Too cute for his own good!

One of the things we talk about all the time at school among faculty is children’s behavior, good bad and in between. The other day, while watching our little crowd, I asked Miss Kelly our kindergarten first grade teacher, if it was true that children who behaved poorly at school most likely behaved poorly at home. She said an emphatic “yes.” And then she did something interesting, she added, “And children who behave poorly at home have no rules.”

I thought a lot about that over the next few days, and I continued to watch our kids. Are rules the bottom line in rearing children? If you want a child’s behavior to be the kind of behavior you can take anywhere, and that’s what we spend most of our time doing – going out – establishing a set of rules for home that are “take along” is the logical progression. But this is not happening.

The question is: Why is establishing a set of rules, which is so basic, so difficult for so many parents? Why do so many children lack these rules? If the parent focuses on a very old rather golden idea – “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” it would seem to engage the very idea of community living and make the creation of rules matter more. But this very ancient and simple notion might be where it all begins, but it quickly falls apart. Children have contempt for neighbor and some children even have contempt for the parents. The question is what is happening and why?

In the home (any home) a child is simply ONE of the participants, and yet too often children think they are the only participant, and everything in the room is his or her “due.” “Me first or rather “me only,” is the common demand. “He hit me,” is a one sided argument. Just once I’d like to have a child come to me and say, “We hit each other,” but that’s never the point. The point is, “He,” the dog in the kennel, has hit “Me” the star in the sky. You can see the wheels turning, “If I’m the only one who counts, then I don’t need rules.”

The point of establishing rules at home is for the sake of order and peace. Some parents have a set of rules that resemble the telephone book. Even the parents don’t remember them all and that’s one big problem. When parents neglect the rules, how do we expect children to obey?

And then there is the opposite theory of rules – less is more. I established one rule at my house: “Don’t fall into the river we eat at six.” This one rule for my house meant, “Be safe and remember the needs of your family.” In other words, “Be smart enough to not fall into the river which is a block from the house, and be smart enough to know that we are home expecting you.” I figured all other rules were self evident, but then I was a very demanding mother with a concrete routine.

And with the word “routine” said, I began to think more about rules and how rules play off routine. How can there be rules if there is no routine? Establishing an order at home means routine. If a family always eats dinner at 6:00, then it follows that the children always need to be home, clean, and ready to eat by 6:00. It also follows that in order to eat dinner at six, mother needs to be at home as well by about 4:30 or 5:00 to make that dinner. If mother keeps the routine, then the kids easily follow suit. To complete the order, it follows that the table needs to be set, the toys need to be picked up, hands need to be washed every time we expect dinner on the table at 6:00. These things don’t magically happen. There is a pattern a little like counting. You don’t begin with ten, you begin with one.

At the Garden School, we ring the bell. That’s 1. Then there is the announcement that we are picking up our toys in order that we can eat. That’s 2. Then we do that – we pick up. That’s 3. Then we go to a communal spot. That’s 4. Then we pray. That’s 5. Then we are dismissed to wash our hands and sit down. That’s 6 and 7. Then we eat. That’s 8. But these are not rules; they are part of the routine order of the day. The rules surround the order of the day and give a super order: we don’t push in line. We are quiet during prayers. We sit criss cross. We listen for our names. We use the toilet and sink one at a time. We use ONE paper towel. We don’t touch our neighbor during meals.

By establishing a routine and an order any place, the obvious rules simply fall into place. If we are making a line to go into the building, most of the children will understand the concept for the sake of everyone in the building. They know that if we have something REAL to do, then the logic is to be about doing that, and you can see most of the children understand that and enjoy it.

The one thing that upsets the order or routine is an evil demon called chaos. There are agents of chaos in every group. Children and adults who can’t maintain the routine and sabotage the entire group’s order. These are the people who upset the routine and then ultimately break the rules. And when one person breaks the rules, the whole house has reason to copy. Children who break the rules are not thinking communally. They are thinking about self only.

People who break the rules do so for their own sake. They don’t follow the golden rule “Do to others as you would wish them to do to you,” because ultimately their target is the group. When children come from homes lacking in order, teachers have to remember that these kids have no guidance and no parental help. They are waif like and struggling to understand a world that has little patience for their barbarism.

Parents are the primary educators of the child. Parents are the primary establishers of routine in the home. Routine is the natural goodness that emanates from the home for the sake of the people who live there. Rules are the natural byproduct of routine. Obedience is the natural byproduct of the love necessary to establish order in the home. A well ordered home creates a whole and creative child, and best of all, it creates peace.