Be The Leader
The most important practical step in teaching children and pets is to establish your role as the firm and fair leader. If you are a good competent leader your young charges will be eager to learn from you. If you are a poor leader, it won’t matter how good your teaching techniques are, neither pets nor kids will learn much. (They will learn to be like you but they will not behave or learn manners.)
Leaders eat first.
Rule of Food
In dog and cat communities the rule of leadership is simple and clear: The one who makes the kill eats his fill. In other words to establish yourself as the leader, you must eat your meals and snacks before your pets and resist the urge to share, until you are finished. It is a good practice for the leader to share the last bite of food as a reward for waiting patiently. Do NOT share while you are still eating. This applies to both cats and dogs. With cats, its important also that you do not even let them sniff your food. If you DON’T apply this rule your kitten or puppy will soon establish themselves as your leader and your decisions will be disregarded and overturned.
Now for the food rule to work you must put down only as much dog or cat food as your pet can eat in one sitting. Do NOT keep the food bowl filled throughout the day. Put it down at mealtimes and then take it up. You should leave fresh water out through the day.
Firm and Fair
The rule of food does not really apply to humans but the firm and fair rule does. Being the leader depends on being firm and fair. The leader of any group is expected to make decisions for the well-being of the group members. If you make decisions that are self-serving and unfair to your youngsters, they will begin to disregard your decisions and rebel. So you need to say what you mean and mean what you say.
The easiest way to stay consistent (i.e. firm) is to decide in advance which things actually matter TO YOU. Enforce rules and learning that apply to those things. Then decide that all the things that don’t matter, DON’T MATTER. For example, when my kids were babies I decided that Safety, Health, and Getting Along With Others were the things I cared about. I can be firm and consistent about teaching and enforcing rules that apply to these areas because I ACTUALLY care about them and because they ACTUALLY matter for my kids’ futures. So I don’t bother my kids with whether their choice of clothing matches or is fashionable, my concern is only for whether the clothes are clean, comfortable and appropriate for the weather.
Kids need to make their own choices.
Kid controlled fashion.
Likewise, when my kids became teens I applied the same standards to monitoring their social life. Do they have the tools for making friends and Getting Along? Are they staying Safe and Healthy? So while other Mom’s were asking their FaceBook friends “At what age should girls be allowed to date?” and fretting over making social choices FOR their teens, my rules were clear. I knew that I would allow my daughters to date as early and as often as they had an interest. Because when they are too young to drive their dates were just another opportunity for me to teach Health, Safety, and Getting Along. I took them on their dates, demonstrating how to strike up conversation, how to manage awkward moments, how to meet the parents, how to trust their own good judgment, and how to stay Safe and Healthy.
Just as I had allowed my kids to choose their clothes, I also allowed them to choose their own pace for dating, and drinking, and sex – as long as they are safe & healthy & getting along. Allowing young people freedom of choice gives them the chance to develop good judgment. It allows them to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes while you are still there to help, and the consequences are still relatively manageable.
Middle school dating is good practice.
Too much restriction communicates the message that you don’t trust their judgment and decision making abilities. And that in turn teaches your child that she cannot trust her own intuition, judgment, and decisions. So when her friends all jump off a bridge she will go along with them. Even though her intuition tells her “Danger!” she knows she cannot trust her intuition but must trust in “what other people will think.” When an adult tells your son firmly to get in the white van, in he gets, even though his spidey sense is tingling. Because you have taught him he must do things “because I say so” rather than trusting his own decision making skills.
The white van of random authority.
You see? To keep your kids truly safe when you are not around they must learn to trust themselves, NOT to simply comply with adults, or group think. Its logical and reasonable. And it explains the age-old questions of why teenagers are so hell-bent on going along with the crowd and yielding to peer pressure. Its because their parents spent their whole childhood teaching them that “keeping up with the Jones'” and “what the neighbors think” is more important than being real, or safe or loved.
How to say “NO”
Before I teach you how to make ‘NO’ stick, you must first be sure that you are ONLY saying ‘no’ to things that actually matter. Some parents seem to think their job is to say ‘no’ several times per hour. Or maybe they just get off on the feeling of power they get from saying ‘no’ to small people and punishing them if they disobey. Some fools call this leadership, but that is a misnomer. The correct pronunciation of the word is “Bullying“. So if you were raised by or schooled by bullies, I am truly sorry. But from here on out you need to work on your sense of personal power and stop bullying smaller people.
