior may sound foreign, even imbecile, readers are reminded that DOLF methods promote LOVE and truly do no harm, although at the same time they admittedly do not reflect an adult sense of propriety. Rather, DOLF draws us into the Mind of a Child, and sources its recommendations from a fundamental understanding of the sensitivities of children, who function purely through Emotions and instincts rather than our typical, familiar intellectual reasoning and logic. Even though one might believe we should know about children’s thoughts and feelings because were all once children, or that a child is no longer a child by they time they are a teenager, or that this author must be grossly mistaken in her thinking and advice, followers are kindly requested to suspend their conventional thinking. They are asked to trust that the author is intuitive, well qualified and discovered these facts when her education clashed with her observations of actual child behavior over nearly half a century of practice and intensive observational study. Her findings were also confirmed over four real-life generations of intimately known family members. Remember that she too is merely the witness and conveyor of this new course of information, rather than its creator, and that she is merely relaying her observations and conclusions through this medium for the benefit of those who are in search of better ways to assess, judge, diagnose and treat psychological and behavioral conditions in children and adults.
Here we emphasize again that the DOLF solution to child misbehavior is entirely harmless in that the main recommendation is simply that the prime LOVING parent, or PLG, should turn at least some of their LOVE, attention and nurturance away from their Favored child, and share this with their LESS Favored, less well behaved Disfavored child. It is certain that there is NO HARM done here! The task is straight-forward, though admittedly not simple, and some guidance and assistance from an informed therapist can certainly be very helpful. But most importantly for human psychology, one can be guaranteed that the DOLF method and its formulae are absolutely accurate, the proof of the pudding being that in real-life practice it offers an astoundingly high degree of validity and reliability. (See blogs titled: Sources of Proof, Part 1 and 2).