From Compliance to Cooperation: Back to School!

How to Get from Compliance to Cooperation (Hint: With Curiosity and Collaboration!)

We often hear parents, teachers, and principals say, “At some point, children have to comply.” 

Do they? It feels like they do…but do they?

Indigenous parents don’t think so. By Indigenous, I am referring to parents who live a hunter-gatherer-gardener lifestyle where money is not the primary means of survival. In these communities, people’s ability to rule their own bodies reigns supreme as a human right. They don’t make their children do things. Instead, they use strategies like wild cautionary tales, waiting out feelings, reflective questions, and patient teaching to guide children on their healthiest path.

If they can do it, we can too! And when we do what those wise Indigenous parents do, children respond immediately with more cooperative behavior. 

We are Amelia and Betty, and we are helping families paradigm-shift from a compliance lens of behavior to a cooperative one. We do this by considering the needs of everyone involved, discussing this with the child, and thinking with them about how to get their needs met in ways that everyone wins.

Applying this Paradigm Shift to Back-to-School Woes

Are you hearing your child or teen say, “I don’t want to go to school?”

After a relaxing, fun-filled summer, school can be a shock to the system. Parents often assume children don’t want to go because they don’t like sitting down and doing work. School isn’t all fun and games, and your child might not have built up a tolerance for sitting quietly and pushing a pencil around. 

Life isn’t all fun and games, you may be thinking. This problem can’t be solved; the child just needs to learn to put up with the demands of school as preparation for life. This typical way of thinking leads to this typical parent response: “You have to go to school. Staying home isn’t an option.”

Whatever the reason the child doesn’t want to go to school, they need help problem-solving the issue. Even when there isn’t a solution in sight. The good news is that you don't have to solve any of their problems. Coming up with solutions actually raises their anxiety because they feel like your ideas are what they are supposed to do. They’ll have resistance to things that they're supposed to do, especially when those things don't feel good.

What does feel good is having someone listen, take their concerns seriously, and help them consider what would feel good. Finding out why they don't want to go to school, what's hard about school, and what their relationships at school are like can help children work through whatever problems they're having there. 

Talking with children about their problems empowers them to solve them themselves, either by doing something about it, or simply learning to accept the challenge as not ideal, but capacity-building nonetheless.

Here's an example of what such a conversation might sound like.

Child or Teen: I don’t want to go to school.

Parent: Really? Why not?

Child or Teen: Because it’s boring.

Parent: Well, that’s a problem. I don’t like the idea of you sitting around all day being bored. Is it all boring or is any part of it fun?

Child/Teen: Recess isn’t boring, but everything else is.

Parent: That’s terrible. If I were bored all day at my job, I wouldn’t want to go to work.

Child/Teen: I could stay home…

Parent: How would you learn all the things to help you in the world if you stayed home?

Child/Teen: I want to home-school.

Parent: Who would help you with that?

Child/Teen: You.

Parent: I’m not up for that.

Everyone: (Silence. As hard as this would be, it’s important that the parent does not talk first all the time. The child is the leader of this conversation because it is the child’s problem.)

Child/Teen: Fine. But I don’t want to go.

Parent: Would you want to go if it weren’t boring?

Child/Teen: No.

Parent: What else is going on at school that you don’t like then?

Child/Teen: Everybody is so mean. 

Over time, this conversation could evolve into learning about problems with relationships with teachers or peers, and through wondering, the child/teen can be supported in figuring out how to navigate tough challenges.

Parent: Really? Like who?

Child/Teen: My teacher.

Parent: What? Oh no! That’s a really important relationship. What do you think might be going on there?

Child/Teen: She’s always sending me out into the hallway.

Parent: Oh buddy. I’m really sorry to hear that. That must feel awful.

Child/Teen: It does.

Parent: No wonder you don’t want to go.

Child/Teen: Yeah.

Parent: I’d really like to know what can be done about this. I’d hate for you to spend even another week having to go through that.

Child/Teen: I don’t know.

Parent: Well, let’s be thinking about it. Let me know if you need help talking with your teacher. I’ll support you in any way I can.

Child/Teen: Okay.

After a conversation like this, the parent can choose to let the conversation rest and wait to bring it up the next time they hear complaining about school, or they can check in with the teacher to see if they need help problem-solving around your child. Amelia and Betty are available to help with these conversations as well. To get our help, book some time here.