I was asked a great question recently by a very frustrated parent…..”Why does Billy keep doing this?” I realized based on the confused look of the Mom that my response wasn’t necessarily comforting. My initial response was that it didn’t really matter. Her comment to me was great….she stated “I thought all of you mental health people understood this stuff. If you don’t know why he is doing it then I’m lost.”
Aah….the dirty little secret is now exposed and the damage it has done is tremendous. In one short exchange what is demonstrated is a major problem in parenting. First, is the myth that only the “professionals” truly understand the motivations of children and that without their insight and knowledge, there is no help. And secondly, the myth that “why” someone, especially a child, does something is that important anyway.
Let’s start with the first….the all-knowing professional. I can speak with pretty good certainty about this because I am one of these folks. Oh, you hear much about unconscious motivations and patterns of behavior that may have been subconsciously developed in childhood to either mimic what was modeled to a particular child or in reaction to what their life was like….well, which is it? Are the unconscious (hidden and secret) motivations “reactions to” or “mimicking”? How can we tell the difference? Can they be both? Remember, they are unconscious which means they are beyond the direct observation and awareness of both the individual and onlookers. So do we just guess?
I can tell you firsthand after dealing with more than 10,000 different families over the past 23 years that there are as many reasons “why” a child or individual does something as there are children. One of the great things about us is our uniqueness. The notion that any one professional has this innate ability to look into the inner workings of a particular child and determine with consistent certainty their internal motivations is a little hard for me to fathom.
An example of this is looking for a book on parenting or really any “psychology” area. Have you noticed how many are out there? Have you noticed just how many different approaches are detailed and used in dealing with the same issues? How can all of them be right? Yet, you never hear anyone come out in my profession and say….”Oh, I am so sorry, I was wrong about that. Children really aren’t motivated by those things.” Wouldn’t that be entertaining?
But the use of “psychobabble” and the acquiring of multiple degrees seem to give the typical person the idea that for some reason, this profession knows more about their child or parenting than they do. Remember, the mental health profession was mostly non-existent in its current form before the 1970’s…..and on most accounts we were more mentally healthy as a nation.
The extremely damaging consequence of these ideas is that parents have lost their courage and confidence to parent by believing they don’t have the knowledge or skill necessary.
The second myth is a little easier to deal with. On the whole, “why” a child does something is much less important than “what” they do and how a parent responds to it. In most cases, the motivations of children are more basic than we seem to think….I am guessing here but ponder with me for a second.
Most children do not grow up in traumatic situations, are not abused or neglected, and have virtually all of their creature comforts met. The poor in this country are very different than the poor in most other countries….think Haiti. This being the case, most inappropriate or unhealthy behaviors from children are not because of past or current traumas…..they do these things because they “want” to. So the “why” of it really doesn’t matter as much. Billy hit Johnny because he wanted to. Sally yelled at her Mom because she felt like it. Our job is to respond in ways so that they don’t “want to” in the future.
The preoccupation with the “why” has taken us far afield from the basics of just holding our children accountable for wrong, unhealthy, inappropriate, or annoying behaviors. The population again has been convinced that there is this invisible “bogeyman” of “why” out there and if we don’t understand it, we can’t parent effectively.
This preoccupation with “why” has also given us the idea that if given certain motivations, any behavior can be OK. In other words, there is no true right and wrong….we have gotten into the business of justifying what for generations would have been clearly wrong, unhealthy, immoral, etc…..very dangerous business.
In some ways this may be a critique of psychology, but it is not a complete indictment. I know and have known some great folks in the field who have been of great service to families for years. The issue is more of what has happened to parenting. We should never abdicate the role of parenting our children to anyone else….professional, government, school system, etc. We have lost our courage and confidence.
In most cases, our job is not about seeking the all-knowing professional or finding the answer to the elusive “why” question. It is realizing that God has equipped us to raise our children and our job is a lot more about accountability and pointing the way than trying to determine unconscious motivations. He who has designed us and our children has continued to be the best source for navigating a broken world while parenting. He is the reason to have courage.
With courage, we can clearly declare what is right and wrong, healthy and unhealthy, moral and immoral….and begin to expect it of our children.
– Keith McCurdy
