Writing -- Baby Talk: Do as you're told

The following article featured in a weekly column on parenting in the Women on Wednesday supplement of The Evening Echo, one of Ireland's leading regional daily newspapers. It appeared in the 24 November 2004 issue.

"Would you ever do as you're told?" I snapped at the twins.

It was a playschool morning and they were playing up. They go through the occasional bout of asserting their independence, making a stand against the tyranny of parental rule.

First of all they wouldn't get out of bed and then they took ages to get dressed. When they finally made it to the kitchen they didn't like the cereal, even though they'd wolfed down half a box of it the previous morning. Then came the battle to get them to put on their shoes, then they point-blank refused to wear their coats… and so the morning continued.

At first you stand firm against such antics, but the tenacity of a belligerent four-year-old far surpasses the staying power of the average adult. Pretty soon I lost patience.

I'm a great believer in explaining things to children. Persuading kids to do things willingly may take longer than other alternatives, but it generally makes more sense in the long run. Getting cross might give quicker results, but the victory tends to be short-lived. Pretty soon they'll revert to their former behaviour and in no time at all you'll be tearing your hair out again. Another option is to try to trick them into seeing things your way… but engaging them in a battle of wits is a risky business. It gets embarrassing when you lose!

The whole persuasion philosophy is wonderful in theory, but putting it into practice is difficult. Take this morning for example, my none-too-subtle attempts at persuasion had zero effect and it took me less than an hour to lose the plot completely. Life would be so much easier, for them and for us, if they'd just do as they were told without putting up a fight.

But then I wonder whether easier is necessarily a good thing?

Think about it. Will things be easy for them when they're out in the big bad world fending for themselves? Will blindly following other people's lead do them any favours when it comes to getting on in life? Maybe training our children to do as they are told without question is unhealthy. Surely suppressing their natural tendency to question things can't be a good thing, can it?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that perhaps the traits that make our children more difficult for us to deal with are the very traits that will prove most useful to them as adults. We should be nurturing their natural tendency to question everything, their confidence in themselves and in their opinions. The last thing I want is for my children to turn into adults who sit meekly in a corner all their lives, their voices never heard because their dad hammered into them that the most important thing is to "do as your told".

Like all things in the parent-child relationship there's a fine line to walk here. There has to be an element of discipline and it's important for children to learn the importance of rules. Otherwise we'd have anarchy. But it's equally important to value children's opinions and to acknowledge their rights to those opinions.

According to that argument my new yardstick for parenting success is going to be how difficult and headstrong the kids are. By that measure I must be doing something right.