I was folding laundry after dinner when the boy toddled in and declared that he was going to help me. He proceeded to start pulling clothes out and attempting to fold them. Unfortunately, he still doesn’t have the required coordination for the task, so he settled for pulling clothes out and handing them to me. Which was fine, now I didn’t have to bend down to pull things out. Even so, his behavior was odd.
Then I recalled that after dinner, he had taken his plate and cup and placed them in the dishwasher. Making it more remarkable is the fact that I didn’t ask him to do it. So as I finished folding the shirt I was working on, I realized what was going on.
“What do you want, kiddo?” I asked.
“I want ICE CREAM for dessert!” he chirped in reply.
Nicely done, I have to say.
Thinking about it, I wasn’t surprised at his reasoning, after all, the Wife and I have been teaching him how to do it all along. How many times have we told him he could have X after doing something to earn it?
I find it remarkable how good the kids can be at manipulating situations to their advantage. (The lass is no less talented at this particular song and dance.) This variation the boy had used was new for him, but he has a number of other techniques at his disposal. I don’t know if this is an indicator of anything in particular, other than when they want something they can be resourceful.
I view it as a dance of sorts. They try something. Then, we decide if there ultimate goal is something we’re prepared to allow. Then we attempt to make them work for it to an appropriate degree. They’ll counter with something that makes sense to them. Rinse, repeat. If things go well, eveyone ends up happy. If not, well, someone ends up in the corner(worst cast overplayed hand) or muttering about how unfair and mean we are.
Like most parents, we try to limit what they are successful at when it comes to manipulating us. I’ve observed they will “go to the well” when they perceive that something works. So we strive to reward things when they are behaving acceptably. By the same token, there are things that are out of bounds no matter what. Like hitting one another.
I’ve come to expect that they will try things to get a given situation to turn out more favorably. The lass bursts into fits of balling if the boy does something she doesn’t like. She knows that this has the potential to get HIM in trouble. Of course, that leaves me and the Wife with the unsavory task of determining what, exactly, the offense was and then if it rises to the level that the lass seems to think it should. For the boys part, he likes to tattle on little sister when she’s engaging in known unapproved behavior. Like eating crayons or something. Of course, he regularly overplays his hand and we get to exercise crack detective work prior to dealing with whatever offense has been brought to our attention.
Another example is feigning ignorance when the don’t want to do something. I’ll ask them where their shoes are and the reply is “I don’t know.” I then ask them to look for said shoes. So they walk around slowly, not really looking at anything. After about 10 seconds of this “search” they declare “I can’t find it.” They’re hoping to frustrate me into going and finding it for them. They know there’s a deadline, because I want to get somewhere or do something, therefore the gamble is that I’ll get cave out of my own desire to get going. The lass is particularly effective with this technique.
A close cousin to this is to feign incompetence. For instance:
“Put away your clothes. please.”
“I can’t. Everytime I do it, the stupid clothes unfold themselves.” the child replies.
The implication is that they aren’t capable of performing the request. Never mind that they’ve done it before. Never mind that they can get themselves dressed without help. Never mind that they can pour their own drink, put on shoes, open doors. Never mind that they regularly request to do more difficult tasks. In this instance, here and now, they want me to believe they can’t simply open a drawer and place a pile of presorted clothes in it, then close the drawer. The mind boggles at the audaciousness of the reply. But try it they do.
I’m sure stuff like this will only get more sophisticated as time goes on. Their will power will increase. Many of my solutions will lose their effectiveness. I’ll need to find new levers and pressure points. They’ll learn logic and reasoning that is more difficult to counter. Like I said, it’s a dance.
I just wish I didn’t feel like I was just learning the steps as I go.
7 replies on “The Manipulation Dance”
Ironically, I recently watched a “Modern Marvels” episode that discussed the same techniques and behaviors being used by scientists to teach laboratory rats how to behave and solve problems and puzzles. The rats reached impressive levels of success by implementing similar techniques to what you described from the kids and really, kids in general outside of your home. As disappointing to most people as it may be, rats only vary from humans by a couple genes on the old DNA strand here and there, so that is what makes them ideal test subjects for many research projects that have human consequences. One glaring (or some may say cool, disgusting, unfortunate, amazing) difference between rats and humans is that rats can restart their hearts after being killed by electrocution.
So, given your description of human behavior and the similarities in rat behavior, which really is the most advanced species?
Oh, that’s right, science always goes back to the whole “able to reason” thing to support why people are so great. If only I could come up with some good examples of how stupid that argument is in terms of defining an advanced society!
Perhaps not being able to come up with those “good examples” means that it isn’t a stupid argument.
Although I’m not unsympathetic to the notion that “people aren’t as great as you think” line of thought.
I’ll also point out that I described the kids behavior, though I think there are obvious parallels in adult behavior. In some ways, I figure I’m teaching them what sort of manipulation will be acceptable later in life.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am more than capable of rattling off plenty of examples, it has always been hard for me to convey my overly sarcastic tones via text.
Our incredible ability to reason that separates us so distinctly from lowly unintelligent and meaningless animals has resulted in millions of murders, world wars, millions of suicides, rapes, disease infestations, genocide, theft, racism…need I go on…get my point?
The least you could hope for if we were so superior is that we could restart our hearts after we were electrocuted! But I guess our ability to reason just helped us reason a way into eating so much processed food and fat that we can stop our hearts without electrocution…but we still can’t restart them!
What we learn as kids is exactly what we refine and utilize as adults. There really is way around it, the key is to help children understand the morality of their choices and the ethics that surround their decisions and how they come to their desired results. It is like teaching a young athlete about cheating, sure you can win if you cheat, but is it really how you want to reach success? With my infinite experience in rearing children through adulthood, I would have to say you are going about it the right way, and in that same breath, so are they. If you want to blame someone, blame Adam, he is the SOB that ate the apple and created all these problems to begin with, of course, Adam evolved from an ape that crawled out of the water after it evolved from a fish, so can you really expect him to do the right thing with that history in his DNA?
Wait a minute…maybe I have the Bible mixed up with Darwin…too much to figure out here! Just stick to your guns and you’ll be fine, we all will be just fine!
Let the record show that I am not an animal rights advocate, I am not a Vick supporter either, nor am I really a big fan of pit bulls, although that has no bearing on my lack of support for Vick or the fact that I don’t want to see meaningless torture of animals, of course, I don’t want to see meaningful torture of animals either, but outside of their need to keep the food chain running, I don’t mind the torture of bees, gnats, and flies, but are those really animals and where can we draw the line, I guess considering that even BRock took heat for swatting a fly Ralph Macchio style you could say that no one or thing is immune to the powers of a movement, especially when it is a bowel movement, which I guess is a good description for what most activists are, only the crazy ones though, which again, most of them are also and there in lies the problem.
Was that a run-on sentence?
Could you imagine if I was a public figure, I could change the world with my perspective!
If you were a public figure, I’m pretty sure you’d be a “target rich environment” in your own right.
Clearly this note struck a chord, or a funny bone, or something. We may have to explore this one farther…
Should it be further or farther? I was trying to figure out the correct spelling of “lies” at the end of my run-on/stream of consciousness ramble, I think I chose wrong.
No, you chose write/right correct.
According to the dictionary, farther relates to distance, whereas further means “to a greater degree.” Since I was clearly metaphorically speaking of a football field, and not Fahrenheit or Celsius, I was write/right.
You misspelled “therein.” It’s one word. THHHHHBBBBBBTTT!!!