When a constraint is imposed upon a child without her understanding, she can’t apply it in novel circumstances, or know when to ignore it, or use it to acquire some new idea. Instead, it becomes fixed in time, unable to improve, a lifeless feature of her world. What’s worse, this constraint will grate against other ideas that she has, but since the parent has resorted to coercion, she is on her own to try to resolve the conflict that this grating represents.
Coercion, including covert coercion imposed with a soft voice and loving words, is deeply disconnecting, and it certainly does not feel compassionate to the person on the sharp end. What seems to be called ‘Self-led parenting’ is a far cry from the deeply respectful, non-coercive spirit of the Self of IFS when they are talking about adults.
Adding “loving” to “limits” does not make the limits non-coercive, it just adds confusing mixed messages to the coercion. The parents are coercing the child while acting as though that is not what they are doing. They are pretending that they are not responsible for the distress they are in fact causing.
How do you distinguish between restrictions on our behaviour that are good for us and those that aren’t? The restrictions on our behaviour that are good for us are ones we agree with. And when we agree with them, they are not restrictions on our behaviour anyway.
A rule imposed on someone for the purpose of helping them to feel secure, is ludicrous. If I expressly don’t want something, yet it is imposed upon me anyway, how does that help me to feel secure? The opposite is the case.
Life is not black and white, but rules are. Punishments try to make the world fit into the categories of black and white but kids judge that there are greys anyway.So we help our children learn about those greys instead of just ignoring them they way many parents do. Iit leads to safer children.
Are children really such an alien species that the way they feel about being thwarted is so completely different from how adults feel?
Getting children to ‘agree’ to TV limits is coercive, and pretending that it is non-coercive.
Children are not born knowing the truth, so we should tell children our best theories, explain why we advocate certain forms of behaviour and not others, and try to persuade them through reason of the truth of our own ideas, but not coerce, manipulate or in any way pressurise them into enacting our theories. For our theories may be false: even becoming a parent does not confer infallibility upon us!
Showing the meaning of the word ‘coercion’ rather than explaining it. Show don’t tell, as it were.