Kids learn early that “It’s not fair” gets a useful response from their parents. We all want to be fair and especially fair to our own kids. Once they learn that we are willing to reconsider a decision when the “unfairness” is pointed out to us they just use the phrase to death. At that point it is just a noise they make that gets results.
I don’t mean that to sound so cynical but truth is that kids have hardly considered all sided of a question before they pronounce their verdict of “unfair” and it is vanishingly rare for a kid to use the phrase when the unfairness is in their favor. I parent shouldn’t (and can’t) explain all possible permutations of events just to settle a question over a piece of candy. I like to mix up “life’s not fair” with “because I said so” or even “how would you like no candy for a week?”
Unless children are never, ever treated unfairly that can’t be correct. Sometimes, they are going to be yelling about treated unfairly because they are being treated unfairly.
I find the idea that there is some set of rules for parenting to be a “parenting mistake.”
For one thing, it constantly changes. And I can find different people advocating completely different methods. The one thing that never seems to be checked is how well the adults thrive, and there are a lot of other factors, too.
In my experience, children of that age mean, “I don’t like it!” about 98% of the time when they say “It’s not fair!”
To which my only reply is, “Actually, it is fair. I think you don’t understand what “fair” means. It doesn’t mean “I don’t like it,” it means everyone gets what they need when they need it, not that everyone gets the same thing all the time.”
I’m a communist parent. From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. If your sister is growing fast, she needs a new coat. When you need a new coat, you’ll get one, and she won’t. That’s fair.
As for the other debate, I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to use candy (which is not food, it’s a treat) as a reward, but I also agree that it should be a reward for above-and-beyond, not for the basics like keeping your room tidy. If the child had done some of Mom’s chores for her, then some candy or some money to buy candy would be a perfectly appropriate reward. But Mom doesn’t get paid for keeping her own room clean, so why should she pay her daughters for cleaning their rooms?
We don’t get paid to clean our room, we just do it. Consequences of not doing it are better tied to immediate daily activities the child wants to do, like go out and play, have a friend over, etc. That also gives you a chance to say yes, and the “no” is entirely the result of the child’s choice. “Yes, of course Mary can come over to play…as soon as your room is clean.” or “Yes, we’ll go to the playground…as soon as your room is clean.”
I think you guys might be dramatically overestimating the attention span of a five-year-old. They’re not stupid, but they’re in the very early stages of understanding long term consequences. Applying punishments long after the fact to a five-year-old is absurdly pointless; a child of that age needs to be corrected immediately.
The kid probably did really think she was being treated unfairly. Children of that age have an extremely black and white concept of rules; nuance is lost on them. If Kid A gets candy, Kid B should also get candy, and furthermore should get it in the same quantity. Casting back to something that happened days ago, or heck, even hours ago, is a point that will be lost on that child. What happened back then is ancient history to them and punishng them now seems amazingly unfair.
We can argue back and forth over whether kids should get rewards for doing chores, but what I am very confident in stating is that a kid of five years old, whether rewarded or punished, should get the reward or punishment more or less right away, or else they have a lot of trouble typing that to their behaviour.
As kids age they begin to have foresight and a broader understanding of consequences, and so you can expand the time period in which discipline occurs, but even then I’d suggest immediacy is always the best policy. When I was in the Army it was literally stated that soldiers had a right to be disciplined quickly. It was considered unfair to delay discipline.
Maybe, but that’s still a misunderstanding of what “fair” means. The arrangement was fair, the child just didn’t understand that.
I think you’re right about the pitfalls of rewards being given later, which is why my preferred reward (as I said, for above-and-beyond behavior) is cash. Simple, immediate and portable. The cash can be given as soon as the project is done and the candy can be purchased later, or the cash saved for a Zhu-zhu Pet or whatever. Or, for non-commercial rewards, the kid can “buy” an outing with Mom, or a ride to school when she’d normally walk, or any of a very large list of nontangible rewards. Why bother with stickers charts or other arbitrary and limited rewards when you can use cash? Cash is nice because it’s a universal token, and sooner or later, the kid will have to learn to manage it anyhow. So your reward isn’t just a reward, it’s also a Learning Experience.
As they get a little older, about 8, then the cash reward can be held back until “payday”, helping them learn how to plan and budget, when they’re at the stage to better connect project and reward with a time span in between.
I didn’t realize we were supposed to comment on the mom’s parenting ability as well.
I’d bet that if you sat the kid down at home, before the job is set, and said “Sally, I want you and your sister to clean your rooms. If you do that, I will get you a candy bar at the store. If you don’t do it, you won’t get a candy bar,” she might well agree to that and call it reasonably fair (even if it’s not your favorite parenting technique). And if she sees another kid who has not cleaned his room, she will say that it’s fair that he not get a candy bar, because it’s not emotional to her and kids like to enforce rules. And she might be downright gleeful if her sister didn’t get one.
But when it’s her missing out on the candy, emotion takes over. She no longer cares about whatever agreement she made. She doesn’t like it, and she feels it as personal injustice, and she yells, and “It’s not fair!” is the only way she knows to express it. Because she wants a candy bar, dangit!
Now this is not the technique I use; I have a 7yo slob who hates to clean, and our system is that she doesn’t get to do whatever fun thing she has planned until the job is done. So, dawdling over the messy room = no Lego time, or no video games with Daddy, or something. But while I don’t think it’s an ideal technique, I don’t think it’s horrifyingly terrible either. Sort of meh.
Just like “life isn’t fair”, as a kid I always took “because I said so” and similar phrases as an implicit admission by the adult using them that they were in the wrong. And because of that I’d feel no obligation to obey their command if I thought they weren’t watching.
This may explain a lot about you, but isn’t helpful to others. Read my previous post.
When a child is not being reasonable, a parent should take control and stop the process. Even if the situation is actually unfair, arguing the case in the store is not appropriate.
You were badly taught as a child, obviously. “Because I said so” usually means “I already explained it, and you are trying to get your way by whining. It won’t work, so shut up.”
I understand where you are coming from but explaining every single thing, in detail, to a 5 year old just isn’t possible. We were (stress on the “were”) the type of parents that felt it was important and useful to explain things, so the kids would understand. One of our kids was a little lawyer, all the way up into middle school and beyond. Giving him a reason for anything just opened the door for debate on that reason. He would be glad to discuss for hours why all of your reasons are wrong if, in the end, he got what he wanted. A very bad precedent to set because nobody but the people who love you are going to put up with that shit for long.
Kids whine sometimes. it’s what they do. Pay attention to them when they do things right, not when they do things wrong. If you want one basic rule of parenting, I would say this is it.
“Unfair” is a concept of the have-nots. To the haves, the situation seems emminently fair. My daughter, age 10, promises me that, someday, she will kill me in an extravagantly brutal fashion when I tell her this.
