Got Me Thinking about Alexandra

Warning: This is another long post!

The behaviour of the little visitor that came with his mum to Bree’s house reminded me of an ex-charge of mine. When I was looking after tricky Alexandra, who can be very rebellious at times, her mum used to force her to thank me or to apologise to me in applicable situations. At times, Alexandra stood defiantly rebelling against her mum’s requests and then demands. Her mum used to react to this by pleading, threatening and then embarrassing the child. What did this nanny do? I stood with a blank facial expression or acted like I was bored. There was nothing I could do. In that household, I was not expected to take up the role of Supernanny and start giving suggestions, especially in situations like this. When the parents were in the mood to ‘listen’ to me, my suggestions were usually rejected or they just went in one ear and out the other. At times Alexandra would give in to her mum and say what was expected of her but this was usually done without sincerity or meaning. In my opinion, that type of response was meaningless but her mum would usually accept them and move on. Other times, Alexandra would do battle to the end and refuse point blank to do what was expected of her. Her mum would usually back down especially if it was time for me to leave. On at least two occasions, she explained her daughter’s personality as stubborn, a highly valuable trait if she was to grow up to work at her dad’s business. She said the same when explaining Alexandra’s bullying tactics at the Early Learning Centre she attended at the time. On another occasion, she said that hired help shouldn’t be expecting to be thanked all the time because they are just doing their job. She looked a little embarrassed after saying that and tried to smile. I wasn’t smiling. In fact I was fuming!

In Alexandra’s case, I didn’t think she lacked knowing when to say what. This is referring to when Alexandra was 4 – 5.5. When handling hot situations like these on my own, I would usually give her 15-30 minutes to cool off by herself (making sure that her younger siblings were out of her way) and when she was ready; she would usually approach me to say what she wanted with sincerity. I have observed many other instances when Alexandra behaved like a polite little lady. The battles happened more so because she enjoyed getting into loggerheads with anyone she fancied at the time. It was like a game to her. Alexandra’s problem had more to do with the anger generated from being forced to do something but her parents preferred band-aid solutions. I sometimes suspected that they didn’t really want to fix the problems at all.

As I have said in another post recently, threats and humiliations won’t do. With headstrong children like Alexandra, doing so is just going to invite them to rebel even more. With children who are more passive and have a tendency to hide their feelings, humiliations can seriously lead to long term damage. They can hide so well that the effects don’t start to show until they are in their teens (or later); freaking the parents into wondering what happened to their quiet one. We do not want the child to say thank you or do certain things just because she is afraid that the adult might ridicule or punish if she didn’t. Neither is it a good idea for the adults to be inconsistent and settle for meaningless responses from the child. I am not urging adults to fight fire with gasoline but in most cases, giving each other a break of a few minutes will cool down the situation to create a better outcome for all. The child’s responses and good intended actions have to come from the heart and it takes time for them to learn and feel that.

I find it easier to teach good manners to 3-6 year olds via short informal chats because they have short attention spans. Long lectures put everyone off (including the readers of this blog who may find that this post is getting too long) and to ensure that I don’t embarrass them, I create situations with characters of the same age so they don’t feel like I am picking on them. I may use puppets, figurines or soft toys to act out these short stories. If possible, I will use picture books with similar themes. It is important to demonstrate to the child the right way to handle the situation being discussed. It has to be clear and obvious because a young child is unlikely to read the real message if the explanations are done too subtly. If the child is up for it, we will role play and a few of my creative ex-charges used to come up with their own scenarios. This type of play is not only demonstrating to the adult of their understanding but is also good for language development as well. Children do make mistakes or forget and when they do, I just take them aside to gently remind them, preferably soon after the incident. It has to be done in private without sounding like a scolding. Right or wrong, the child deserves a decent amount of respect.

When dealing with 6-10 year olds, I might tell them scenarios of what is inappropriate and then what is appropriate before asking them which is acceptable. There will always be a few cheeky ones who will insist on the inappropriate behaviour as being appropriate to stir things around. Another way to encourage good manners is to ask the child how they feel if someone thanks them, apologises to them or simply behaves in a caring and polite way. The child’s response is likely to be positive. I sometimes also switch the question around by asking how another person would feel if the child behaved in a polite manner. Older children who are capable of abstract thinking can better handle this type of questions and are therefore likelier to give an honest response to this question. To this, I would encourage the child to do the same to people around him/her.