“Model what you want”

May 22, 2011

Today’s Bit of Advice….

“Model what you want”

We had a recent experience at church that left a lasting impression on me.  A family sitting near ours created a great deal of chaos and distraction for all sitting around them.  The children played with toys and books.  They ate noisy snacks.  There was movement in and out of the pew.  But the worst part, for me anyway, was the parent who kept checking the phone for text messages, went in and out of the pew, fussed over the children, and spoke (loudly) many times to the children about their behavior.  I heard “you need to stop taking” at least 20 times.

I think the children were old enough to sit on the pew and pay attention.  They didn’t need so many props nor snacks.  But can I really blame the children for the distractions and behavior?  No.  The parent packed the bag of tricks.  The parent played with the phone.  The parent moved around incessantly.  And the parent was the one who kept talking then telling the children to stop talking.

If you want your children to display specific behaviors, you must model them first.  If the parent talks at mass, the children will talk at mass.  If the parent can’t get off the smartphone at the restaurant, the children won’t want to get off their electronic devices.  If the parent constantly spouts anti-(fill in the blank) sentiments, the child will likely speak in a similar way – I had an experience with that during the week too but that’s another blog.

Modeling the wrong behavior for children happens all the time yet the parents doing the modeling rarely see the problem in themselves.  You get what you reap.

Though I see a lot of negative modeling in my roles as an educator and fellow parent, I’ve also seen some outstanding modeling results.  Children who shake hands with adults, hold the door for others, go out of their way to help an older person.  Those things don’t happen naturally – they are learned.  Learned from good models.

I did some substitute teaching last week for a third grade class.  I’ve taught this class before and they are a really nice bunch of kids.  Sure, maybe they may all have great parents who have modeled kind behavior, but I have to believe that their teacher has something to do with it too.  Before we left the classroom to go to another activity, I asked the students to think about their behavior in the hall and what each could do to be a model to younger students.  They took my request very seriously and did a great job being quiet and polite.  They continued to do the same each time we left the room for the rest of the day.  Made my job so easy!  I was also amazed by the number of other students who stopped me in the hallway to thank me for work I had done for the school as a volunteer.  They weren’t asked to thank me (“Go over there and tell her thank you”) – they did it because they’ve seen models do it first.

It’s not hard to teach children how to behave in a way that pleases you.  Model it.  The harder thing is to make sure that you don’t teach children the wrong behaviors by accident through unintentional modeling.  Model what you want to see, not what you don’t.

In case you want to see this bit of advice at work, join me at mass next week.  I’ll show you which pew to sit in for a display.  Don’t worry about getting to mass early – I’m pretty sure that pew will be empty.   Most of us know by now that it might be better to sit elsewhere.

Hope you enjoyed the read.