Will you ever stop helping?

In My Humble Opinion
81

I would also disfavor scheming, cunning, and conniving applied to 99% of 7-year-olds. In my case it’s not because I dislike the words, particularly. The thing is, I’m sure there are some mature seven-year-olds who are hardened and cynical, but most seven-year-olds of my acquaintance aren’t, even the whiny and obnoxious ones who have learned terrible habits from their parents. And what I don’t like about it is that all four of those words (those three plus “manipulative”) imply that the kid is doing these actions consciously and cynically, and I just don’t think that’s true of most kids that age.

“Devious” I would mind if applied to whining to get one’s way (again because I don’t think 7-year-olds generally whine as part of a conscious nefarious plan; I would characterize it more as a habit formed because of parental reinforcement), but I wouldn’t mind it being applied to a kid in other ways, like, if my 8-year-old deviously got me to walk right into the punchline of a joke. Actually, this rarely happens, but I think it illustrates my point that if I said that, you’d assume that my kid consciously meant to get me to do that.

I suppose if you said “unconsciously manipulative” I would like that better. Though of course there may be some small subset of 7-year-olds who are doing it consciously, and that doesn’t capture it. I don’t know if there’s a word that means “manipulative, but probably doing it unconsciously.” Maybe “whiny” or “spoiled,” as @Beckdawrek says.

82

I’m not sure how “cynically” applies, but I guess you and I have different opinions as to what folk are mentally capable at what ages. No, a 6-7 yr old does not have the SAME mental range/capacity as an adult, but they certainly have at least some kernels of that future capacity which can be encouraged/discouraged.

83

I actually think our point of disconnect is how much conscious decision counts as “manipulation.” Sure, a seven-year-old has some kernels of conscious decision, which gets larger as the kid gets older; it’s not some kind of discrete thing. And it depends on the kid too, of course. (My older child, for example, only recently has been able to exert what I think of as reasonable control over her emotional regulation, and she’s a (young) teenager! But also she’s on the spectrum. And, as I said, I’m sure there are mature six-year-olds who have full conscious input into “do this to get that.”) I think I’m just wary of applying a word like “manipulative” to that age, because of the danger of thinking of the six-year-old like we would think of a “manipulative” adult supervillain or something even though I think we agree that a seven-year-old and an adult are not the same. (Before I had kids, I actually did think about it this way, which is why I’m wary of using these kinds of words; I thought that kids this age had a lot more control over their responses and actions than I now think they do.)

However, I think we both are in total agreement that the parent has a responsibility to encourage or discourage that behavior. Heck, the parent if anything has more responsibility at this age, because it’s shaping the kids at a fundamental and in at least some ways unconscious level.

84

I know a particular 5yo who is expert at pushing boundaries and buttons to get her way.
She’s expert because she’s been doing it since age 2.

She was little sister to a very accomplished and precocious big sister and now is middle child with adorable twin boys under her.

I understand her. It’s a hard row to hoe.
She’s yet to have learned what you need and what you want are far removed from each other.

Since she’s started school it’s much better. I think her parents training and the teachers teaching, together have made her see it’s how it works.

We have high hopes.

85

I agree with all of this. In this family, one sibling generally acts in a manner to suggest that they realize that they are not always the center of attention, and acknowledges that they have to wait their turn, seems be aware of other peoples’ wants, and generally accepts calm direction from her parents. The other throws tantrums or whines, knowing one parent will give in to their wishes. I think it meaningful to describe these 2 siblings as exhibiting different behavior.

I’m not aware of a better word than manipulative to describe the whiner. And at 6, the child is very clearly capable of some degree of planning and some degree of adapting his behavior in certain situations and for certain purposes. I have difficulty with folk who will talk about how capable a young child is in some respects, but then they disavow any agency when the kid acts in unpleasant manners.

Seriously? When you hear a 6-yr old described as manipulative, you assume the speaker is describing attributes similar to an adult supervillain? If I describe him as strong, you presume bulging muscles? Smart, you assume some college graduate or more?

