“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I have been thinking on the word control, all its meanings, and how it seeps into our lives. I think the word control evolves as a human does, or doesn't. To get this thought process started lets look at the definition of control. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/control?s=t As with most definition's individual perception comes into play with the definition of control.
It is the job of parents to set boundaries for their child(ren) to ensure safety while still being able to learn. Than is a form of control. If appropriate boundaries are not set for a child many harmful out comes are possible. Those outcomes can be immediate, or long term, and if they are long term we can guess at the out comes, but will not know the full levity of them until later on; which is why we try to set appropriate boundaries for our kids that they can learn with in safely in the first place.
Its even tougher to set boundaries for adolescents. They simply don't want to be controlled. The fact that they resist being controlled gives you a clue on how to teach them how ever. You simply teach them how to control their own lives, feelings and choices. Give them control. There's' a child development saying, "Gain control by giving control." Feel like the kids are out of control? Well give them the tools to take control of their behavior and environment. (see adolescent 101 blog.)
When I was working in child care I use to use a form of discipline that always confused the kids. When they were fighting and/or misbehaving over a toy I would put the toy in time out. Ide say, "OH no! This toy is not playing nice with you it needs to go into time out for a little while." Never failed the kid(s) would look at me in complete, and utter, amazement, and confusion. Here's what happens though; they calm down, and think about it for a little while. You've taken the catalyst out of the equation. ;) Kids are able to problem solve at every age, you just need to gauge their ability to problem solve accordingly. They quietly figure out that if they want to play with that toy again then they had better figure out a way to play nicely with it, and with each other, or it could go into time out again. Especially if you give the toy to another child who is playing nice with it.
Some parents find that giving privilege's to another child who is using good behavior is unfair to the child not gaining the privilege due to bad behavior, usually theirs by the way. But in real life, as adults don't we all expect to be rewarded for working hard and/ or using good behavior? Once again its how you present it. Even a three year old is capable of understanding, when he told politely, and respectfully, that good behavior earns good stuff. It also doesn't hurt to point out to the child(ren) who are having difficulty's with socializing to stop, point out how the toy is playing nice, and ask them what they see. Kids have to learn how to use socially acceptable behavior, this doesn't not come naturally. Basically what I'm saying here is that kids learn control by observing social cues and learning that there are consequences. AND those consequences must be reasonable and followed through on. If you don't teach this early on adolescence will be more difficult not only for your child, but you, who has to discipline their behavior.
(By the way even a child with a special needs can learn tools to socialize. It is difficult but not impossible. AND sometimes the tools need to be special accommodation's to individualize the learning for a child. Another note. When parents takes advantage of special accommodation due to their own ignorance in parenting it does a huge injustice to the family's that truly need them. Research and educate yourself on special accommodations before taking advantage of them. We want to make healthy successful members of society, not victims.)
In adolescence your kids are not with you 24/7 anymore. You cant be their control, they have to learn to control themselves. BUT if you did a good job of setting reasonable consequences, following through, and teaching them the difference between good, and bad feelings, when attached to the choices they make, (i.e. internal and external motivators) then even while they are screaming obscenity's at you, and saying I hate you, they will realize, when they have rode out that dark horse of hormones, that there are consequences for their choices.
http://psychology.about.com/od/motivation/f/difference-between-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation.htm
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/356.omo/young_child_motivation
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107009/chapters/Understanding-Internal-Motivation.aspx
(A note on these sites. They read from an educators point of view, how ever, I remind you that as parents we are all teachers. Read and pull what you can from the information. ;) )
Teens will take the consequences, may not be happy about it, but they will follow through on them because they understand that taking the consequences in the end makes them feel better. Truly. This is also the time to let them start having some input into those consequences. Want a hint here? What ever they suggest the first, or second time, ask them to go and think on it some more. Those first two choices will usually be a cake walk. And don't fall for the grounding thing, they just get to sit in their room, with all their cool toys, and not really deal with what ever choice they made. They also don't need to deal with you, i.e. learn to problem solve, and communicate, which are the two primary things for adolescents to learn. Don't allow them, or yourself, to dismiss the mistake. Tough it out and learn. The consequence should teach them something. Discipline teaches, punishment is fearful, and punitive. If fear, hurt, or embarrassment (and I mean the embarrassment that is demeaning) is used then it is punitive and will teach them nothing. They will just learn to lie to you better next time. Truth.
