You will not find this kind of advice often: an author, published many times in several languages, cautioning potential readers to avoid buying his books.
“Oh please,” warns Dr. Michael Maniacci, “they’ll put you to sleep.”
Maniacci is a clinical psychologist, specializing in marriage and family therapy, whose “textbooks” have been translated into Russian, German and more. He is also based in Chicago and Schaumburg, and regularly gives free presentations to parents of students at northwest suburban schools. On Tuesday, he spoke at Prairie Elementary School in Buffalo Grove, handing out tips for how parents can instill discipline into their children “without resorting to punishment or intimidation.”
The first move, he said, is to help children have an accurate world-view.
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“Kids get an erroneous view of their specialness,” Maniacci said.
Q: You say you can teach children discipline, without intimidation or punishment…How exactly does that work?
A: You have to make a distinction between what works and what’s effective. What works isn’t necessarily what is effective in the long run. You can intimidate a child into doing whatever you want, based simply on the size difference between the two of you. But, if the basis of your authority has been size, you will lose that in time. You need something sustainable.
The goal of every parent, every teacher and every therapist is to make ourselves useless. You don’t want the children to obey, you want them to have self-control. You want them to be able to deliberate, and make discriminations, to be able to say ‘Hey, I don’t think this is good.” Parents need to always control the situation, without controlling the child. You encourage children to control themselves by managing situations.
Q: You’ve spoken about the importance of using consequences instead of punishments. Aren’t they synonymous?
A: Punishment is imposed from above, with the power discrepancy, and it’s unrelated to the kid’s misbehavior, and it’s harsh. A consequence grows naturally out of the situation, it involved little, if any, intervention from the parent, and it is decided upon jointly. “If you don’t pick up your toys, no dessert tonight,” that’s a punishment. If you were to leave your toys out on the playground, what would happen? They’d disappear. Then, when the kid leaves them out, you lock them in the trunk. When he wakes up the next morning, you give him a hug, and tell him they’re locked in the trunk.
Q: When you look at the generation that’s in school right now, what worries you the most?
A: About two years ago, Psychology Today published a study from the University of Arizona, which had been studying the highest 3 percent of socioeconomic teens in the country. The study found that they had a depression rate that was as high as the bottom three percent of socioeconomic teens. But they’re going undetected. They’re woefully unprepared to take care of themselves, let alone take care of others, and that is leading to tons of behavior problems. They’re easily overwhelmed. These are the people who will be going to Harvard, getting into politics, leading the Fortune 500 companies, and they’re going in with a sense of “Me,” not “We.” These are not the kids who have the psychological wherewithal to handle major problems. This generation, they panic easily.
@RonnieAtPioneer