When we think about HOW to punish a child, if we follow CBT that is based on animal training, there are yet more differences to be pointed out. That is animals, once domesticated, are inclined to try their best to obey their human master. For example, a dog or cat can be trained to resist their most pressing instinctual desires, such as NOT to make noise, NOT to eat from their master’s table, and wait patiently for their own food. Yet when a parent tells their child: “I told you no more cookies!”, if the cookie jar is still close at hand, a warning, slap on the wrist or other punishment, no matter how consistently or persistently applied, very often does NOT deter the bad behavior. Or if we say “I told you NOT to hit your brother”, we cannot expect that to be the end of it. We only butt up against the WILL of the human and frustrate ourselves. If that person is UNWILLING to cooperate and learn our lesson, their tendency in the end is to follow their own WILL. This means we can expect that they will find ever more devious ways of attaining their objective!
So our misbehaving child, with their limited understanding of our social demands and why we insist on compliance, but at the same time harboring an indestructible WILL, must either obey our command NOT to invade the cookie jar or hit their sibling, or else suffer our punishment. Yet a child or adolescent, especially if they are immature, often follows their own WILL and Emotion-driven instincts, carries on misbehaving, and keeps trying to find ways to achieve their end in order to satisfy their urge!
DOLF informs us that children are tuned in to Emotions rather than to Intelligence. As such we learn that they are responding to OUR Emotions as well as their own. Therefore, when we react to their behavior with our won Anger, they mostly perceive this seething ANGER and how much their behavior infuriates us, while our words to them are moot! They do NOT respond, as we might think, to OUR Intellectual, reality-based, adult-thinking instructions, nor on a behavior-leads-to-consequences paradigm, such as when we tell them NOT to continue yelling or running ahead, or threaten our punishment. Instead, immersed in their own Emotional world, they respond to our bubbling, burning feeling of ANGER. So, when we decide to make a plan to punish them as per our CBT protocol, they conclude, not entirely unjustifiably, that we probably have very negative feelings toward them, or even HATE them!
Now once we duly administer our punishment, our CBT-governed protocol tells us to explain the reasons behind our actions to our unruly child. If we punish them and they are tearful, Angry or object to us, we are told to say: “I’m only punishing you because I don’t LIKE what you’re doing – but I still LOVE you!” This is to convey that we are displeased with their behavior, but that we have NOT stopped LOVING them and are NOT rejecting them. We are instructed to make this declaration in order to help them NOT to take our actions personally, but somehow distance themselves from our harshness. As an consequence we also hope that they will understand our actions and will not stop LOVING us in return. However, to do this they must understand the difference between LIKE and LOVE and it is surely a very slim one! we must admit that it is a concept that is difficult even for adults to grasp! In fact, in many languages, the difference between LIKE and LOVE doesn’t even exist, So to expect a small, immature child to understand the subtlety between LIKE and LOVE, and especially to try to apply it in this highly Emotionally charged situation as when a child is being punished, is entirely absurd! It begs the question: Who is the greater fool – the child who refuses to obey, or the adult who is trying to excuse their own actions, and may even be feeling guilty about punishing the child at all?
DOLF informs us that within the confines of the Mind of a Child, children DO NOT UNDERSTAND the idea that our LOVE depends on whether they behave one way or another! They DO NOT connect the dots in the logic we impose about the consequences and connections between behavior and punishment! This is true no matter how close the time faction between the behavior and the punishment, which is a key in animal training. Our human child is only and exclusively sensitive and responsive to our Emotions, and NOT capable of understanding our reason-guided Intellectual reckonings about how they should or should not behave. When we address them with Anger, they only detect the LOVE, lack of LOVE or ambivalence in our voice and heart and in their minds try to decipher whether we actually LOVE them or not! And in fact, at the moment of misbehavior and disciplining, we must admit that WE DO NOT LOVE or even LIKE the child! When we are Angry, with our brows furled and voices raised, we are in the midst of a negative Emotional mood, and for that very moment at least, we do actually resent the person before us – be it our child, teenager or the adult who defies us. And it is this negative mood or message we convey that the children feel and involuntarily respond to!
So to be determined to punish a child who misbehaves and pit one’s rational WILL against the irrational WILL of a child, who has no sense of how they should behave or what we actually want from them, and is only driven by their internal instincts, is a losing battle! It is as if they are in a car and we are trying to hold them back while they have their foot on the accelerator. No wonder it ends in frustration for both sides. When we escalate to a conflict, we only increase the resolve of each side to carry on what they believe to be in their own best interests. Our lesson is that we should NEVER pit our WILL against the WILL of a child, since they have NO understanding of the message we are trying to convey and have no capacity to judge the situation rationally.
We note here too another point of absurdity about CBT in that CBT is derived from animal training and tells us to go ahead and punish a child who defies us. Yet there is no animal that is known to punish its offspring to achieve compliance! So it seems that CBT condones selected aspects of animal behavior such as the reward and punishment paradigm, and gives this advice for humans, but ignores the aspect of animal behavior where they do not punish their animal babies. In the animal kingdom the resolution to misguided behavior is simple: when a young animal strays, they are merely gently guided back by a loving parental figure.