I generally prefer to presume that the folk I am communicating with are able to understand such obvious differences. I think it makes communication excessively cumbersome to presume the listeners will lack common sense.

86

My younger daughter became skilled in manipulation at a very precocious age. I’d even say she was devious about it! But it had nothing to do with whining or crying or doing anything at all unpleasant. No, she learned very early on that if she could find a way that getting what she wanted would align with an adult’s wishes, she was in! Sometimes she’d just plant the seed of an idea in someone’s mind, but she’d often simply present the adult in charge with a well-thought-out plan that would benefit everyone.

For example, she’d wanted to be a flower girl since she saw one at my cousin’s wedding, but there was never an opportunity for her. She was seven years old when a friend asked me to be her attendant at a very informal wedding. When we were picking out dresses for her and her sister to wear to the wedding, she chose one that was exactly the color of my dress. I told her in no uncertain terms that she was not allowed to ask my friend if she could be her flower girl. When we arrived at the resort where the wedding was going to be held and we were getting set up, I overheard her asking the bride very casually whether she had a flower girl. I pulled her aside and reiterated that this was not going to happen. An hour later, the best man came back from a trip into town and I heard him telling the bride that he wasn’t able to find a wicker basket but that he’d gotten a plastic one. I asked the bride about it, and she told me it occurred to her that it would make the wedding complete if she had a flower girl and wasn’t it perfect that my daughter’s dress matched the wedding colors? But my daughter never asked her!

I was more than a little worried about how easy she found it to get others to go along with her, but over time (and with a little nudging toward a positive direction), she turned it into a truly enviable problem-solving skill. Is it manipulation? I wouldn’t say so, but that’s just because “manipulation” is a much more negative concept than “persuasion” or, indeed, “problem-solving.”

87

My young teens did stuff like that. They would ‘double team’ me. Confusing and confounding me. Talking so fast. Next thing I knew they were out the door with my keys and cash. I had to think fast to overcome their tricks.
It was all planned. They told me later when they were adults.

88

I don’t think there are very many people who have given it much thought, so I’m probably in a minority on this. I have no compelling interest in changing anyone’s mind about it, but I wanted to put my POV out there.

When you talk about people being softer than they used to be, I think a lot of soft people use words like “manipulation” as a psychological crutch to continue doing whatever it is they’re doing. “My Mom manipulates me into yelling at her. My child manipulates me into buying all this stuff we can’t afford. Gosh, you know I would set healthy boundaries with this person, but they’re so manipulative, however can I have agency in this situation?” I see that over and over and over. I don’t think it’s healthy for people to just go around viewing themselves as manipulated victims, and in many cases it’s downright oppressive (e.g child abuse, misogyny.)

And in a case like this, where a parent is like, “Aw shucks, whatever can I do about this whining child?” Everyone is pointing the finger at the kid when it’s clearly the parent refusing to take accountability for their own response to their own child. That is exactly how kids grow up to be adults who won’t take responsibility for their own behavior. If adults won’t do it, why should they?

ETA: To clarify, in my perfect world it wouldn’t be that nobody ever used this word, it would be that they used it more thoughtfully.

89

That essentially sounds like a screwed up form of co-dependency metaphorically speaking.

The child learns by experience that whining often subverts the parents’ contrary will, and the parents incrementally teach the child how to subvert that will by repeatedly giving in when pressured. Trying to label who did what to who is a bit of a chicken and egg. But the two participants are now trapped in a self-reinforcing dynamic that is unhelpful to both. Sadly one that will cripple the child long into adulthood.

You’re 100% correct that the parents should have more agency and backbone and all the rest. And should understand that part of parenting is enforcing your will on recalcitrant children who are naturally and expectedly both willful, and crappy at choosing what to be willful about. The adult’s will must win, and win often, to teach the kids what to be willful about, and how to happily coexist with 9 billion other humans. Flunk that and you’ve flunked parenting.

