12 RULES FOR LIFE: AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS | PART 5

Teach Children Good Behaviour Before Society Disciplines Them For you

Parents are a proxy to the real world.

WHACK!

AHHHH!

A rowdy child in the swim class I am instructing just chucked a toy boat at a classmate. The kid looks at me, challenging me to step in.

With one child wailing and the other fleeing the scene of the crime, I call for some help from another instructor. While I comfort the crying child and tell her that plastic boats are a dumb toy anyways, the other child is getting a stern lecture and a time out.

The offending child has been causing trouble since day one. I tried my best to entertain him during class, but when I look away for one second, someone is getting pushed, hit, or having their toys pried from their hands.

The other kids don’t enjoy playing with him. When it’s free time, he is often alone. The swimming instructors don’t know what to do with him. A lot of time is wasted trying to prevent his bad behaviour or fixing the damage caused by it.

While I’ve never had kids myself, I’ve seen how extremely poor behaviour in children holds them back. He’s a strong, energetic kid that could have been an excellent swimmer if he knew how to control his actions.

My time as a swimming instructor made me question if I ever wanted children.

Raising children is hard.

This is the fifth installment in a series of articles on Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, where he uses his expertise in psychology to suggest the principles needed to live a good life.

Here is the previous installment if you missed it:

The fifth rule for life is

“Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.”

I questioned if I should write an article on this because I don’t have children myself. However, this book comes from years of Jordan Peterson’s research. The key points of this chapter may bring some value to someone else out there.

Clarification of acceptable behaviour

Parents should teach their kids behaviour that will help them to fit in with society better.

This doesn’t mean teaching them to blindly conform to whatever an adult says. It means rewarding behaviours that will help them be successful as they grow up and disciplining behaviours that are harmful. Here are some examples:

“Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something.”

Don’t exchange respect for popularity among your kids

Some parents are afraid to punish their children because they fear not being liked anymore.

As a result, they allow themselves to be disrespected.

However, some form of correction is necessary for the development of children. Young children don’t know better and as a result, like to push the limits of behaviour to see where the limits are.

To show a child where the limits of bad behaviour are, some form of correction is necessary.

The correction will likely result in temporary anger and frustration, but Peterson emphasizes that showing children boundaries gives them security.

It is unsafe to do whatever you want. Hurting others and making people dislike you is not a good way to live your life.

“Two-year-olds, statistically speaking, are the most violent of people. They kick, hit and bite, and they steal the property of others. They do so to explore, to express outrage and frustration, and to gratify their impulsive desires. More importantly, for our purposes, they do so to discover the true limits of permissible behaviour.”

The goal isn’t to shelter children so that they may never run into conflict.

It’s to provide them with the most effective way to learn from their actions.

Discipline should be done with the minimum force (mental or physical) necessary. This maximizes learning and minimizes cost.

If a parent doesn’t punish their children, society will

Children who are not punished for bad behaviour will grow up thinking that it’s okay. Other children won’t want to play with them and other adults will choose to spend time with the respectful kids.

Growing up unsocialized means these children will miss out on the learning opportunities that come from forming relationships. As an adult, the inability to connect with anyone will harbour intense feelings of rejection.

It will also be difficult for them to correct their own behaviour because they never had a guide on what was wrong with their actions.

Parents act as a proxy for the real world. They should reward and punish children in a caring manner before society does it for them.