Musings on Parenthood

I had the opportunity to watch a lot of parenting recently, in a park.  As someone who has made a career working with children with a variety of behavioural needs, I've always understood the benefits of reinforcement in parenting and in working with people in general, but over and over again I find myself musing about what we, as adults, choose to reinforce.  For example, two young boys, about three or four years old, were playing together.  Most of this play centered around racing up the climber and speeding down a spiral slide, over and over again.  This play was joyous and there were so many good examples of turn-taking, helping (one boy got his coat sleeve caught on a screw and the other helped him free himself) and thoughtful verbal exchange.  The adult, seemingly engaged in texting, largely missed all of this.  As you'd expect, at some point in this story there was a conflict....a dispute about who should be going down the slide first.  This consisted of raised voices, furrowed brows, and at one point, a push.  The adult jumped up, and without really checking in to find out what had happened, hauled the "pusher" down and sat him for time out. To his credit, the little guy paid his due, but with a tear-stained face and a palpable sense of injustice.  So, what do we glean from this?  This is an inattentive, "bad" caregiver?  I don't think so.  But I do think, as a result of of evolutionary wiring and the influences of parenting and society, that we tend to pay far more attention to the things that go "wrong" rather than the things that go "right."  One could argue that this mismatch is fundamental to our survival...attending to the discrepancies in our world will give us the greatest chance of living another day and passing along our genetics.  However, what about our emotional well-being and growth, our sense of safety, justice, understanding of right and wrong, self worth?  The thing is, we're all guilty of it at some point or another - with our spouses, our co-workers, our friends, our children, even our laws are set up to fine the unlawful, rather than reward those who are helping the world to be a safer place.  In extreme cases, parental neglect in this way can find a child finding all sorts of trouble to get into simply in order to secure the adult's attention.  So, this week I'm staying mindful of my role in that dynamic - thanking my teenager for hanging up her towels rather than berating her when she forgets, leaning over to snuggle and play with my infant every few seconds as he rolls around on the floor and stays engaged independently as I write this, and cooking my spouse a special meal to thank him for the many times he gets up with our rowdy little infant in the night-time, despite having a very physically demanding job.  Studies say a ratio of 3 reinforcements to 1 punishment will maintain positive, healthy relationships - if we take a look at our day to day existence, I wonder how many of us could say we're meeting even that minimum expectation.