Need an example? Ok. :D If you've been reading my blogs you know I am the mother of sons. When hormones kick in so does their curiosity of female body's. With the puter age this means that they have at their disposal a very useful, and effective tool, for searching, and finding, not only literature, but pictures, to full fill this curiosity; the library does not provide this information like the internet will. I can tell you that with every son I got pop ups on my computer. Something most women are not interested in seeing, especially if that females is a mom. No mom wants to know that, suddenly, their baby has started taking those steps towards manhood.
Now I could have freaked out, and screamed, and yelled, but I honestly wanted my sons to have a healthy attitude, and behavior, towards women, and sex. So with each of them hubby talked with them first about being respectful etc. And that what they were feeling was natural blah blah blah. ;) If it continued I came in and pointed out things like, I know that this is what boys do, etc., but that I was a female, and was not interested at looking at naked female bodies. If I was they wouldn't be here. The look on their faces was priceless, they went from rebellion/boredom to shock/embarrassment. (One of my sons pointed out to me once that this mind set sounded a little prejudice, and after reading it, it could be perceived by some one that way. However in our household we do not promote, support, or encourage hate, and/or discrimination in any shape or form. So when I, or hubby, say things like, because I am who I am I am not interested in looking at other female bodies, it does not suggest that the female body is not beautiful. It teaches, because we make sure to teach it, that some pictures, and/or ideas, of the woman's body are not beautiful; it is this mind set that is wrong. Not the actual action of love/sex in all its beautiful forms.) Of course reasonable appropriate boundaries for this scenario is no computer. In the case of our youngest, who also had the habit of hacking school computers, he saved up for, and earned his own computer, which, when he would get a virus etc., would be crashing his own computer, and have to fix it himself. Taught him how to be more respectful of the computer tool. ;) The point here is everything is a learning opportunity if presented as such by you.
OK so you got them past their teens and they have entered young adult hood. That age where, for the most part, your job is done. (You will always be mom or dad, you just don't have to parent as much.) You have given them all the tools, and information, needed to succeed on their own, for the most part. If you let them problem solve their own choices, and take the consequences (i.e. take control) in adolescence then they should do great once on their own. You don't hand out advice unless they come to you and ask for it. AND when they make the choice to come to you use patience, listen, be understanding, respectful, and keep your personal feelings of fear etc. to yourself, or, they will never come to you again. Make yourself available to them more so now, than when they were young, until they are confident with themselves in independence. Most of the time if you did a good job with them growing up, set firm, but loving boundaries, trusted them, supported them, and followed through on reasonable consequences they will come to you always.
FINALLY... you get past those three phases, and suddenly, you are faced with something completely different in relation to control. This is where you wake up one day and realize that a lot of what your parents were trying to teach you was right...dammit! You have to make that phone call that basically says you were right, thank you, and I love you. You are suddenly responsible to your self, not your parents, not your friends, not your employers, not society and not the government. You define your self based on your own personal interactions with other adults. You get the idea of the internal motivator. Especially when faced, for the first time on your own, with a challenging situation, where you have to use self control, and you are successful at it. You used everything you were taught, and it works. Dammit again..."they" were right.
Understanding and reaching this phase is important because most people want to be a parent. Even if you are not a parent children are watching you. It is part of our job, being part of the human race, to role model the behavior we want to pass on to the people who will take care of us in our old age. Kids will always be watching how you handle yourself, even when they are not yours, they will learn how to use what behavior, under what circumstances, simply by walking through your life, while holding the hand of an adult.
Now I will admit honestly that, especially when my hubby and I were younger, our control was still being fine tuned. I will also admit that I feel that everyone, every once in while, needs to kind of give up control. You know let their hair down; having a day where you stay in bed under the comforter eating ice cream, and crying almost non stop, to chick flicks...or action films...come on the dirty dozen is kinda sad. ;) Or in hubby's case spending all day on COD going on a killing spree. (There is something very healing about being able to kill on a video game. I don't agree with those who say console games encourage bad behavior. There is a small percentage of persons who will be influenced by video games, but there will also always be other factors that supported, and encouraged, that influence.) We are, after all, all human, and imperfect. Trying to teach a child to be perfect, and act perfectly all the time is unrealistic, and setting them up for failure, and a low self esteem. (hmmm add those to a child/adolescent who plays nothing but violent video games all the time...meditate on that for a bit.) If you are realistic that everyone has bad days, but to try to do your best, because its about how you want to feel about yourself, not how others feel about you that builds self confidence, and makes you successful, then your child will be such.
