This is an old question. How permissive should parents be? What is being accomplished by permissiveness and what is being accomplished by authoritarianism which is the opposite of permissiveness? Since the theme of this book is behavior modification with children, let's look at how behavior modification can be used for the good of the child in relation to permissiveness (or authoritarianism).

I'm sure you will agree some day your child will have to go out into the cold, cruel world and make his or her own way. Unless you are very wealthy and can provide for cradle-to-grave security and protection from the world, you must face the fact that you cannot always run interference between your child and other people in the world. I think even the very wealthy cannot do a very good job of protection.

It seems only natural that the little curly-headed darling you gave birth to deserves the very best and should have anything his little heart desires. After all, it's relatively easy to give that kind of service when a child is young and it makes you feel good all over to allow the child to do whatever he wants. It makes you feel like an ogre to be telling him he can't do or have whatever he wants. Even though you can do it, and it doesn't seem to cause any harm, are you doing what is best for the child?

Just think, your responses to the child's behavior are maintaining or extinguishing the behavior. If the behavior in question involves doing whatever the child wants to do and your responses are maintaining that behavior, you are teaching the child a lasting lesson. The lesson could be entitled "Whatever you want, you can have." This could cause the child to be a royal pain to other people who don't think he is such a curly-headed darling.

When the child is young, this is not a problem for the child. He does what he wants and gets away with it and has no unpleasant consequences. The lesson he learns may not be so true after he gets a bit older. Many is the time I have seen the parents of teen-agers who were very permissive when the child was young, but who were getting fed up with giving the teenager everything he wanted. Teen-agers have a way of wanting some very expensive things and many of them don't seem to want to work to get them.

Many people trying to make their way in the adult world are having a terrible time managing their money or adjusting to a work schedule. They were taught while growing up they could have whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. It is a shock to them when they find the outside world isn't that way.

A real danger of over-permissiveness lies with rewarding the child for inappropriate behavior. If he learns all he has to do to get whatever he wants is to sulk or throw a tantrum or some other unpleasant behavior, he will probably grow up to be an unreasonable, obnoxious person. He may grow up to be even worse than that.

Let's say that in the past, the parents rewarded the child for doing what he wanted to do or demanding what he wanted to have. That reinforced the tendency for the child (or teenager, or adult) to continue using the same old methods for getting what he wants. When those same methods don't work with people who aren't his parents, the teenager (or adult) is resentful, and sometimes decides to do what he wants or get what he wants in ways that go against the rules of society. Rules such as "Don't speed in your car," or "Don't steal," or "Don't harm people" can provide some pretty serious consequences if broken. I think there are a lot of people in jail today because they were rewarded for their methods of getting what they wanted when they were children.

I am thinking of an extreme example, a notorious criminal who recently was sentenced to death. He had committed horrible atrocities on his victims. He showed no remorse after being caught, just tried to lie his way out of it. An account of his life brought out his mother gave him everything he wanted when he was growing up. She never held him accountable for his behavior and shielded him from the consequences of his behavior. She would never admit he could do anything wrong and defended him against anyone who inferred he had. If anyone connected with the school he attended, and later the police, tried to control him, his mother was right there to defend him and blame the other party. Perhaps not everyone would become as vicious as this man, but that kind of permissiveness certainly will have a destructive effect on the development of a child's personality and character.

It is much the same as what happened with some of the worst of the Roman emperors. No one had the courage to set limits on them, and they could do no wrong. They lost contact with reality and went on to do some pretty bad things.

That returns us to the question, how permissive or how authoritarian should parents be? First let's look at the dictionary definition of the two terms. Then we'll look at some guidelines.

According to my dictionary, "authoritarian" means "relating to or favoring blind submission to authority," and "permissive" is defined as "granting or tending to grant permission." Permission is defined by Webster as "The act of permitting or allowing; allowance; authority; formal consent; license or liberty granted." In plain English, I think this means "It's okay with me for you to do that." If you think about it, you may come to the conclusion that both authoritarianism and permissiveness have their place in child rearing when kept in perspective. In behavior-modification terms, authoritarianism is a way of trying to control behavior directly rather than controlling the consequences of the behavior. Permissiveness involves not trying to control the behavior at all or not providing consistent consequences for behavior.