Something I’ve said in other contexts is that children, be they 2 or 6, have very little going on in their day and very little distraction in their proto-mind. Worst case is about age 4, where they can talk and form conscious thoughts. Their version of consciousness is nearly pure distilled “I want”. They have literally nothing else to do all day but try to make Mom/Dad do whatever the kid wants. Meantime Mom/Dad has lots of stuff to do besides fend off repeated kidly demands. In that sense, the kids are far more patient than the adults; they have one agenda item and they have all day to push on it and only it. And no desire to think of anything else. Pretty quickly the parent folds under the sustained merciless onslaught.

It’s small wonder most toddlers can out-persistent most parents. To baleful effect long term when the kid wins time after time after time.

90

Speaking as the parent of an almost four year old, it is exhausting. Tonight my grandmother visited with my son and for some reason like many older adults she just shoved a phone in his face for an hour, and he was of course very upset that he couldn’t be on the phone when she left. He’s also kind of sick right now so everything is heightened with him emotionally. So the last 30-45 minutes has been him deciding he wants various things and pitching a royal fit when he didn’t get them.

Maybe my lack of patience is helpful, at least tonight, because after ten minutes of him telling me to pick out a game from the closet and rejecting every one I chose, I said, “Okay, I’m done,” and I think the lesson-teaching was just secondary in this case, the real motive being that I don’t have the patience for that shit.

To which he threw himself on the floor, and, me, being mindful that he is not feeling well, picked him up and carried and spun him around a bit, until he said, “What Mama doing?” (His signature question that he asks every four minutes) and I said, “I’m making you dizzy. Is it working?”

“Yes.”

Things turned a corner from there, though he made several more demands, for which I calmly told him “No, I have to start dinner soon” and now he’s running in circles around the kitchen and I guess he’s fine now.

For me? Parenting win. At least for today.

Just imagine having to deal with that day after day after day (I’m sure many of you remember, unless you’ve blocked it out, to which I say, no judgement!) Given how relentless young children are, it’s no surprise parents take short cuts and give in, especially overworked parents with limited resources. Also it’s easy for us to judge the indulgent parent without really knowing if the parent was just having a bad day and wasn’t feeling up to that kind of battle. I don’t know any of the people in question, I wasn’t there, but no parent always makes the best decisions about their child all the time.

91

IANA parent, so it’s especially easy for me to armchair quarterback.

But if there a whiny persistent older child or young adult, that’s fairly conclusive evidence that (absent some mental or emotional abnormality in child and/or parent) we’re seeing the result of long term failure to make good parenting decisions often enough to produce a well-balanced child. Doubly so if we see the parent cave right before our eyes.

We sure can’t diagnose the “why” from afar, or even from next door. But we can give a rough scorecard on “enough / not enough quality mindful parenting to produce a good result.” And, from afar we can’t be too judgmental; there may be a lot of reasons why those parent(s) had far more obstacles to delivering quality parenting to that child than somebody else had. Your own highly challenging son being an obvious example who will require super-human levels of good parenting to produce a well-adjusted whole-person outcome. Life is decidedly not fair. And to your great credit, you are bellying up to this formidable problem with great vigor and resolve and success to date.

92

:joy: Thanks. No pressure!

He’s great though. I mean when he’s not doing the preK drama thing. I think in some ways, he is easier than average. He seems to return to his ridiculously happy baseline pretty quickly.

93

Just one opinion, but I suggest against expecting/excusing certain undesirable behavior as some commonly accepted phase/stage. We had 3 kids, and never experienced them going through “terrible twos,” teenage angst," or whatever. Don’t get me wrong. We had various difficulties with each of our kids at various times in their lives, but there was never an extended period of bad behavior that reflected some purported developmental stage. Other parents would say things like, “Teenagers can be so difficult.” And we would think, “ANY kid can be difficult at ANY age - especially if they learn that they can get away with it. And by the time they’ve become troublesome teens, the parents have likely laid the ground work for such behavior.”