True power comes only from empowering others. Everything else is properly called ‘Bullying‘
To make ‘no’ mean ‘no’ you must employ a technique I call the Baby Elephant. When Indian elephants are babies they tie one foot to a stake with a rope. The baby elephant soon learns that it cannot pull the stake out of the ground. Now when that baby grows up it can be tied to the same stake. Even though it is now strong enough to pull the stake up and run off, it stays anchored to the spot by its belief that it is not strong enough to disobey.
Use the Baby Elephant technique early and often.
When your baby (human, canine, or feline) is young you must employ the Baby Elephant technique whenever possible – but NOT by Bullying, simply by following up any legit ‘no’ by making it so. For example, lets say you take your young human to grandma’s or to the home of a childless friend. Baby, being intelligent and curious, spots the delicate glass vase on the coffee table and goes for it like a magnet. You say ONE loud and clear (but not frantic) “NO”. Then you immediately swoop down and wisk the vase away to a high shelf where baby can neither see nor touch it.
See how nicely that works. Once again, you say one “NO” then you make it so. Keep this policy up for as long as you can. Once baby is so big that you can no longer “make it so” they will actually believe deep in their soul that when YOU say “No” it always means “No”. Their firm belief based on your consistent behavior will continue to make it so for the rest of their life. Magic!
The Baby Elephant technique works with kittens and pups also, so work it early and often. Remember, you must teach them good behaviors when they are still small enough to make it so. For example, when that cuddly adorable kitten plays with you and for the first time flares its tiny claws out, say “No” then immediately make it so. This is easily done by wrapping a small amount of scotch tape over its front paws. It may take 15-20 minutes for kitty to pull the tape off. And while it doesn’t hurt, it makes an indelible impact on the mind. You will probably only need to repeat this lesson with tape about 2-3 times before they learn that claws and play don’t mix.
You can use this technique with humans and pets to teach good manners of all kinds. For example, if you want your pet to stay off the furniture you can say “No” and then pick up the baby and put them in a confined space for a short while – like a play pen. You can keep kitties off the kitchen counters by covering the counter with sticky reversed tape or crumpled foil – and saying one firm “No” when they test their agility. Again, it won’t take many ‘tries’ to teach the lesson.
Keep your “no’s” short and sweet and keep your repercussions short and intuitive. The idea, again, is NOT to punish – ever. But to teach self control. Allowing baby to experience natural repercussions is best. And when that isn’t safe or practical, make the repercussions as ‘natural’ and logical as possible. So if your voice has a punishing tone or the time in the play pen is long enough to make baby cry, you are being too harsh. The idea is to create a learning situation that rewards, rather that punishes the learner – makes them proud and happy to learn!
Easy Enough
I am a Girl. (You and my Ms Mag friends may want to correct me, “No, no, You’re a woman.” but if you knew me you would agree. I am a girly girl.) Girls like to share and be nice. I have many girl friends who dislike some of the harsher realities involved in Being The Leader. Like eating a big pompous meal while cute kitties and doggies watch with big sad eyes and mournful sighs. Girls, bear in mind that none of your furry friends is starving. Nor will they starve as long as they remain in your home. But if you let the cute cuddly babies “share” rather than learning manners, once they become adults they will make your life hell. And you may just throw up your hands and decide to set them loose on their own. Then, I promise you, they will not only starve, but starving may well become the least of their worries.
The same happens with human babies. It may sometimes seem like too much work to swoop down and make the magic “No” a concrete reality. It may often seem easier to simply confine and restrict your child rather than let them experience the consequences of their decisions. But one day that child will be alone in the world without you. One day their consequences will be beyond your ability to clean up with a kiss and a bandaid. Your child will one day fall and break a leg if you don’t let them fall and skin a knee early and often. Likewise, she may break her heart only once, once and for all. Unless you let her bruise it a little over the years when you’re there to teach her to tuck and roll and leave behind a trail of friends instead of wounded enemies.
Let them skin their knees and hearts while they have you.
In short, you need to toughen up and let your babies suffer discomforts. Its true that it hurts you more than them, while they’re cute and fluffy and little. But if you’re too selfish to hurt for them while you can, you will cause them a great deal of hurt down the road. So toughen up like this girly girl and take it like a man. The world is much to big and wild a place for you to teach a baby all it needs to know. Your job is to teach it how to learn quickly and learn well. Your job is to prepare it for the day it faces the big wild world alone.
clear mirror healing 