That’s Improvement
Conrad Ho (Hongkong, China)
September 22, 2011
“Go away! Leave me alone!” The elder brother, Yat, scolded his younger brother, Sum, fiercely. He was playing an electronic TV game while Sum was onlooking, commenting along the way, which Yat found unbearable eventually. Sum, however, did not know when to stop. He could only keep quiet for a little while and started to point his finger again. The angry Yat hit him on his forearm several times with bare palms. The infuriated Sum fought back, chasing after Yat into the bedroom and then to the main door. Cornering Yat, Sum really gave him several fists of rage on the chest.
It was in the morning of 20 September during breakfast. Yat complaint about Sum’s assault in tears. I let him finish, with tears dried and emotions dissipated, before I asked him peacefully, “Who started the fight?” “I did.” Yat answered with a lowered head and voice. I followed through, “Who escalated the confrontation into a fight?” “It’s me again!” Without a word, I just looked onto Yat in enquiry.
Face reddened and belly full of feelings of being wronged, Yat could not say a word; because I had been teaching them not to escalate into a fight no matter what, if the opposite side had not drawn the first blood. After his mind being “crashed” for a while, he recollected himself together and found his words again. “But he should not hit me on my chest!” I turned to Sum and this time, it was Sum who was speechless. Getting the upper hand again, Yat described how overly fierce Sum was. Yat was getting more and more emotional in the process.
Originally, I planned to scold Sum, but I got a hunch that something even more important than “righting the wrong” was there, some lesson all the three of us had better to learn from the incident. I sensed that Yat was using me to avenge Sum. This by itself was nothing more than normal family politics that had to exist. Parents were always being used by their kids to go buy some toys, a tour, a restaurant meal, or even finish homework. Becoming a tool in sibling rivalry was just another example.
“So, why you let Sum hit on your chest? You could fight back!” “He overpowered me.” “That’s impossible! You’re two years older, and stronger.” “He’s more fierce!” “You could be as fierce!” “You taught me ¡V no fighting. When I cannot avoid it, I should only hit the opponent’s bottom, or arms, or legs. Sum was hitting me wherever he could land his fists.” Got it! Yat has taken teachings strictly as rules, without knowing when there can be flexibility.
In the following two days, I was in deep thought when there was down time ¡V how to teach flexible guidelines and not unbreachable rules. I reviewed for the most-frequently said phrases which my wife and myself were using in verbal teachings to the kids. The answers were: “You’re a well-behaved kid.” and “You’re a smart kid.” It seemed to me that we had been over-emphasizing good behaviour and smartness. Obviously, the kids interpreted “good behaviour” as obedience to the authority. Therefore, at the end of each school year, they invariably got comments from their class teachers as being polite to the teachers (difficult to say if also to fellow students), being able to sit quietly in class to listen, and being able to follow instructions, etc. They interpreted “smartness” as good academic results, thinking fast, reading a lot, reaching the expectations of the authority, and so on. Therefore, facing Sum not fighting according to “rules”, Yat still chose to hang onto them, though that meant being beaten.
This noon during lunch, I discussed my thoughts with my wife. As I was speaking, a bell rung and something clicked. I determined that I would avoid saying that they were well-behaved or smart. I did not want to always channel their attention back to these two yardsticks when they had performed well. This would narrow their learnings into the two areas. The principle was: it was not the parents who should require the kids to go along a certain direction at a certain length for a certain goal. The kids should be allowed more space to use their own judgment to decide that.
I have decided, instead, to use the phrase “That’s an improvement.” This would let the kid’s attention to remain on what they have achieved, and not being translated into well-behaviour nor smartness as the universal yardsticks. What is more? They need not reach a certain required level to be complemented. All they need is an improvement, big or small. In this way, they would be able to accumulate more success experience for a better self-confidence.
Whether this would yield the result I am expecting? Well! We’ll see! We will need factual evidences for a grounded conclusion.
