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?
In practical parenting terms there are many dilemmas. We can ask: 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 a 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 their parents or siblings? How should a parent break up an all-out sibling fight or argument? Should parents enforce disciplinary measures when they know their child will be Angry, balk, protest IT’S NOT FAIR, pout, wail, cry or become alienated? These are problems we face every day. We also bear in mind that an Angry child who is feeling Disfavored may retaliate by increasing their bad behavior, such as through acting out and defying parents, hitting them, hurting a more vulnerable sibling, or worse yet, holding a grudge and taking extreme action later on, such as Cain did by killing his brother, or the Unabomber did by murdering strangers later in life. If a disgruntled child who feels Disfavored reacts with Depression they may sulk and cry, or suffer damage to their self-esteem because of our actions. But translated into Emotional terms for the Mind of a Child the real dilemma is: how should parents treat a child who misbehaves and toward whom they are beginning to feel LESS LOVE or DISFAVOR, especially at the moment of misbehavior?
In general the DOLF advice to parents is a vast departure from our urge to discipline an unruly child, from conventional advice and from Behavioral advice that tells us to follow our actions by trying to explain to the hapless child why we did it. This is because DOLF recognizes that there is a lack of logical reasoning capacity in the Mind of a Child and that we should therefore treat the situation according to our children’s Emotional reckonings rather than ours. Speaking in the limited language of the child then, there are only two choices: should we give LESS LOVE by punishing the unruly child, or focus in on or her/him by giving them MORE LOVE. In DOLF the ultimate remedy for achieving social compliance is to give MORE LOVE, never LESS. That is, the Prime parent or PLG should try, as much as possible, to divert their LOVE and attention from the Favored child onto the Disfavored child if they want to suit the real needs of the disobedient child, rather than abiding by adult social demands and limiting their precious LOVE toward the Disfavored one.
Although it is decidedly counterintuitive and perhaps irksome to us, when punishment seems necessary and inevitable by conventional thinking, DOLF advises parents to start changing their own mental attitude toward child rearing. DOLF recommends that parents first abandon their expectation that they will significantly influence an unreasonable child’s demanding and undesirable behavior by means of disciplinary actions. In other words, they should NOT pit their WILL against the WILL of their child or try to to impose their chosen punishments on the child. Parents should understand that NO action they take will actually change a child’s feelings, attitudes and reactions, since these are based in the child’s fundamental Instincts and are permanently imprinted inside them as humans. Therefore, they can expect that the child’s feelings of rivalry and self comparison with their adjacent sibling will persist and that consequently, their behavior will continue, though perhaps in more hidden forms, and that these same feelings, attitudes and reactions will endure no matter what action the parents take to try to stop it!
Without suggesting that a parent should embrace and indulge a child who behaves badly, DOLF 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 paradigm as well as the inborn Instinct to be Opposite to this sibling, just as depicted in the bible story, they should work within these forces rather than try to work against them. Psychologically, the prescription for Detaching From Hope means that parents should never expect that there will be good behavior on the part of their Disfavored child that will match that of their Favored child, and that therefore they should embrace the reality that this child has no real judgment or grasp of the situation at hand, but will always simply seek to behave differently from their sibling with the 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 child’s basic feelings and attitudes until they themselves accommodate the SIBLING RIVALRY problem and react accordingly by changing their own LOVE. They should resign themselves to the fact that, regardless of the amount of force they might choose to try to control their child’s behavior, they must first accept this reality and commit to altogether steering away from using discipline as a tool for behavioral control.
If we immerse ourselves in our knowledge of DOLF 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 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 always subject to the steadfastness of the children’s instincts first and foremost. 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 on the part of the child can NEVER be changed no matter what ours or any person’s immediate response is to any situation. The children’s native instincts absolutely come first to trump all else and command them to a) COMPETE TO HOG PARENTAL LOVE and b) BEHAVE IN DIFFERENT WAYS FROM THEIR SIBLING. This attitude induces 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 can never win.
As a example, let’s say that 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, incarcerating them or otherwise penalizing them. Yet contrary to our expectation of compliance, let’s assume that 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 our logic and adult reasoning fails. When we say “See what you’re doing to yourself and your family” it never works and they are never moved. Similarly, threats, warnings and punishments go unheeded, and rarely fundamentally change the attitudes of the child or socially immature adult who is feeling Disfavored.
For these reasons DOLF advises that as their superiors, it is incumbent upon us to adjust OUR thinking to accept the fact that there really is NO 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 UNLESS WE CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM FIRST.
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 DOLF 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.
We see then, and 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 in their personalities. All that parents can hope for by changing their pattern of LOVE and indulging their Disfavored child’s neediness is that they can equalize or balance the siblings’ personalities to some degree, so 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, Depressed or Angry, traits that are 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 at the moment of disturbance, as long as it is not harmful to either child and settles the problem of the moment, is entirely acceptable. Appropriate responses recommended by DOLF 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, DOLF 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. DOLF recommends that parents either separate the children, closely monitor or intervene in sibling disputes to help them try to 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 viewed as the aggressor and manipulator most of the time.
As to threats from parents, DOLF emphatically recommends that empty threats or warnings without consequences are an excellent strategy. Contrary to the recommendations of Behavioral Theory, DOLF 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 it has no meaning for a child and makes no cognitive sense to them to be punished the way we believe it does. Rather, DOLF recommends that empty threats that can pass the time, overcome the dispute of the moment or defusing the situation are ideal. With DOLF 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 DOLF 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 of our children for who they are, which means respecting their need to be different, independent and maintain completely separate identities from each other.
