I was talking with one of the other school moms this morning, and we were both singing the praises of our intrepid Girl Scout troop leader. She is like this dervish of glitter and badges and healthy snacks and perfectly organized Excel lists and always has every activity immaculately planned, plus she loves rescue dogs to boot. I mean, could we get any luckier?
I am co-leader, I guess you could say Vice Leader, and much like the Vice President I don’t do much. I offer moral support and occasionally hand out a band-aid, but that’s about it. But this other mom is very kind, and gave me the compliment that “you’re really good with kids.”
I got this once before, last year, and it always catches me off guard, because I feel like I am pretty much the worst person in the world with little kids. They are a complete bafflement to me. Last week I was helping with Field Day and some little girl’s hat fell into a bucket of water. I tried to console her, but she was beyond consolation.
She cried so hard she got a bloody nose, all while I stood there with my head cocked trying to explain that it’s just water while looking in vain for something to staunch the stream of effluvia. I felt little sympathy for her plight. She needed a little perspective, really. See? I’m a bad person. I also volunteered to stand on the sidelines at the jogathon with a big water mister to spray the kids in the face as they ran by, and I was malevolently cackling like an old man hiding in the bushes with a hose the whole time. (They loved it.)
The only reason I can fake it with any semblance of authenticity is because when I’m confused as to how to handle a situation, I usually revert back to my own area of expertise: dog training.
Screaming? Like barking for attention, it is ignored, as is begging, whining, and cajoling.
Both dogs and children who chase cats get a time out.
Food is useful as a reward, especially when given intermittently. Verbal praise is slathered on generously.
Mental and physical stimulation are essential components of avoiding destructive behavior.
We do our best to set up environments for success. We also keep expectations high and assume success.
No matter how frustrated I get, I never, ever hit.
I don’t do this because I’m some parenting expert who has ingeniously extrapolated the connection between dogs and kids. It was a technique born out of desperation because it was all I knew, and I just kind of stuck with it because it seems to work pretty well, crate training notwithstanding.
In retrospect, there is where I failed the little bloody nose kid, by skipping my Dog/Kid (Dig? Kog?) Behavioral Principles 101 and doing something completely ineffective with both 5 year olds and canids: resorting to reason. They do not listen to reason. And when we’ve gotten into a positive feedback loop of escalating unwanted behavior, any dog trainer worth their salt would have told me the same thing: Remove and Redirect. A popsicle would have probably solved the whole darn thing.
So, I’m riding the What Would Victoria Do wave until it stops working. I imagine this paradigm will fall apart by the teenage years, as I don’t recall any episodes where she had to deal with an unruly dog who talked back, then wrecked the car.
I love this perspective. I’m going to have to use it myself with my two under the age of 4. But let us know if you figure out the teenage years!
As a foster parent of teen age girls… just think of the teen years as training a cat…we all want to do it but its pretty much impossible so we just resort to the squirt bottle.
LOL! Love it!
lol @Tabitha
If I had a “Comment of the Day” award, this would have gotten it. Pure gold!
That is TOO funny and even MORE TRUE.
Two comments, first off Tabitha that is the best quote I have heard all day! LOL!
Second, a Popsicle cures anything…
Reminds me of the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon wanted Penny to stop talking, so he started giving her a piece of candy as a reward each time she did. I told my husband, “He’s training her like a dog!”
So glad to hear that I am not the only one who should be the *second* to last person who should be around kids!
Having no kids of my own, I find myself using these same techniques when I spend time with my nieces. It makes sense… but I don’t tell my parents I’m using dog training techniques. I’m not sure how they’d feel about that 😉
Err… *their* parents. I don’t tell *their* parents. I don’t think my parents would care. Hey, it works, right?
Sorry Susan Montgomery but the statement, “a Popsicle cures anything” just isn’t true. I still, to this day (I’m 63!) remember vividly when I got my first puppy. I went out to feed it the next day and it was gone! My mother told me that it had died in the night and tried to distract me with a candy bar.
Not only would I have nothing to do with her candy but I developed the habit of hiding in my room when things went bad because nobody else “understood”.
Maybe it would work for a wet hat but some things are beyond candy …
Aw, that is really sad! 🙁
I have to say that my husband and I got a better handle on disciplining our child when we took a dog obedience class for our new cocker spaniel puppy! It pretty much all translated except for the part about giving then time out on a crate!!
I read an article once about using lessons from dolphin training to train your husband. It was also about positive reinforcement… as far as I’m concerned, these lessons from puppy class are quite applicable to any area of life! 🙂
Sounds like “What Shamu taught me about life, love and marriage,” by Amy Sutherland. A fun read, although I liked her “Kicked, bitten, and scratched: life and lessons at the world’s premier school for exotic animal trainers” better.
As a dog trainer who is also raising her baby with puppy-training principles, I approve!
Well, every living things have similarities indeed, and in certain way humans are animals too, indeed 🙂