This is an old post from the original A Child Grows owner (in 2010) and editor that I just love, love, love. I don’t want this post hide away any longer, so I am reposting now. It’s timeless.
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The other night I left Birch and Willow for 2 hours with a new babysitter. When I returned the babysitter told me that Birch had hit Willow three times. Three times! I was surprised to hear this. Yes, he used to take swipes at Willow, but he hadn’t done that in a month. We walked the babysitter to the door to say goodbye. She turned to Willow, whom I was holding, and gave her lots of kisses and warm caresses, whispering “you are so sweet” in her ear. It was really over the top too much and too long and I began to feel uncomfortable. Yech! Then she turned to Birch, and with a frowning, disapproving look from across the room, said, “Bye Birch.” She turned around and left.
Oh, oh. My heart felt so sad. I knelt down to Birch and gave him a huge hug and said, “I love you and missed you.”
What had happened while I was gone? I will never know. What I do know is the reaction that he got for his hitting. It was, “I like you when you’re a good boy, and when you’re bad, I don’t.” The babysitter let him know that. She let me know that.
She was there for only a bit, but she taught me a lot. I don’t want Birch to think I love him only when he’s good. I want him to know that I love him no matter what. The hitting is an act, a temporary transgression, it doesn’t mean he’s a “bad” kid. Of course, I tell him not to hit at ALL. He knows that I disapprove of that and that there can be consequences for hitting (having a toy taken away, time out, etc). But, what I didn’t like was that this babysitter had completely shunned him for one bad act, hours after he had done it.
What if one of the reasons a child misbehaves is for him to confirm that we love him no matter what? What if it is a test to reassure himself that we aren’t going to abandon him? Author Alfie Kohn suspects “that most kids are acting in unacceptable ways to see if we’ll stop accepting them.” If you believe this, he says, then we have to “refuse to take the bait. We must reassure them: ‘No matter what you do, no matter how frustrated I get, I will never, never, never stop loving you.'” He says, “it doesn’t hurt to say that in so many words, but we have to say it through our actions too.”
Kohn goes on to show how a genuine show of unconditional love works in education too:
“One teacher dealt with a particularly challenging student by sitting down with him and saying, ‘You know what? I really, really like you. You can keep doing all this stuff and it’s not going to change my mind. It seems to me that you are trying to get me to dislike you, but it’s not going to work. I’m never going to do that.’ This teacher added: ‘It was soon after that, and I’m not saying immediately, that his disruptive behaviours started to decrease.'”
“If we want our students to trust that we care for them, “[Marilyn Watson, an educational psychologist] concludes, “then we need to display our affection without demanding that they behave or perform in certain ways in return. It’s not that we don’t want and expect certain behaviours; we do. But our concern or affection does not depend on it.”
I remember visiting our friends who have 5 children. Yes, 5. The twins were having a meltdown when I arrived. One was sitting in her tutu with a dejected, tear-stained face and the other was on the couch in a full body tantrum. My friend was calmly talking to me. She said, “they will get through this in a minute, I’m just sorry you have come when it is so chaotic.” Sure enough, a few minutes passed and all the wailing had stopped. My friend said, “Girls, would you like a hug now?” They came right over and hugged her for a long time. I was struck how they went from howling to hugging. There it was. Unconditional love.
It is powerful to think how unconditional love can instill confidence, trust and security in a child. And the opposite, conditional love based on their actions, might encourage a child to continually test you with their misbehaviours. They may just want to know that you love them no matter what.