So what\u2019s a parent to do? The most effective way to avoid tantrums and rebellion is to remember that what looks like disobedience is actually imitation.<\/p>\n

Parents tend to focus on our spoken commands, but children are focused on our unspoken desires and they obey them to the letter! The Montessori educational method developed by the Italian physician Dr. Maria Montessori is grounded in the principle of imitation. She developed practices for teachers to be a non-rivalrous presence in the classroom that can easily be adopted by parents at home.<\/p>\n

Here are three essential ingredients for defusing power struggles before they even begin:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Sharing is optional.\u00a0<\/strong>In the Montessori classroom, children are taught how<\/em> to share but are never forced to do so. Why? Because Montessori understood that if children crave an object and don’t want to share, it is not because they are selfish or greedy. It is because they are responding to their inner drive to learn and grow by engaging with the object that has caught their attention. Forcing children to share causes them pain and suffering which they express through tears and “tantrums”, an unfortunate pejorative term for the child’s attempt to communicate their deep need to us.<\/p>\n

2. Respect is essential.\u00a0<\/strong>When we understand that children learn through engagement with the world of objects that they touch, hold, taste, smell, and manipulate we can respect their process as equal to if not superior to adult ways of learning. When we respect the child we can delight in their desire to repeat an action, hear the same story again and again, or insist upon putting on their shoes by themselves even though it delays us to distraction.<\/p>\n

3. Replace punishment with love.<\/strong> Punishing children for imitating our desires to be the boss is the height of hypocrisy. And it teaches the opposite of what we want them to learn — to love others for who they are even when it is inconvenient. True Montessori teachers do not punish just as they never coerce sharing. Instead, when children are “disobedient”, teachers recognize that what is needed is love not punishment.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Imitate This!<\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]If we want our children to submit to parental authority \u2013 and we do! \u2013 then we must not respond to their “disobedience\u201d with wounded pride. Remember that children imitate our actions and our desires because they want to be just like us. In this case it is quite true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row el_class=”olive-branch-bg-l”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]While children are expert imitators, imitation does not disappear as we age. We don’t call it imitation in ourselves because of our obsession with originality. But we do use expressions like “going viral”, “fads”, “trending topics”, “tit for tat” and so on which reveal the patterns of imitation that drive our behavior as surely as it drives that of our children. Of course, we are all too familiar with the way in which rivalry and power struggles, and even temper tantrums, have infected our politics and hampered our ability to respond in a coordinated way to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

When we learn as children that the most important marker of adulthood is being the boss and imposing your will on others, we become adults who create self-destructive rivalry on a global scale. As teachers, parents, and nations, we would be well served to follow the example of the Guatemalan mothers who practice respect, generosity, and giving desirable objects to their children. In this way, we can model that generosity is more important than being the boss. Just imagine if generosity went viral \u2013 that’s a pandemic we could live with.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=”20465″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can Christianity be toxic? Suzanne Ross reflects on Kevin Miller’s new documentary, J.E.S.U.S.A., and offers an antidote for toxic Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4328,4294],"tags":[3879,620,2234,2543,38,63,140,3878],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n