Summary

Most children have a natural drive to explore. It's a gift from their creator. Your son seems to have an extra dose of whatever causes that. However, not all exploration or experimentation is timely, as you know. That means it is your duty to do two important things:

1. Recognize the directions his interests take him, and

2. Teach and train him to be successful in those areas.

On the other hand, that is not to suggest that limitations, are wrong or bad. Whether or not they contribute to a positive self-image depends on the kinds of plans you make to honor a child's natural interest in the things or activities that spark his interest.

Full Text

Rosy -

Any three-year-old with character will experiment and try to do things by himself. We want them to do that. Yelling at the results of those experiments and getting punished teaches only one thing -- that it isn't safe to experiment around that house. In the end, the child will either back off and go inward or get more determined and even enjoy all the attention that comes from doing wrong.

Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to notice the directions that his experiments are leading him and patiently teach him to do the things that are okay to do? Not only teach, but also practice those things repeatedly. Remember to talk about and show the child what TO do rather than emphasize what NOT to do.

Then, I see that part of your response included a punishment, Time-Out. It may come as a surprise, but punishment, by itself, is a poor teacher because it ends up teaching behavior that is based on fear rather than on a sense of doing right. Time-Out was invented to help a child refocus on correct behavior. But it has come to be so often used as a punishment that the authors of the idea hardly recognize it. (I know that because the man who invented Time-Out for behavior management is a personal friend of mine.) As a matter of fact, that is precisely what you did with it too. You used it as a punishment.

The positive alternative to the kind of punishment you handed your son would be The THINK Space, another idea that we introduce in this website. It is a totally positive way to help children focus on future choices rather than stew in the mistakes of the past. To see our description of The THINK Space, click here.

Now, about your initial concern regarding your son's self esteem: in the end, a child's self-respect and self-esteem are built on success. When you allow a child to do things that end in failure, his self-esteem is at a crossroads. When he is punished for a mistake, his self-esteem is threatened. On the other hand, when he is patiently helped to focus on and practice better choices or techniques that he will use in the future, his self-esteem is built up because he anticipates success.

Therefore, a vital link to the growth of self-esteem in a child is teaching and training. In other words, to deny a child access to things for which he has not been trained will hurt his self-esteem only on two accounts:

1. If you refuse to train him for "whatever" reason or fail to say when you will be willing and able to help him, or

2. He is allowed to do something for which he is inadequately prepared and that effort ends in failure.

In other words, it is fine for you to limit your son's access or permission to do some things, provided you make and patiently carry out a plan that honors his interests.

I hope these ideas encourage you to redouble your efforts to honor your children's curiosity and drive to try new things. We would also encourage you to educate your older children about how to guard the self-image of their younger siblings. However, I must warn you that people who put other people down, whether older or younger, are themselves suffering from low self-esteem. Putting other people down is the way they compensate for that deficiency in their own development.

Therefore, it will be important that you also help them feel successful in their own lives.

I hope that helps. Let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Cal Richert