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Group
Dynamics
This summer
I went to a class on three successive Wednesday mornings.
It was supposed to be about Leadership and developing a
leadership style, or finding the one you’ve already got.
The final class was mainly about group dynamics, but as I
read my notes after the class I was shocked at how applicable
the same principles are to parenting. The teacher, Bonnie McAllister, was my guide through the
following principles, but the parenting application is my own.
There are 5
elements of trust in groups.
They are: Openness, Support, Acceptance, Sharing, and
Cooperative Intent. Much
of what a leader does in a group is establishing and sustaining
trust. Also, to
have a successful group one must let people know they are
acceptable. It’s
the same in parenting. Much
of what we do is establishing and sustaining the trust our
children place in us. For
instance, if I say Alex can’t have a Popsicle unless he
finishes his dinner, then I have to stick to it.
Although in the short run he gets mad at me, in the long
run, after many repetitions of this scene he will understand
that I mean what I say. 
In an adult
group openness is tantamount to honesty tempered with tact.
If asked, you will give an opinion, but refrain from
editorializing or blurting things out irrelevantly.
With children, especially very young children, openness
is challenging. While
most of us try to refrain from outright lying, sometimes the
truth is just too much. The
flip side is, if we don’t tell the truth, or at least part of
it, children know that something is just not right.
So here again, stick to as few words as possible, and
waiting until the question is asked is usually the best course
of action.
Support
might not mean what you think it means.
It actually means to be able to say to someone “This is
important. How can
I help you to get it done?” and not undermine them by coming
along behind and cleaning up their mistakes.
Recognition that not everyone is strong in everything,
and to help them overcome weakness is the best kind of support
you can give. The
application to parenting is obvious, isn’t it?
If you go along behind your child constantly redoing
everything they do, they will not have any opportunity to learn
from failing. Failure
is tough whether you are three or thirty-three, but it is also
one of the greatest ways to learn.
If it’s important that your child not fail, say, an
exam, as parents we have to learn to ask the question, “How
can I help?” and not make the statement “Do this or else.”
Acceptance
can be a difficult proposition in a group dynamic.
One needs to communicate a respect for everyone in the
group through a sincere appreciation of their contribution to
the common goal. Acceptance
can be even more difficult with a child.
As parents we have dreams and goals for our children,
often from before they are born.
Some can be cultural, like a Jewish family expecting a
male child to have a Bar Mitzvah. Some are personal, as in a
father who wants his child to play a sport, and achieve what he
was unable to. However, our children are people, and as people they develop
their own tendencies and fears, likes and dislikes. By accepting, and respecting, the choices our children make,
subject to our judgment of what they are capable of thinking
through, we show them that our acceptance, and love of them, is
not for their accomplishments, but rather on an unconditional
basis. 
Sharing with
a group means to share not only ideas and instructions, but to
share materials and resources that help them move toward their
goal. Sharing with
our children means sharing not only our time and energy, but
sharing ourselves. As
is age appropriate, sharing some of what makes us who we are.
Experiences both good and bad that helped us to reach the
point we are at. Sometimes
it can mean sharing a struggle that we are going through,
“Mommy is sad today because…” Letting children know that
we have issues that need to be dealt with lets children know
that they can deal with what they go through.
What is more, they can come to you, for sympathy, for
empathy, for someone to listen.
For groups,
Cooperative Intentions mean that all the group members will
behave in a manner designed to help the group achieve it’s
goal. For
parenting, lack of cooperative intention often ends with a child
in the ‘time-out’ chair.
I find I have to remind myself that I don’t always have
to get my way, right away, with my sons. Sometimes, I need to be a little more cooperative with them.
After all, what is it really going to matter if I delay
going to the store fifteen minutes so he can finish his play-do?
I do this in the hope that when we do have to be
somewhere, I can remind them how I have waited for them in the
past, so could they please hurry for me now.
So I
inadvertently spent my summer learning new parenting skills.
I hope to apply some of the principles I learned to my
group interactions on the parent committees this fall.
Group dynamics has already saved my son and I a couple of
high decibel discussions. So far applying this to my son seems to diffuse situations.
I hope it works as well on the women in the volunteer
parents organization.
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