Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Heightened control

Despite what conventional wisdom tells us, heightened control and demands for obedience are the worst responses to defiance.

Where there's no relationship, there's no trust.

Where there's no trust, we resort to manipulation and dictates. Compliance and obedience become the name of the game, and for most kids this spells disaster.

3 comments:

  1. Joe,

    Thanks for another great short blog post! I think you are exactly correct about this kind of behavior, and unfortunately it happens way too often in classrooms...

    My question to ponder is why do so many people react in this way when things seem to be slipping away from them?

    Is it a copping mechanism or is it simply how we are hard-wired as humans?

    This post has definitely got me thinking; thinking about why people behave this way when we know it really is not in the best interest of anyone involved, nor is it effective

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  2. "Despite what conventional wisdom tells us, heightened control and demands for obedience are the worst responses to defiance."

    Responses like these remind me of movies about corrupt governments trying to control their people. You could try explaining to people nowadays but they'd just say "Don't be so cynical and negative! It's for the good of our kids!"

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  3. It's hard for people to see the need for transparency, trust and relationship rather than control, compliance, conformity and coercion.

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