As adults it is our job to role model that we, in all reality, have very little control over what happens in life. Things change daily, even minute to minute sometimes. We learn to roll with the punches while putting a smile on our face. If we don't role model the smile then we teach the attitude that so many people have these days; life sucks so why even try...the world is just out to get me. I don't care...bleh :P
Another aspect of role modeling is for children to see that humans evolve and change. Control is hard when you are young, but it evolves. Yeah hubby and I weren't always great role models, when it came to control, when we were young parents in our 20s; but we never stopped trying to control our inappropriate behavior and evolve as human beings. There fore our sons give themselves a break when they fall short of the behavior they want to use; they just do better next time.
Beware of those out there who say people never change; that is not true, and those persons will be in for a surprise. They will always be disappointed in life until they grasp the light side of control, not the dark side. If a person has not changed its just because they haven't learned the value of control, and changing, evolving, yet. People have to understand how control benefits them directly before they actively decide to change. No biggy really, it will happen. Everyone evolves at different rates.
There is one sure way to tell if a person is in the place to evolve concerning recognizing the imperfections of human behavior in themselves and others. Blame; always an awful and powerful thing if you allow it to control you. Blame controls not only the person supposedly being blamed, but the person who is directing the blame. Its not very realistic to hold someone totally accountable for any given situation. NO one, and I mean no one, has that much control and/or power. I like the scenario that people use when trying to make an argument that they have no control over a situation.
"You mean to tell me that if a gun is pointed at your head you have control? You are going to die, some one else has control over your life!" Uh no, not really. Here's why. There are three absolutes in life, we are born, we live, we die. Knowing that death is inevitable for all living things, how we choose live, and then to die, is the control we have over ourselves. If a gun is pointed at my head I will show no fear, I will choose to leave this world with dignity, love and compassion. If someone is going to kill me I gain control by showing love, and compassion, to the person who is choosing to extinguish my life. There is power in fear, power for the person trying to bring out the fear. Not showing fear is taking the control, and power, out of their hands. Showing love, and compassion is alleviating their suffering, and possibly changing their mindset. How very sad that a person has lost so much control over their lives that they have lost, may be never had, love, kindness and compassion in their lives. If I am about to die I want the last thing I do to be loving and compassionate. Because in the end, it is about me, not the person who has the gun to my head. There is power, and control in this mind set of a much kinder and greater scale. Meditate on it for awhile.
Another example; If I loose my temper it is ultimately my fault, not the person on the receiving end of my anger, for pushing the supposed buttons. I relinquished control of my self and my behavior. If I choose to end a relationship with someone whom I believed to be a friend, and then found out I made a bad choice, I blame only myself, not that other person for not living up to my expectations. If a distance, and or gossip, continues about an event that took place years ago it is most certainly my choice to let it continue in my life. Especially knowing that the other person still holds me completely to blame.
Or here's another thought; what if no one is to blame and it is what it is. It is unrealistic. and unreasonable. to assume that one person holds so much control over the out come of any situation in life, or over another human being! (Which by the way debunks all those nay slayers out there saying its all Obamas fault....really? You want him to have that much control over our lives? C'mon!) I fee it is also unrealistic to believe that people are incapable of changing. If we all believe, on some level, that we are subject to control, from one degree to another, than we must stay open to everyone having the capability to evolve; to take control of their life. It is at this point that relationships are re-established after long periods of time with no communication. It is at this point that the possibility to alleviate suffering becomes very real; and it is at this point that the real definition of control comes into play and blame ends.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blame?s=t
The Pith of The Matter is this. What if there was no blame? What if we had absolutely no concept of the word and its meaning? What if blame held no control? What if things are the way they are just because they are the way they are suppose to be? So many of us grow up believing, may be because we were taught, that the people who raised us, who cared for us, did a shitty job and that is why we are so screwed up. BUT what if everyone is doing the best they can? What if most of the harm, and suffering, we experience was not intentional? What if there were no one, or nothing to blame? It would just be experiences that we learned from, that taught us something for a reason. What if the persons who experience the worse abuse are the persons who are suppose to be the protectors of the world? I am by no means saying that abusers out their should not be punished, and I mean punished, not disciplined, for their actions. What I am saying is the world is full of suffering, there is no way to alleviate it other than being better than the suffering that changed us. To take control in a positive, proactive manner, and be better for it; there fore making the world with in our sphere of life, the life under our protection, a better place. The people with in our sphere of protection better.. Role model that as humans we are perfectly imperfect, but perfectly capable of change and realizing that to gain control we must first give up to control.
"All the peace and happiness of the whole globe,
the peace and happiness of societies,
the peace and happiness of family,
the peace and happiness in the individual persons' life,
and the peace and happiness of even the animals and so forth,
all depends on having loving kindness toward each other." Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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