Slippery Slopes
Uncoupling attachments deserves an honest conversation, but the offer of an appealing and value-aligned alternative can lead to much healthier habits.
The Opponent: Slippery Slopes
The grand ecosystem that is a home or classroom is quite the tangled web. Pluck one strand to solve a specific problem and the reverberations show up somewhere completely unexpected. Before you know it, certain behaviors that weren’t part of any defined plan become cemented as the norm. The kids get to use their iPads on a long car ride and now they assume that iPads always come right after buckling their seat belts. You put on a show while cleaning up after dinner and now meltdowns occur anytime there is no post-dinner showtime. You build a little transition time into the start of a class period and now students threaten to mutiny anytime you try and segue to actual learning.
The slippery slopes of seemingly innocuous decisions can lead to patterns that we didn’t expect. But that doesn’t mean those patterns need to be set in stone.
The Xs and Os: Casually Causal
The other day one of the Playbook progeny finished dessert and said, “Remember after dessert we always get fruit?”
“What are you talking about?” asked your dutiful author.
“I’m talking about dessert and fruit,” said the kiddo, matter-of-factly, as if the pairing was as obvious as peanut butter and jelly or Ben and Jennifer.
Ah, the good old Pavlovian response. Kids are not being intentionally whiny when they invoke past patterns as evidence of future rewards. Identifying such patterns is part of inductive learning, in which causal relationships are learned and specific connections can become generalized concepts. Since claims of post-dessert hunger had previously been met with appeals to healthful snacks, dessert and fruit became coupled in this toddler’s mind.
While this pairing was pretty harmless, others can be less wholesome, and once the pattern is formed, the attachment deepens. What was once casual—”Okay you can have a banana after your popsicle”—now appears to be causal in the mind of a kid—popsicles are the gateway to nighttime bananas!
Luckily, as a kid’s executive functioning skills develop, so too does their attentional flexibility, and they can begin to see the nuance in patterns that once seemed solid. In the meantime, parents and teachers can help create healthier habits, not by indulging a child’s expectations, but by providing clarity around which relationships are causal and which are casual.
The TLDR: Kids learn through pattern identification, but require guidance in grasping the nuances of expectation and reward.
The Play: Explicate and Pivot
The first step toward walking back up that slippery slope is to explain that iPads don’t always go with car rides, or that sweet treats don’t occur after every meal. There will be resistance to this notion so prepare for the behavior burst in which a kid ramps up their emotional response in hopes that the adult will back down in the face of tears and yelling.
Uncoupling behaviors is not for the faint of heart, but you gain a lot through honesty. Perhaps by expressing how you all accidentally arrived at this expectation which was not the plan. Or you could appeal to family values, and the fact that you need a reset to reduce excessive screen time that isn’t aligned with your ideals. Cue outburst. Remember: they don’t have to like the decision. But hearing a brief why honors their intelligence.
Next, see if there is a replacement behavior that might be appealing and aligned with your family or classroom values. For example, simply telling a kid that iPads are no longer a part of car rides won’t really move the needle. But telling them that instead you’re going to use binoculars to spot birds or play name that tune might. It can take concerted effort and the willingness to endure the behavior burst, but eventually the habitual patterns that we fell into can be replaced by more satisfying alternative behaviors. And once you achieve those great heights, the view from the top back down that slippery slope never looked so good.
The TLDR: Uncoupling attachments deserves an honest conversation, but the offer of an appealing and value-aligned alternative can lead to much healthier habits.