Parenting Book Mentioned on The View
I was watching the talk show The View this past Monday, as a Behavior Analyst, something was talked about that concerned me.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck was excited over a book that gave parenting tips for typical developing kids. It supposedly provides advice about baby talk and discipline issues. So Elisabeth presented a topic from this book of whether or not a parent should tell their child to say their “sorry” to someone after doing something bad to them. Elisabeth said that the author advised in their book that if you make the child say “sorry” for hitting someone then you are telling them to ‘lie’ since they might not really be sorry. So instead, the author proposes that you should tell your child to offer the other child a ball to play with or something else that would make them feel better.
Whoopi, with her wisdom, disagreed- thankfully and RIGHTFULLY so.
Personally, I have never read this book. Nor would I want to since this intervention is incorrect.
Basically, if parents do what this book advises for this situation-
What are you teaching your child? The child learns that it is okay to do bad things to others without real consequences.
So just have your child give them a ball instead of saying sorry? Huh? Is that suppose to be an appropriate consequence for a bad behavior?
What about the other child’s feelings that got hit? It is fine to inflict harm to others? What about your children’s need to learn right from wrong?
We need to teach our kids what is expected of them. Not by sending them the message of ‘if you do something bad, it is okay to not say you are sorry (escape) so just go play.’ (which rewards the bad behavior )
It is fine to say to go play ball or do something to make the other child feel better AFTER your child who did the bad behavior APOLOGIZES FIRST to them.
It does not matter that your child does not feel like saying they are sorry. Bottom line, it is the RIGHT thing to say that you are SORRY.
I looked up the book and checked out the author’s website. Their fees / rates are $175 for a 50 minute phone or office consult In fairness, perhaps this book has other great ideas in it that are more plausible and effective, But I won’t ever know, because as a professional in this field, I won’t read it.
Tags: fees, The View, parenting tips, parenting advice, expectations, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, lying, rates, typical developing kids, fighting, hitting, kicking
April 8, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Actually, it could be response-cost if the offender has to give up one of HIS OWN toys to the the victim. That makes more sense to me, as talk can be cheap sometimes. Yeah, I have my own kids apologize to each other but they don’t always sound sincere.
Maybe the apology plus a “fine” might put more sincerity into the process.
dd
April 14, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Maybe, this would be a good idea- though it depends upon what toy, its value to each child involved and if the parent can afford to give it up.
Perhaps what would be better is to remove the child who did the inappropriate behavior from the fun activity in order to not reinforce/reward a bad behavior in conjunction with an apology.