Teaching children how to dance nicely with others
Human beings interact with one another --inter-act. That is, when in the presence of another person, we are constantly responding to each other, to the words we speak, to the gestures we make, to the tone of each other's voice, to the clothes we wear, to the idea we each have of the other.
Verbal communication, non-verbal communication, our ideas of our own social status and the status of the other person. . . . Each of these 'areas' includes a variety of symbols/signs/signals. Interaction between humans is mediated symbolically. We send each other signals and we respond to those signals.
People in each other's presence --whether it is physical presence or presence mediated by text, or telephony, or TV or radio or film, or whatever-- are constantly engaged in a very subtle "dance" with each other. (The "realtime" media, of course, make possible more dynamic inter-action than the recorded media.) This is the dance of what sociologists call "social control". We control each other; that's what responding to another person is --being controlled by them. (Social control, in this view, is essentially mutual, not 'one-way'.) Our moves, our behavior, is responsive to the behavior of other persons.
You smile at someone. They feel good about themself and about you. You have made them happy, so they want to make you happy and to do what you want. (Think about it; isn't this inherent in the human condition?!) You are "controlling" them. You don't have to threaten them with punishment to get them to do what you want; you just have to be nice. (Of course, because of one 'reason'/cause or another, sometimes niceness doesn't do the job.)
When we socialize children, we teach them how to interact with other persons. We teach them how to dance nicely with us and with each other and with friends and relatives and strangers.
Human beings control themselves by means of the social cues that other persons send them. Self-control and social control merge indistinguishably with each other. Our selves are socially constructed; thus our self control is social control.
To teach someone to do the tango, we must show them the moves, and then we must move with them to the music. We don't punish our dance student/partner for making a wrong move. We show them how to make the right move. We show our satisfaction/pleasure when they succeed. We give them support and correction when they make a mistake.
When a child "misbehaves," they are making a mistake in how to dance with us. If you want your child to dance well, be a kind and good and friendly dance teacher! You don't slap your student around for stumbling. So don't slap your kid around for making a misstep, either.
A 'need' to punish a child indicates a failure in parenting, a failure in teaching the dance of living with other people. (Few of us are perfect; our parents weren't perfect dance teachers either. But denying the truth doesn't really help us to be better parents, or our children to be better dancers.)
---How do we know what to do in a social situation?
Verbal communication, non-verbal communication, our ideas of our own social status and the status of the other person. . . . Each of these 'areas' includes a variety of symbols/signs/signals. Interaction between humans is mediated symbolically. We send each other signals and we respond to those signals.
People in each other's presence --whether it is physical presence or presence mediated by text, or telephony, or TV or radio or film, or whatever-- are constantly engaged in a very subtle "dance" with each other. (The "realtime" media, of course, make possible more dynamic inter-action than the recorded media.) This is the dance of what sociologists call "social control". We control each other; that's what responding to another person is --being controlled by them. (Social control, in this view, is essentially mutual, not 'one-way'.) Our moves, our behavior, is responsive to the behavior of other persons.
You smile at someone. They feel good about themself and about you. You have made them happy, so they want to make you happy and to do what you want. (Think about it; isn't this inherent in the human condition?!) You are "controlling" them. You don't have to threaten them with punishment to get them to do what you want; you just have to be nice. (Of course, because of one 'reason'/cause or another, sometimes niceness doesn't do the job.)
When we socialize children, we teach them how to interact with other persons. We teach them how to dance nicely with us and with each other and with friends and relatives and strangers.
Human beings control themselves by means of the social cues that other persons send them. Self-control and social control merge indistinguishably with each other. Our selves are socially constructed; thus our self control is social control.
To teach someone to do the tango, we must show them the moves, and then we must move with them to the music. We don't punish our dance student/partner for making a wrong move. We show them how to make the right move. We show our satisfaction/pleasure when they succeed. We give them support and correction when they make a mistake.
When a child "misbehaves," they are making a mistake in how to dance with us. If you want your child to dance well, be a kind and good and friendly dance teacher! You don't slap your student around for stumbling. So don't slap your kid around for making a misstep, either.
A 'need' to punish a child indicates a failure in parenting, a failure in teaching the dance of living with other people. (Few of us are perfect; our parents weren't perfect dance teachers either. But denying the truth doesn't really help us to be better parents, or our children to be better dancers.)
---How do we know what to do in a social situation?