94

I think it’s easier to get through it if I’m aware that it’s just a phase, and don’t take the behavior personally. What I described upthread is normative preK behavior especially for a sick child. It doesn’t mean he’s bad, or manipulative, or anything about the kind of parent I am or the kind of kid he is. The important part is how I respond to it - and I want to clarify that just because I understand why some parents give in all the time, doesn’t mean I think it’s okay.

If people understood how I was raised, to basically serve at the pleasure of adults without any room for thoughts or feelings of my own, and how that was couched in language like, “Our job is to raise you to be an independent adult,” and “children have no rights,” they might understand why I parent the way I do. I think a lot of people raised like I was are trying to overcompensate by being overly permissive, but the result of that can be just as damaging. Research indicates that authoritative parenting, that in-between sort of deal where you set clear limits and consequences but are still actually nice to your kid and empathetic to their experience, is the best way to go. And that’s the way I’m going to go.

But because of the way I was raised, in a household in which I was made out to be a garbage human being for fairly standard child behavior, I find it very helpful to know what is developmentally normative for my kid for whatever phase I’m parenting. That’s how I know I’m not screwing up. It’s how I learn how to best respond because I had no models for that growing up.

95

I think you just described 99% of the problems with my marriage.

My wife is constantly frustrated because she has no idea how to enforce her will and seems constantly surprised and frustrated when our small children act like small children.

96

I could see where some gentle parental counseling might help your wife deal with the children better.

It couldn’t hurt.

Dealing with children often stress marriages. If you’re not on the same page the kids get the idea fast. And will use it for leverage.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Pop would let us do it!”
I always told mine to go try it and see.

Consistency and all parental figures must agree. (Includes grandparents and any caregivers). And tons of love.

97

My husband is a bit more permissive than me, which annoys me. I don’t think it’s going to break our marriage or anything, but I can see how fundamental differences in child-rearing could get out of hand fast. The thing that kind of boggles my mind is that he is a behavioral psychologist for children, yet he didn’t seem to get the memo to ignore behavior you don’t like. He just keeps feeding the cycle sometimes. Or when my son is doing something annoying, he gets angrier and angrier and it just adds fuel to the fire. He mostly gets this way when he perceives our son as doing something “dangerous,” but he perceives practically everything as “dangerous,” and like, without discerning between little dangers and big dangers. If your kid is going to go run out in traffic, okay, get mad about it, but if he’s like, leaning over on a toilet seat and there’s a 5% chance he’s going to fall and mildly injure himself, like, just chill the fuck out and let him learn that carelessness sometimes results in injury. I don’t feel like my job is to prevent my child from ever getting hurt. My job is to prevent him from getting really hurt, and help him manage and learn when he gets a little hurt.

Is that callous?

98

Nope. IMO that’s perfect parenting.

Touching a too-hot toaster body is way different from pulling the deep fryer over on themselves. Real little kids learn a lot more, and a lot more quickly, from adverse physical experience than they’ll ever learn from yak-yak about cause and effect.

99

Asking for a serving of food from the food that was brought to be served at Thanksgiving is not manipulative. A child ate his dinner and asked for dessert (at a big holiday feast), and was denied dessert because of the family’s arbitrary rule about when dessert is allowed.

Dad could have looked over and said “give me two more bites of that turkey and I’ll bring you a slice. I can’t move us back to the old house, but I can get you a piece of pumpkin pie.” A piece of pumpkin pie after dinner isn’t going to turn the kid into a worthless layabout.

I get the time, place, and manner idea, but those restrictions are made by the adults at the table, for their enjoyment, not for the person who has just been taken away from (I assume) the only home he’s ever known, the person who is least equipped to handle having this sort of change forced on him.

100

The part that bothered me was the walk. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a kid to wait until everyone has finished dinner before having dessert - I wouldn’t force them to eat more turkey or refuse to let them leave the table but you can let them leave the table without bringing out the dessert while others are still eating dinner. But I find it a little hard to believe that all the adults want to go for a walk between dinner and dessert - and that’s an arbitrary restriction in a way that waiting until everyone has finished dinner isn’t. There’s really no reason dessert can’t be brought out while the people who want a walk are walking or why they can’t walk after dessert.