Counter programming as a parenting tool can yield the wrong results

From its simplest perspective, life is a continually moving goal that is directed by the small decisions that we make daily.  Granted there are some major changes that necessitate how we act or what is needed to happen, but it’s the small, seemingly mundane daily choices that make up the decision that we do.   I think about that often, as well as the impact of reverse psychology in how it affects the things I say or do as a parent to our two boys.

For example, I used to sell vintage clothing.  At first glance the only similarity between vintage clothing and parenting is that they both make you old, but hear me out. The company I used to work for would purchase thousands upon thousands of pound bales of clothing.  Invariably, these bales of clothing would yield thousands of pounds of polyester junk.  These could be shirts, pants, scraps of scarves or odds and ends of slick, usually brown polyester that serves no purpose.

It was essentially garbage.  However, the company, in big red letters would write “SOLD” on the exterior of the bale.  People would see this and question about what it was and why they couldn’t have it.  It’s not these people came to the warehouse just to purchase scrap polyester, it was that they were told they could not do something.

People are like that aren’t we?  Even as a child I can remember not having an opinion about something, asking a question that I didn’t intentionally know was taboo and getting an overly curt or aggressive response. Of course in some cases to a child that response only triggers rebellion, curiosity and could possibly plant a latent seed that’ll sprout at an undetermined time.

When I was 12 I remember sitting on the bed with my mother and asking if I could ride my bike around Europe.   In my 12 year old mind’s eye I saw myself going to the store in the hilly countryside to pick up the latest issue of Spidey.  I wasn’t a Tour de France afficianado, I was just curious and, dare I say, making conversation with mom.

“Absolutely not”, she said without missing a beat or entertaining the idea.  It wasn’t just her answer, it was the metaphorical ‘bite’ and snarl at the end of “not” that seemed out of place.

Her immediate decision about future events that she couldn’t control didn’t register with me then.  It didn’t even register in my mind about the near future time of high school.  However after college the seed was planted and it was time to wander.

My work at Walt Disney World started it.  There I lived with dozens upon dozens of people from all over the world.   After working at Walt Disney World for a couple of years I went back into radio, which is a fabulous field for job insecurity, breaking leases and angering land lords all over.

Said job insecurity and friends from WDW led me to take what little money I had saved and travel to England to stay with a friend.  I turned into the house guest who wouldn’t leave.  Apologies to Steve Lomax for that and if you contact me I’ll shoot you over a couple of dozen pounds for potatoes, beer, fish, chips or beans.

While working at a pub I met a guy who worked for the BBC.  He knew a guy who ran a radio station in Seborga, Italy.   Luck, timing and working for food and shelter meant that I was soon trucking it over to the northern Italian coast.

I never did bike around Europe when I lived there.  But after leaving Europe I did some more radio, moved around some more and went to Japan and travelled after that for a couple of years.  By the time I was 28 I had traveled around the globe.  It’s not the kind of thing that you put on your Linkedin profile, but they were activities that shaped me as a person.   Moreover, all of the travel made me a better person, even though, according to my mother at the time, it supposedly delayed my life,

Ironically, it was all of that which led to Colorado where I then moved to Georgia where I met my wife.

Did all of that happen because of what my mother said when we were watching Wheel of Fortune?  I don’t know.  However, the fact that I remember her words, phrasing and timing of them make me extremely aware of the fact that everything you say as a parent, no matter how innocuous, can have some influence decades later.

I don’t parent from a counter programming perspective.  Our oldest is 5, so we will use the “You’re too young for that card” when it’s something that he can do, but just might not have the confidence to do it. It’s not opposite day in our house by any stretch.

My mom was great.   However, had she responded, “sure, as long as you have a job to support yourself then you can do whatever you want”, then I would’ve turned into vastly different person.

 

*The picture is from my time traveling.  It’s on the train from Beijing to Moscow.