I like to ride horses. I learn so much from them. I was taking a riding lesson the other day and it occured to me that when you are riding, you watch and feel the horse's responses to your guidance constantly. As you are doing that, you find yourself (particularly with a younger horse) spending about 90% of that time correcting the horse for his wrong responses to your guidance or for his independent moves outside of your guidance.
It's a lot like a dance, you lead, he follows. At least it should be in the end but you have to teach the horse that YOU are in the lead, not him. You tell the horse to walk; he hesitates because he'd rather stand still; you cue him to walk more firmly; he walks; he takes a few strides just as he should; he begins to drift to the left; you use leg pressure to move him back to the right; he sees a car up ahead on the road and tenses up; you talk to him and reassure him that there is nothing to be concerned about; he takes a few more steady strides forward, so you know it is an acceptable time to ask for something new, and you ask him to trot; he begins to trot, but too fast; you use reins and voice to calm and slow him; many strides later you are still trying to slow him; you gradually coax him down to the speed you want and work to keep him there until he takes a number of strides without resisting you; you find yourself back to directional problems again as he drifts one way or the other, or tries to cut the corners of the ring. Essentially, you are constantly working to get him to do as you've asked, or to keep him doing as you've asked. He is an independant creature with a mind of his own and it takes a lot of time and work to get him to submit and trust you to make his decisions for him. Only when he is doing as you've asked and completely submitting to you (usually this lasts only a few seconds/strides), do you ask for something different. Rewards are given constantly too, in the form of lessening pressure from your aids and of course from your voice and pats at the end of each exercize.
So what does this have to do with childrearing?
Well, I think our children are much better than horses at continuing to do as we've asked once they understand what we want, but when we do find ourselves facing a child who needs discipline I think it is helpful to deal with them much the same way as we would deal with a horse. We need to tell the child clearly what we want, then we need to watch the child carefully and correct him immediately if he does not do as we ask. Then we need to continue watching and correcting in order to keep him doing as we've asked. And of course we need to reward our children with our love and approval when they've made a good effort. |