Remember the principle I discussed in the chapter on responsibility. To teach a child responsibility, give him all the choices he is able to make and allow him to have the complete consequences of those choices. I think you could adapt the idea behind that principle to the permissiveness question. Something like this: Give your child what he wants when you judge it will be good for him and for those around him, when it is feasible, and when he is capable of dealing with the consequences.

There are some big "ifs" there. Some of your child's requests may be easy to decide on, some may take some thought. Where does authoritarianism come in handy? Well, once you have decided against and have said "No," you will have to stick to your guns and insist on that blind submission to authority Webster talks about.

Authoritarianism can be overdone. Saying "No" to every request your child makes is neither necessary nor desirable. A child brought up by someone who expects blind submission all the time and who arbitrarily says "No" to every request is not going to learn to experience and think for himself. He is likely to expect the worst, having learned by experience that everything is likely to have bad consequences. When the parent is successful at controlling with authoritarianism the child is likely to grow up cowed and fearful. When the parent is unsuccessful, the child is likely to be rebellious. Neither of these is a desirable outcome. Less critical, but worth considering is the fact that he will be much more likely to accept it when you say "No" to the important things if he knows you tend to say "Yes" when you can. But he should learn he cannot whine or argue you out of it when you do say "No."

Authoritarianism can also lead to attempts of the parents to control directly the behavior of the child through force or physical control of the child. I have known of parents who resorted to nailing windows shut to prevent their teen-age daughter from leaving in the night to be with friends. I have heard of actual fist fights and similar brawling occurring between a parent and his child when other attempts at control have failed. When the relationship between parent and child has come to this kind of control, a much more serious problem exists than can be dealt with using simple methods.

I believe the attempt to use physical control on a teen-ager is one of the main reasons for the current rash of runaways and kids living on the streets. Some teens are very stubborn and will allow themselves to be damaged rather than give in and allow a controlling parent to win. The answer to these things is to start off with effective methods, and don't wait until things are this far out of hand to teach your child respect for your authority.

Saying "Yes" to every request is not necessary nor desirable either. We have gone into the harm that is done to the child's character development when he is given everything he wants. Besides the long-range damage, the short-term effects can be hard to live with. You are not going to be able to grant the child's every wish, even if you feel like it. A child who has been taught he can have whatever he wants can be a terror when thwarted. You will be letting yourself in for a lifetime of temper tantrums and sulking if you start out by trying to fulfill your child's every wish.

So, in judging whether you can properly say "Yes," consider whether it will be good for him, all things considered. Then think of those around him. If your two-year-old wants to play with the puppy, it might be fine for him, but not good at all for the puppy. If your cute, curly-headed three-year-old wants to run through the restaurant, she might enjoy it but what about the rest of the diners? I assume you would like your child to have a respect for the rights of other people when she grows up.

Next, there is feasibility. The kids may be begging to spend Saturday at the amusement park. But they are too young to be turned loose alone and you have other obligations that day, so you say "No." Your daughter has her heart set on a certain doll, but it costs eighty-five dollars, so you say "No."

Finally, is he capable of dealing with the consequences? Is that double-fudge banana split he wants going to make him sick? A six-year-old child would not be capable of taking his bicycle to visit a friend several city blocks away, while a ten-year-old could probably handle it--depending on the neighborhood. You have to consider the probable consequences of his doing that, and decide whether you think he is capable of dealing with them. I think we could say consequences in this context have to do with safety and well-being. Will it be in your child's best interests to do this thing or get this thing he is wanting? Can he cope with it?

Just remember, when you say "Yes," you will get no argument from your child. But when you say "No," you must stick to it. Otherwise your child will learn you can be argued or whined out of your decisions, and your authority will go out the window.