I’m sure there is a better term for arguing but that is all I can think of this morning. It starts early doesn’t it. A toddler uses it. Wisely at times too. I remember one of my oldest’s first disobedient acts, we had just moved into our brand new house and I was pregnant with my son. She was about 15 months old and I had morning sickness(all day long!) so I was lying on the couch. She walked over to the vertical blinds on the sliding door and started to swing her arms at them so they would all shuffle together making noise. I was afraid they would fall, if you’ve had those kind of blinds you know what a pain they are! I kindly told her not to touch and asked her to move toward a toy. You know, the redirection technique 😉 Not for this smarty-pants. She totally picked up on Mommy’s not feeling well, and knew I was not wanting to get off the couch to move her away. She smiled at me and did it again. This time I more sternly told her not to touch, and again suggested a toy to play with. Smiling again she reached out and shuffled them, even longer this time. I walked over picked her up, told her again that we do not touch the blinds but we could play with x,y or z. She quickly scrambled back to her feet and ran over to the blinds. This was non-verbal arguing in the infant stage 🙂
Then they become verbal and you find yourself engaged in a battle of simple words. No! Yes. Mommy wins most of these by simply being bigger and removing the object or situation from the child.
Next comes one of the more challenging stages when everything is a why. This really is an argument, even though we don’t recognize it as such at first. They are really questioning everything we say and while it is a good argument, boy does it wear us out as moms! This is the beginning of good reasoning skills though. Arguing isn’t all negative. Maybe debating would be a better term, but it still doesn’t exactly describe what I am going for.
There really is an art to arguing or debating. I realize as I watch or listen to politicians debate that some really do it well, and others, well let just say they must have flunked logic in school! An argument or debate should be logical. In order to win you must prove your points in a way that makes sense. We as mom’s often flunk this part. When we say, “because I’m the mom”, we are not really giving the logical and reasonable points. Now, I believe this is a perfectly good answer, and I have used it myself at times. But if we want our children to be able to state their case and be heard we have to teach them how occasionally 🙂
I heard an argument over the weekend in support of birth control. If you watch the news at all, you are aware of the bill that is being debated regarding private religious institutions providing birth control to employees. The woman arguing the point was using the worst logic I have ever heard, and she was representing the president and his cabinet! The problem is, we have not taught our citizens to recognize illogical reasoning. People believe what she said because they aren’t thinking critically and recognizing the flaws of the argument. I wondered if I was doing a good job teaching my children the art of arguing. Can they hear the nonsensical reasoning in some political discussions? I know I point it out to them a lot when I hear it. Are we as a society teaching our children to listen and question what authorities say in a positive way? We should not accept anyone’s word without checking the facts and reasoning ourselves. Have we not been lied to by leaders for too long? In our dumbing down of our country I fear we have lost the skills necessary to think logically and recognize when we are being sold a bill of goods! Scary!
In a few weak/tired moments I have used the “Im mom, that’s why” line as well; haven’t we all. It is our right of passage. But, one thing that was effective was, “God commands you to obey your parents so if you have a problem with that, take it up with God.” Then there are the Scripture writings of the appropriate Scripture (Eph. 6:1-4) or have them look up what the consequence was to 3 people that disobeyed God. That also counts as writing and spelling and bible for the day. lol! Actually my only child at home is 15 and just last week he told a “white lie” and had to look up 5 peopel that lied and what happened. I love the Word of God and if I can remain calm enough to use it, it is helpful in training, which is what I am called to do. 🙂