Good girl, good boy

 

This post is partly about the way we talk to children, partly about the purpose of education, and also about conforming and whether we know we are doing it when we are doing it. And a little about abusive relationships.

So, the background is that if you ask children of primary school age what 'being good' looks like in class, it is very much about obeying the teacher. So if someone is a 'good girl' or a 'good boy' they will sit up straight and quietly, they will quickly do what the teacher says and they will make sure that they don't distract anyone. The children don't usually say things like "I will try very hard at the task we have" or "I won't give up if something is tough"

And when a parent asks their child "Were you good at school?" the translation is usually "Did you get into trouble today or did you keep your nose clean?". So I have very unsure feelings about whether 'being good' is a good thing or not. It feels as if all the focus is on obedience and not on learning or kindness or actually being interesting in any way. 

I was talking to another teacher who says she always avoids saying 'good girl/good boy' and instead describes what they have done if she wants to praise their work. "You have worked really hard at this and kept concentrating right to the end" or "You came up with some great ideas in your writing today". I think this approach is backed up by educational research. If you praise a child for what they are (eg a good girl) rather than what they do, you don't give them any steer as to how to get better at it. Actions can be changed by your own will and efforts. States of being can't. 

It does make me think, rather regretfully given my ten years at the chalkface, that part of the purpose of schools is to make children (and the adults they will be) conform. So the sitting in rows and doing what the teacher says could be a plan for life. Stay in your lane and don't be lippy with the government, with your employer, with the police, with the secret service. It doesn't seem very admirable.

There is also the risk that your adult life could be harmed if you learn from an early age that you get praise for doing what someone tells you to do. It might be OK if it is a teacher who has to work within a closely-supervised framework, but what if you marry someone who tells you what to do? It could be that the early conditioning might get you into bad places because you automatically assume that a 'good boy' or 'good girl' is someone who does what they are asked (or told). 

A lot of people, men and women but probably more so women, realise part way through their lives that they have a problem because they are always trying to make someone else happy and they do this reflexively and without necessarily making a choice. Such people will do what their parents tell them, what their children tell them (sometimes) and worst of all, what their life partner tells them. Now I understand that there are some religious people who think that obedience of the wife to the husband is a good thing, but I can't quite see it myself, and I don't think that it is impossible to work out compromises when partners have different opinions. Who knows, the compromising might even make you love each other better. 

But if you have been given all the 'good girl/good boy' early conditioning, is it more difficult to realise that you don't always have to say yes?