Listen to this

practice

Why?

John Stein

I love playing the “Why” game with children. You know, the game where you tell them something and they ask, “Why?” And you tell them, and they ask, “Why?” It can go on seemingly forever. The older they are, the more I love it. I especially love it with teenagers. I consider it a challenge. I can’t lose. Eventually, when it goes on for a while, children tire of the game. I never do. When I’m on my toes (I’m not always), I have some control. I can steer the conversation where I want it to go. It’s simple. My answer to one “Why?” determines what I will have to answer after the next “Why?”, and so on. And when I am ready, I can start asking questions. Children, especially teenagers, almost always rise to the challenge.

Many of the adults I know think children are just playing or testing their patience. I think it’s more than that. Much more. Children are naturally curious, unless things have happened to stifle their curiosity. It is indeed sad to see a child who is no longer curious. I can’t help but wonder what happened.

The old saw about curiosity killing the cat has a lot of truth in it. Cats, like many other animals, have a need to know their environment. When in a new place, they explore everywhere, sometimes getting themselves into difficulty. People need to explore their environment, too. But more, people need to understand their environment and how it works. People need to know why. As my father-in-law was fond of saying, children are people, too. If you have read this far, you, too, are curious. The title didn’t tell you anything. You have to be curious enough to read in order to find out.

Children have a need to understand their world and how things work. Not just physical things, but social things. Things like relationships and customs and rules. Things like feelings and values. How and why their social world works. They need to know that adults know what they are doing. That their rules aren’t just arbitrary things they devise to make children miserable. That there is a reason for things. The better children understand things, the better they are able to function, to navigate their social world. To anticipate consequences (not punishments, but real consequences), to plan, set goals, and prioritize.

It has been my experience that children can often be more logical than adults, especially younger children. Their logic is simple. I think the reason for this is that they have not yet formed beliefs and values to interfere with their logic. Have you ever tried to explain to a young child why it is wrong to kill someone but ok to execute criminals? Many younger children with their “primitive” logic have trouble reconciling these two things. Adults have much less trouble. It somehow makes perfect sense to many of them. It’s simple justice. I still have trouble with it.

It has also been my experience that children will almost always do the right thing when they know what it is, they understand why it is important, and they are able to do it.

With the growing influence of Behaviorism, I am finding that more and more adults are becoming less and less likely to tell children why. Instead, Behaviorism tells parents, teachers, and even therapists, that all they have to do in order for children to learn is to provide consistent consequences, rewards when children do good, “consequences” when they don’t. It’s not necessary to tell them why. Just be consistent with discipline and let the consequences do the rest. Children will learn if adults are consistent enough. It seems so easy.

We hope that providing consequences will make it more important to do the right thing. Other times, it just makes not getting caught more important. But providing consequences doesn’t teach children why. Why we care about their behavior. Why we are bothering to impose consequences. If we leave children to try to figure these things out for themselves, they are likely to get it wrong. To conclude that we don’t care about them, only their behavior.

It can be even worse when we impose consequences after we tell them why. Then they are likely to wonder why we imposed consequences now that they understand what they did wrong. Do we think they are too stupid, lazy, or selfish to do the right thing now that they know better? Do we think they are just bad? After all, only bad people deserve to be punished. They tend to see themselves through our eyes. It’s much better when they believe we think of them as good kids. It can be pretty damaging if they come to believe that we think they are bad kids.

Stealing provides one good example. There are countless others.

I believe that most children sense that there is something wrong with taking something that belongs to someone else. That’s why they tend to be a little bit sneaky when they do so. But I think there are two motivations. The obvious is that they want whatever it is. But there is more. I think younger children need to find out what will happen. That’s why they eventually let themselves get caught–the first time or two.

Adults, on the other hand, tend to be believe that private property is such a fundamental and universal value that everyone, including children, understands that theft is wrong. No explanation is necessary, only consequences. I suspect that many adults have come to believe that the main reason they themselves don’t steal is because of the possible criminal charges.

Private property is indeed a fundamental value in most of the modern world today, but it is not a universal value. There have been “primitive” tribal cultures in which everything was shared so that they did not even have words for “mine“ or “theft.” We laugh about the Indians who sold Manhattan Island for $24 worth of beads; the Indians, on the other hand, were amused at the concept of owning land, of buying and selling it. The land is for everyone.

Children are not born with values. They have to learn them. Someone has to teach them. Consequences in the form of punishment do not teach values.

So when adults assume that children know that stealing is wrong and therefore must be punished, what do children learn? Little more than that some adult says it is wrong and that they will be punished. Whenever they get caught. This sets up a reinforcement procedure. Every time children are successful at not getting caught, they feel clever. They take pride in their accomplishment. The occasional punishment for getting caught cannot compete with the more frequent thrills of success and may only teach children to be more careful, more clever, more patient. Punishment may reduce the behavior, but only because children are becoming more careful and more patient. It doesn’t stop the behavior.

On the other hand, when adults take the time and trouble to help children understand why stealing is wrong, they may create a situation in which children feel bad about stealing, even when they don’t get caught.

Consider this conversation in a group home:

Staff: Brad, you took Kyle’s money. That’s stealing. The consequence for stealing is a week’s restriction. You are on restriction until next Tuesday.

Brad: ...

What does Brad learn from this exchange? First, the fundamental logic of the staff is flawed. The consequence of a one week restriction is not for stealing, it’s for getting caught stealing. Brad knows this. In this logic, there is no consequence if Brad doesn’t get caught. And it’s the same in the real world. You don’t go to jail unless you get caught stealing. The only thing Brad learns is that he will get a one week restriction whenever he gets caught. All he has to think about while serving his restriction is how he got caught and how he can do better next time.

Now consider an alternative, in any setting you would like:

Ok. That’s enough to get the idea. In this scenario, Brad is beginning to understand not only why people consider stealing to be wrong but also what they feel about people who steal, why they feel that way, and how it can affect everyone in the community. He accepts responsibility for setting things right, facing Kyle to take the suspicion off the others, to help repair the harm. And he has plenty to think about. Meanwhile, the adult expressed his belief in Brad to do the right thing once he understood.

Adults didn’t know about Behaviorism and the importance of being consistent with discipline when I was growing up. Instead, adults were remarkably consistent with expectations. They told us what to do and helped us understand why it was important. Then they expected us to behave. They rarely threatened us with consequences or bribed us with rewards. They used punishment as a last resort rather than their initial response. I think it worked better for us.

Good kids don’t need to be punished. Children who perceive that adults think they are good kids tend to think of themselves as good kids. They work hard to meet expectations and preserve their image. It’s important to them. Doing something they know is wrong just doesn’t fit.

To the simple logic of children, only bad kids deserve to be punished. Children who perceive that adults think they are bad kids begin to think of themselves as bad kids. They don’t have to work very hard to meet expectations – the expectation is that they will be bad They have nothing to lose by being bad, except whatever adults may provide if they catch them. They see little to gain by being good (unless someone offers a reward). Making an effort to do something good just doesn’t fit with how they see themselves or how others see them.

We need to help people learn to talk more about real consequences instead imposing other ones.