reframing the question

This morning, I was a little early to pick up DS2 from Atrium. There were a few other moms there, friends, and we all congregated in the shade by the building while we waited for the kids to come out. I'm just a "familiar face acquaintance" to these women, but I couldn't help join in their conversation, since I had some advice to offer.

What do you do about little white lies, they wondered. One mentioned that her nearly 6-year-old would casually lie about things that were easily verifiable: did you brush your teeth? did you eat your lunch? None of them knew what to do to prevent it, but all agreed that they didn't like it.

Well, here's what you do: reframe the question.

What we need to do, as parents, is remove the opportunity for the easy lie. Instead of asking about the teeth-brushing, ask which toothpaste she'll use today. Instead of asking "Did you eat your lunch?", check the lunchbox first, and if she hasn't eaten it, ask, "were you too busy to eat today?" The even-more-general question, "What happened that you didn't eat your lunch today?" can be used with great effect with older kids. Maybe there wasn't time, because they were late getting out to lunch. Maybe she doesn't like what you sent. Maybe it's too hard to eat it, it takes too long to chew. Maybe she has too many loose teeth to bite into a sandwich! You can easily see for yourself whether or not the lunch was eaten; what you really care about is why, and what needs to change to make sure that lunch is consistently eaten. This is all part of reframing the question.

I learned this technique about six years ago in the old MomsOnline forums, from their then-"parenting pro" Ben McCart. He described how, most of the time, all the kids are trying to do when they lie like this is avoid conflict. What we need to do is take the conflict out of the situation. If you ask about eating lunch, she may be afraid you'll be angry she didn't eat. If you ask, calmly, what happened that the lunch was not eaten, it won't even occur to her to get scared about it.

The beauty of this technique is that you avoid unnecessary subterfuge and get right to the heart of the problem. If there are two kids playing and one starts crying, it's pointless to ask, "Did you hit the baby?" Much better, "What happened to make the baby cry?" (Avoid "why" questions with really young children, they really can't process that concept.) With an open-ended, neutral question, you're much more likely to get to the truth: the baby fell and bumped his head, or maybe, the baby took big brother's toy, and big brother took it back and gave him a whack to make sure he never did it again. Either way, you'll have the information you need to handle the situation correctly.

The downside is that you have to be on your toes and not fall back into asking those questions that instantly spring to mind. "Who did this?! What were you thinking? Why would you do such a thing?" You have to understand: for most typical situations, the answers to these questions don't matter. It helps to focus on what needs to be done now, and not be too concerned with what happened in the past,and therefore can't be changed.

Here's an example: the playroom is a mess, there are toys all over the floor, bins upended, cupboards open. It needs to be cleaned up, so you gather the kids. You could start up with, "Did you make this mess?" but what's the point? You know they had a hand in making the mess, even if there were other kids involved that are no longer present. It doesn't matter, the room still needs to be picked up. How much better to say, "Wow, look at this mess! Let's get it cleaned up." When the kiddos start protesting, "But I didn't play with those toys! Why should I have to clean it up," you can explain, "We all share the playroom, so we all work together to keep it clean. We're a family, and that's how families work. Would you like it if I only did things for myself? What if I only cooked my own food?" Just a few examples like this will demonstrate to even very young children that we share responsibilities for taking care of our things, and sometimes that extends to cleaning up messes that they didn't make.

There are people who are obsessed with understanding their kids' motivations. I don't understand this. Unless there is a serious problem, most motives are transparent. Kids get angry, they get frustrated, they lash out. They also get distracted and wander off. Either way, they are still responsible for their actions. We can't control what we feel, but we can and should control our actions, including what we say.

I'm not saying we should discount our kids' feelings, because they need to learn how to identify them and deal with what they are feeling. We need to give them the tools to do that. But we can't excuse bad behavior because of strong feelings. The parent who asks, "Why did you do that?" walks a dangerous path; often, he'll hear, "I was mad!" So what? Do you give the kid a pass because he was mad? Better not, because such kids will learn quickly that being mad, or sad, or otherwise piqued will get them out of any responsibility for what they've done, and that's not a path you want to go down.

As adults, it doesn't matter why we were speeding, or why our report was late, or why we forget to pick up the dry cleaning. We still have to pay the speeding ticket, file the report, and get the dry cleaning: life goes on. Then we also have to go traffic school, work overtime, and cook our husband's favorite meal to get back in everyone's good graces. Sure, the boss and the husband may be interested in why you didn't do what you were supposed to do, but it's important to them to be able to rely on you, just as it's important to every other driver out there that you drive responsibly.

A big part of reframing the question comes down to recognizing that people screw up, but then we recover. As parents, we have to believe that our children are not malicious, and that they can and do learn from their mistakes. If we freak out and scream at them when something goes wrong, even reframing the question won't work, and they won't admit to anything -- and then they'll never learn. Our kids have to trust us, and trust their own ability to recover from whatever misdeeds they've committed.

Kids have to understand that we all make mistakes, and it's how we deal with our mistakes that will determine the quality of our lives. If we deny our errors, and get angry at those who point them out and force us to take responsibility for what we've done, we'll spend our lives being miserable. If, on the other hand, we acknowledge that we are not perfect and try to learn from our mistakes, we have a much better chance at happiness. Very few mistakes are unrecoverable.

We have to give our kids faith in us and in themselves, and hope for their lives. Without this faith and hope, the possibility of success for them becomes vanishingly small.

* * *

The worst part of last night's miniature crisis with the nail polish was DD's reaction to it. She was angry and defensive, and insisted she should be punished, even given away to another family! It was horrible. Yes, she had done a bad thing and made a big mess, but her reaction was completely disproportionate to her offense. She simmered and stewed, and when it was time for bed, she wouldn't let me give her a kiss. You have to understand that I didn't scream at her -- I didn't lose my temper at all. She was shrieking and crying and when I finally saw why, I felt more sad than anything. I told her to take off her nightgown and go get other jammies, and then I cleaned up the mess. Her consequence for disobeying and playing with the nail polish is no manicure this week, something she had been really looking forward to -- but this only makes it more appropriate.

I was able to clean up all the nail polish, including her beautiful nightgown, but when I told her that this morning, she shot back at me, "I don't care!" I knew that was a lie, and it about broke my heart to see her acting this way. Did she really think we loved her so little that we would kick her out for a spill? Did she really think that she's a bad person? (We never, ever call our kids bad -- they may occasionally do a bad thing, but that's a completely different situation.) She seemed to think that she had done something irredeemable.

So this afternoon we had a little talk, just long enough for me to tell her that not one of us is perfect, and we have to believe in ourselves enough to recover from our mistakes. God did not put us here to do bad things, and God certainly believes in our ability to be good. If God believes in her, and Mommy and Daddy believe in her, then (I said) I hope she can find it in herself to believe in herself, too. I told her, "you're a little girl, you make little mistakes." We learn, we go on. We have hope.

At the end of this little talk, she remembered other times when things had gone wrong, that we still loved her: when she once broke a china plate (she was 3!), helping to clear the table: "you didn't get mad at me!" Yes, because those things happen. They happen to everyone, and it doesn't make us bad people.

I could see her relaxing the more she thought about it, and she lost that chip on her shoulder. I hope she can remember this talk, but if she doesn't, I'll remind her. Attitude makes all the difference in the world. We all need faith, and hope.


Note: To remove nail polish from fabric, lay it out, stain down, on several layers of paper towels, and then blot, blot, blot with nail polish remover, repositioning the paper towels under the stain until the color is gone. Rinse thoroughly and launder as usual.