PARENTING PLUS:Become more than a peacemaker or judge, writes DAVID COLEMAN
LAST WEEK’S column about children and chores was inspired by previous newspaper reporting of a youngster who had been assigned household chores as part of a “restorative justice” type project that aims to keep first-time offenders from garnering a criminal record.
The whole incident got me thinking further, not just about chores but about “restorative justice” and how it can apply to general family life.
Essentially, the main parenting strategies we rely upon to manage young children and their behaviour fall within the realms of behaviourist theory.
In essence, they can be summarised by the concepts of praising good behaviour (that you want to see repeated) and having consequences for bold behaviour (that you want to see avoided).
There are many variations on these two central themes and I certainly always espouse empathetic responding, whatever the situation, to ensure that children’s feelings are acknowledged and included in how we react to them and their behaviour.
“Restorative justice”, in the context of parenting, is one such useful variation.
It also fits, for me, with the important role of acknowledging feelings and how feelings and behaviour are intertwined.
Generally, when our children do something wrong, like fighting with their sibling, we respond to stop the behaviour. We then, usually, apply some kind of consequence to teach our children not to fight in the future.
By adding the concept of restorative justice to the theme of consequences for misbehaviour we can teach children that what they did was not acceptable, was not to be repeated, and also that it was harmful for the other person and made them feel hurt, or sad, or upset, and that this feeling needs to be attended to also.
So a rectifying or “restoring” consequence might be that the child who starts to hit or fight with a sibling must do something for their brother or sister to “make it right”.
Depending on the age of the children, the injured party might also be included in a discussion about what would help to make amends.
Examples of such restorative justice-type consequences may include reassigning chores that the hurt child was due to do to the child who hit out, repairing, re-building or replacing any toys that got damaged in the scuffle, allowing the hurt child to choose a game that the children play under your supervision, and so on.
Phrases you might use to explain this kind of consequence also need to be explicit about repairing or rectifying the hurt caused.
So you might be saying something like. “When you hit your sister she gets hurt. You may not hit her. Now you need to make it right for her by doing . . . ”.
Furthermore, if the children are old enough you can include a discussion with them about how to avoid getting into the fights in the first place.
Your role is an active one as you try to help your children to resolve their disagreements and to work together more effectively in the future.
You become much more than a peacemaker or judge.
This kind of responding to your children will not only teach them what is right and wrong, what is allowed and not, it will also teach them to recognise and respond to how their behaviour affects others’ feelings.
In this way, you guide not just their behaviour but also their emotional development.
This kind of responding to your children is not a quick fix. But the process of dialogue that incorporates an understanding of the impact of our behaviour on others will bear fruit in the longer term as your children develop empathy; a skill that will serve them well through adolescence and into adulthood.