Spitting

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

for California

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children spit to create an effect, to look tough, or to show aggression when they don't know how to resolve their conflicts with words.

Logical consequences

If your children spit on someone else, they should be required to help clean the spittle off and make amends. If they spit on anything other than a person, they should clean up after themselves and apologize to any onlookers. If spitting is a big problem, separate them from their grossed-out "victims." After all, if they can't behave properly with others, they'll have to be removed from them.

Solutions toward self-direction

Use humor: Make an official announcement that the Fox family lives in a no spitting zone. Pretend you're reading news in the newspaper about the Spit River cresting past the flood plain at the Johnsons'.

Teach your children verbal ways to settle their conflicts.

Offer choices: "When you decide to use words instead of spitting to solve your disagreements, then you can play with your friends again."

Use impartial descriptions and give information: "I saw you spit on the sidewalk. Most people find spitting disgusting." "TB and other diseases can be spread by spitting."

Use questioning: "What's our rule about spitting?" "How do you suppose Nadine feels right now?" "How do you feel when someone spits on you?" "What do you need to do to make it up to her?"