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Lesson Six: What To Do When …
Chapter 5
Giving Advice vs. Giving Information
“Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressure.”
—Jean Piaget
Effective discipline is about teaching children to be independent, to take responsibility for their own behavior, and to solve their own problems. While most parents would agree with this statement, they fail to see that this approach does not allow for something many view as essential: giving advice.
Dr. Glasser has only one guideline for advice: Never give advice unless someone asks for it. This holds true for everyone—most of all, parents. Giving children advice is very different from helping them find a solution to a problem.
There are many reasons not to give children advice. Advice denies children the opportunity to discover solutions on their own. When that happens, they don’t develop self-confidence. Giving advice teaches children to depend on someone else to solve problems. Advice harms a trusting parent-child relationship because it suggests that parents do not think that children are capable of solving their own problems. Also, your advice could be wrong and actually cause more problems. Worst of all, giving children advice allows them to blame you if the advice doesn’t work out.
One of the hardest parts of being a parent is helping children develop the skills to become independent. It is quite natural to want to keep children under your wing and protect them. Letting children mature and grow and become their own person is difficult. As your child grows up, he will no longer look to you for everything. He will develop opinions that may differ from yours. He may do things that you would rather he didn’t do. He will begin getting his needs met without your help, and you will begin to feel that you are no longer needed.
As your child matures, your role in his life diminishes, but it is still important. Your support and encouragement as your child deals with the hard work of becoming an adult is essential. No matter how old children are, parents can still help them consider various options, make choices, and accept the consequences of those choices.
When children become teenagers, they crave independence, whether they are ready for it or not. For them, independence can be scary when they are not sure that they can handle it. However, their confidence will grow as they are allowed to make decisions about their own life and see that their choices can have a positive impact. As children struggle to gain confidence, there is one thing parents often do that undermines their good efforts: criticize them.
Criticism is a personal attack on children’s self-worth and is devastating to self-confidence. Some parents are under the misconception that criticism is necessary to guide children toward proper choices and behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than promote growth, criticism is used to control, change, or demean children. Criticism says not only that the child made a bad choice but also that he or she is a bad person for doing so. Criticism promotes anger and resentment, and damages a trusting parent-child relationship.
Critical statements like this are harmful: “If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d see that getting your homework done teaches you valuable skills. But you think talking to your dumb friends is more important than school. You’re not going to learn I’m right until it is too late.” Believe it or not, children do take to heart your negative statements about them and incorporate those negative messages into their self-image. It is hard for children to believe that they are worthwhile and capable when important people in their life keep telling them that they are not.
Rather than looking for things to criticize, watch for what your child is doing right. Let your child know that you recognize that behavior and that you have confidence in him or her. Effective parenting is helping children develop an “I can” attitude and then standing back while they test their capabilities. As I said before, this is a difficult task for parents, but the reward of watching your child grow into a confident, happy, productive person is certainly worth the effort.
In the next lessons, we will look at how to utilize what you have learned so far to solve specific discipline problems. This second phase will help you personalize your new knowledge and apply it to your own family situation.
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