Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

by Becky Kennedy

When we approach our kids with charts and reinforcement and stickers and time-outs, we essentially tell them that their behavioral compliance is what matters most. We display an indifference to their distress and their personhood (an interest in which is critical to forming human relationships), and our kids can feel that. Now, sixteen years later, this couple’s son was essentially saying: “I don’t care about your sticker charts and your punishments. I’m bigger now, and you can’t throw me in a time-out. I’m no longer scared of you, and you have no leverage because there is nothing connecting us.” When our kids get older and bigger, methods of behavior control stop working. Children simply aren’t motivated anymore by our rewards, and they’re too physically big for us to enforce punishments and consequences. When we sacrifice relationship building in favor of control tactics, our children may age, but in many ways, they developmentally remain toddlers, because they miss out on years of building the emotion regulation, coping skills, intrinsic motivation, and inhibition of desires that are necessary for life success. When we are busy exerting extrinsic control over our children’s external behavior, we sacrifice teaching these critical internal skills.