The Golden Rule **IS** Truly Golden

"My aim each day is to raise an adult, not a child." - Marcia Conner

My sacred friend, Stephanie, copied these words and what follows from the blog of a friend of hers. I am often offered suggestions about parenting styles. Thankfully, I have been gifted with many friends who parent the way I try to parent my own children. When I first saw Barbara Coloroso speak, her words seemed to float around my brain and take hold. She seemed to be speaking directly to me. I have since heard her speak on more occasions than that and each time her wisdom resonates within me. I have witnessed how Stephanie parents her own children and know she truly believes what Marcia has written here.

I hope that all of the people who read this recognize that our children are precious. They learn from our every action. If we live in a family dynamic where there is little more than "power over" instead of "strength with" then we will always clash and there will forever be a divide between them and us.

What follows now is a copy of what Stephanie has copied from Marcia. I hope you will take 5 minutes to read it.

Parents lay the tracks our children’s inner voice will repeat for a lifetime. What do you want that recording to say?

No wonder then I was delighted to read the following words as part of my bedtime routine last night. They come from Barbara Coloroso and appear early in her book, Kids are Worth It!

I share them here to remind myself again why I haven’t adopted a time-out or reward system… and in the event my friends read it here, they might get a glimpse into why I’ve politely listened but haven’t heeded their advice. Just on this, topic, though. On others, I welcome learning from them every day.
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The Golden Rule, as it is called, can serve us well when applied to our relations with our children. If we are not sure whether what we are doing with children is right, we need only put ourselves in their place and ask if we would want it done to us—not was it done to us, but would we want it done to us? If the answer is no, then we have to ask ourselves why we should ever want it done to our children.

If I wouldn’t want to be slapped across the face, why would I slap my son? If I wouldn’t want to be screamed at when I made a mistake, why would I scream at my daughter when she dropped the cake I had decorated for my mother-in-law? If I wouldn’t want to be ridiculed when I attempted to learn to roller-blade at forty three, why would I ridicule my daughter as she jerked the car out of first gear into second after being shown ten times how to do it smoothly? If I wouldn’t want my gardening skills to be compared with my neighbor’s, why would I compare my son’s math performance with his older sisters’ [or compare how and where he poops with his friends’ potty-time performance]?

We don’t have to look only at the here and now to see that it’s best not to treat kids in a way we wouldn’t want to be treated. If we use techniques today that control our children in an attempt to make them mind, we will be in trouble when we got old and this next generation has learned (because we spent years teaching them) how to control those weaker than themselves. I’ll guarantee you, when we are older, those weaker than them will be us. I won’t do to a child at seven something I wouldn’t want done to me at seventy.

It’s hard to imagine my grown child putting me on a sticker contract for getting out of bed, dressed, and to breakfast on time in the morning when I am seventy years old. “Come on, Mom. Remember, if you get up on the first call, get dressed by yourself, and show up for breakfast on time I will give you five stars. You can put those five stars on the chart we put up on your bedroom wall. If you get twenty-five stars by Friday, you can redeem those stars for a trip to the bingo hall with your friends.” It would be even harder to imagine being hit [or given a 1-2-3 now you need to sit in a room by yourself or on the naughty-mat] for speaking my own mind—in other words, for talking back—when I am seventy years old. It might appear to work, but it would not only be something that I would not want done to me, it would be at the expense of my sense of dignity and self-worth.

It is not enough merely to ask if I would want it done to me if I were in my child’s shoes. As good a check of parenting tool as that question is, we must go one step further and consider the consequences of our actions [in the larger scheme of things].

Just because a parenting tool works, or appears to work, that doesn’t make it a good one. An unintended consequence of using tools that control kids and makes them mind is that “good behavior” is purchased at a terrible cost—that is, at the expense of the dignity and self-worth of both the parent and the child.

If we want to raise children who have a strong sense of inner discipline, who don’t act merely to please someone or to avoid punishment but who behave in a responsible and compassionate way toward themselves and others because it is the right thing to do, then we must abandon some “tried and true” parenting tools of the past and reject some of the more recent alternatives.

What are the consequences to our children, our family, and our community if we raise children to “do to please,” to do what they are told to do, and to help others only if there is something it it for them?

I am not naive enough to believe that it will be simple to make the necessary changes. I also know that those of us committed to making a change must fight the demons from within, for we carry in our mental toolboxes destructive tools that are well-worn family heirlooms, passed on from generation to generation. [We need] to ask, “What is my goal in parenting—to influence and empower my children, or to control them and make them mind?”

From Kids are Worth It! Giving Your Children the Gift of Inner Discipline, 2nd ed., by Barbara Coloroso (HarperCollins, 1994-2005)