A little while back I was at a park with my son Zaim, who was about to turn three. Or, as he describes it, “I have two and three-quarters years old.” I was pushing him on a swing as high as he could go as he squealed with delight and shouted, “higher, Daddy, higher!”
Next to us a family of four showed up to the swing set. It was a dad, mom, son, and daughter. I could instantly tell the dad ran a tight ship by the way he issued commands and how the children looked to him prior to taking action. His need for control was so strong I could feel it in the air. As he pushed his son and his wife pushed their daughter, his daughter said, “I don’t want Mom to push me. I want you to push me, Dad.”
“Don’t say that,” he fired back instantly. “That’s not nice.” His tone was harsh and sharp. The matter was concluded without further exploration or inquiry. Why didn’t she want Mom to push her? Was Mom not pushing hard enough? Could Dad do it better? Did she see less of Dad and miss him and want more connection with him? Was she feeling jealous of her brother?
Who knows? Shut up and be nice.
Nice training begins innocently enough as part of “socialization.” Your parents have a responsibility to help you function in our world, interact with other children and humans, and set you up to succeed. The only problem is most of our parents didn’t deeply reflect on what traits actually do set their children up for maximum happiness, success, and positive contribution to the world. They often did not have ongoing practices of building their self-awareness, working through their own issues, and actively healing and growing as humans.
Instead, they did the best they could with the resources they had. They wanted you to be a good, kind, strong, healthy, happy child. They didn’t want you to be aggressive, impolite, defiant, selfish, or mean. So, they did their best to guide you, influence you, and condition you to be all of the first list, and none of the second.
Yeah, so what? What’s the big deal? This seems pretty normal, and is an essential part of living in society, right? I mean, kids have to learn how to treat each other well, because otherwise they can become out-of-control, spoiled monsters.
This is where most of us rush in to defend our parents (and perhaps our own parenting as well). So, I can serve you best, let’s clear this up right now. This isn’t about blaming your parents, making them wrong, or making them responsible for all the challenges in your life. They may have been amazing people whom you love deeply, or tormented alcoholics who you feel ambivalent and confused about. Regardless, this isn’t about pointing your finger and blaming.
Instead, this exploration is about you breaking free from patterns you learned in childhood. This is about becoming more self-aware, clearly seeing what has influenced you, and taking full ownership over the direction of your life.
Because here’s the sneaky, underlying problem with standard conditioning and “normal” socialization. It is designed to create polite, non-aggressive, obedient children who mind their parents. And given that parenting, especially of small children, is so ridiculously hard and demanding, it can be difficult to always be sure that what you’re doing is actually best for your kid, or if you just want it because you’re tired, or out of patience.
For example, in the morning I unload the dishwasher, clean up a bit, and get eggs and kale out of the fridge to make our breakfast. My son Zaim is up in his little tower that lets him be at counter height so he can help me crack eggs and do other fun stuff. But this morning he decided to grab everything that’s near the sink (including glass cups) and throw them into the sink.
If I’m relaxed and calm that morning, if I’m at peace in myself, OK with life, and not living in fear, anger or stress, then I can calmly say, “Whoah, buddy. We don’t throw things in the sink because it could break them. Here, let me slide you over a bit in your tower. Want to help me crack eggs?”
But let’s say I’m tired that morning, I’m stressed out about something from work, I haven’t been working out, eating right, or taking care of my body and mind. Then, I might say, “Aww, Zaim, come on! What are you doing? Why are you throwing things in the sink??” My tone would exude exasperation, irritation, and the message: What is wrong with you?
For you, this might be an extremely mild version of what you received. In fact, your parents may have taken standard phrases out of the Universal Shitty Parenting Techniques Handbook such as: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” or “Shut up or I’m going to whack you.”
When parents consistently come from a place of frustration, anger, or disapproval, children become subservient and aim to please. The loss of connection and love they feel when a parent is angry with them can be incredibly painful, and becomes a powerful form of influence. Of course, they still act out, do crazy things, and bug the heck out of their parents. But the shift takes place nonetheless, very slowly and subtly over time.
Eventually this style of socialization turns politeness into a fear-based sense of following the rules. As children grow up they become scared of doing it wrong, afraid of making mistakes, terrified of being “rude,” and apologizing preemptively for things that are not even apology-worthy.
“I’m sorry, I can’t make it. Sorry.”
“Sorry, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“I’m sorry, I need to request a refund. This isn’t what I ordered.”
Have you ever done this? I was the Over-Apology King for years.
A parent’s desire to make their child calm, peaceful, and non-aggressive can easily morph into messages like: don’t speak until spoken to, kids are meant to be seen and not heard, don’t interrupt me, stop asking so many question, and other anti-assertiveness messages that train the kid to keep his or her mouth shut.
And obedience? That one is a doozy. I find it fascinating that parents crave obedience. They want their kids to mind them: do what I say, and don’t defy me. And I don’t mean they want a working relationship where they have influence to guide their child. I mean they want control. They want that little sucker to do what they say, and to do it now, or else. Why?? Because I’m your parent, that’s why.
I know the feeling. When I’m trying to make breakfast, clean up dishes, and make snacks for the day, and Zaim is pushing down his one-year old toddler brother, Arman, and then running off laughing, I want control in that moment to. I want to grab him like a puppy who pooped on the carpet and rub his nose in it, angrily yelling commands. “Don’t you EVER do that again! You hear me!” I want control and I’m pissed.
But I know that it won’t work particularly well in the moment. If I really wanted to permanently extinguish that behavior using force, I’d have to come with such intensity that it would make him extremely scared of me. And even then, he might still do it when I’m not around. I’m interested in establishing a longer-term form of influence that doesn’t condition fear-based people-pleasing into my children. I’m playing the ultra-long game.
Because the standard approach doesn’t quite make sense. When they’re young, we hammer in the “don’t defy me” message. But then, once they become adults, we want them to go out into the world and be direct, assertive, confident, persistent, bold, outspoken, and a leader who doesn’t take no for an answer.
Guess what? After all this conditioning, the vast majority of people are not like that. (Shocking!)
Most people are terrified of disapproval and rejection. Most people don’t know how to be skillfully assertive, speak up for themselves and speak their minds. So they either act out aggressively in the wrong place at the wrong time, or just passively stuff it all down. Most people are too polite, too timid, too obedient, and too subservient. Most people are too nice.