Children need to know what the rules are. They need to know when they have a choice and when they don't. A lot of the stubbornness we see in children is not due to the child's disposition, but to the lack of discrimination the child may have for how much of the choice is up to him.

A familiar situation is one where mother (or father) issues an order to a child followed by the question "okay?" as if the child has a choice. The child usually ignores the order and the parent then has to try some other method of getting compliance. The other methods are numerous and few of them work very well.

I think the parent who uses this tactic really means the "okay?" to ask if the child understands, rather than imply the child has a choice. Other people, children included, respond to what they think you mean rather than what you think you mean. They are like computers in this sense. They respond to what you say rather than what you mean.

Another variation is for the parent to worry so much about politeness that he issues an order preceded by the word "please." When this form is used it sounds like a request rather than an order. I'm all for teaching children about courtesy and to say "please" and "thank you" to other people. However, it seems to me when you ask someone to "please do something" you are making a request of that person. It is also my understanding a request may be denied by the person to whom you make the request.

It seems to me children deserve the courtesy of knowing what the situation is when an order or request is made. It will make their lives much easier if they know the rules.

The principles of behavior modification assert that the consequences of behavior are what control it. Ask yourself what are the consequences when you give your child an ambiguous order such as "go wash your hands, okay?" and then follow the noncompliance with some yelling or even worse. In this case, you are punishing the child for choosing something that sounded like a choice. This must be very confusing to the child.

There will be times when you make a request of your child. Just be sure you know which you mean for it to be. If you are giving him a choice, that is a request. If you intend for him to do it, that is an order and you should make it clear it is one.

How many times have you participated in this or a similar scenario? You look at the clock and say to your child, "Time to go get ready for bed, okay?" Well, naturally the child is not going to go along with that. As far as he is concerned it's not time, and probably won't ever be time. The child hasn't been born who is going to go to bed if he's given a choice. So, like any self-respecting child he either refuses or ignores the request. Then you go into the usual routine. You wheedle, he ignores or procrastinates. You get increasingly irritated until you find yourself yelling, and your child finally goes to bed sulking or in tears.

I believe a child needs to have choices as discussed in the chapter on responsibility; and the child needs to have it made clear when a choice is allowed and when it is not. I also believe this is one of the most common mistakes parents make in raising their children. Noncompliance with a choice is a perfectly valid response. Noncompliance with an order is not. Surely, you want your child to know the difference. If you mean to give an order and are so afraid to damage your child's psyche that you do not make it sound like an order, what can you expect from your child?

Be warned, however, children will test you at first to find out if you really mean what you say. If you fail the test by not following through with consequences for an order that is not obeyed, the child will not learn what is an order and what is not. I think this is another one of the most common mistakes parents make in teaching their child to mind them.

Surely you've seen the parent who tells Johnny to stop doing something and then just ignores the fact Johnny is still doing it. The parent who does this usually keeps repeating this order and keeps ignoring the fact that it is not obeyed. How can you expect a child to learn what is required of him under these circumstances?

Learn to use a tone of voice that says you expect compliance as a matter of course. Train yourself to point your voice down at the end of the sentence, making it an imperative statement, rather than up. When your voice has an upward inflection at the end of a sentence it turns it into a question rather than an order. Cultivate calmness, serenity, and a feeling and attitude that you are in charge of yourself and the situation. Pay attention to whether or not the child has complied with your order, and follow up immediately. See that he does it. Whatever you do, always follow through on your orders.

If you begin all this when the child is very small, he learns from the start what an order is and what the consequences are of obeying and disobeying orders. Otherwise he can grow up a very confused child. The effect on a child when he can't predict consequences can be very unfortunate. He may become unruly and uncooperative, or he may become fearful and intimidated.

Imagine your confusion and frustration if a person in authority asks you in a wishy-washy way if you want to do something, then whacks you when you fail to do it. Then perhaps next time the same person tells you to do the same job and says nothing at all when you fail to do it--or for that matter does not reward you with acknowledgment when you do it. This kind of inconsistency on an ongoing basis would soon have you ready to throw in the towel. You would be thoroughly disgusted.

I've heard both extremes. A mother issuing an order in a pleading voice that robs her of all authority, and a mother speaking to her child in a hard, mean voice, as if she hated him. It makes me feel sad to hear a small child spoken to in a loud, hateful voice. Probably the parent has gotten into the habit of talking that way to the child by being inconsistent in following up on her orders, causing the child to be confused about the consequences of obeying or ignoring her commands. Thus the child has gotten into the habit of ignoring her until she gets mean, and she has gotten into the habit of speaking harshly all the time. This is a truly vicious circle. Parent and child can eventually end up hating each other.

In addition to that problem, it is almost a certainty a child who is consistently spoken to in a hateful voice will come to have a low self image. Children believe things that are presented to them by their parents. If the parent's voice says the child is a no-good person, the child will come to believe it. People with low self esteem help keep psychologists in business.

To return to the other extreme, I think one reason parents are afraid to make their orders sound like orders is they are afraid the child won't love them. This fear can also lead to the common mistake of over-explaining. Very often a young mother will, instead of giving the child a simple order, go into an involved explanation that completely obscures what she is telling him to do. It is so important to her that her child not be mad at her that she works to get him to understand and accept the order. Then she usually compounds her felony by sticking that noxious appendage "okay?" on the end. That is a wimpy way of trying to get him to agree to her order.

A balky child, particularly a very young child, doesn't care about explanations. He wants to do what he wants to do. But he will accept a clear-cut order, however unwillingly, with less fuss than one all cluttered up with explanations and pleas for agreement.

And don't worry, your child will love you. Young children tend to love their parents, sometimes against great odds. But she may grow not to respect you, unless you consistently sound like you mean business when you issue an order, and then follow up on it. Parents who constantly sound as if they are pleading with a child cannot expect much in the way of either compliance or respect. The mother who whines, "Johnny, please don't dump dirt on Mother's clean floor, you make so much work for Mother, and she is so tired, etc., etc.," is merely going to bring out the worst in the child. None of us likes to be whined at. Most of us respond much better to good, clear-cut directions. Children do too.

Speaking of ambiguous instructions, here I have to tell one on my daughter. She is working very hard on teaching her five-year old daughter to treat animals with kindness and respect. Whenever they come to our house she reminds our granddaughter to leave our ten-year-old cat alone. She explains the cat is old and doesn't want to be bothered. The other day the little one was walking back and forth past where the cat was sleeping on the back of a couch. Several times as she went by she reached out to pet the cat. Finally our daughter said, "Sweetheart, Dinah is very old." Naturally the child ignored her. I turned to my daughter and asked, "What is the message you're trying to get across?" She thought a few seconds and said, "Marianna, leave the cat alone." Marianna stopped petting the cat and went about her business with no problem.

Children are not mind readers. Rather than giving a lot or explanations or reasons about something it seems better simply to say what is expected of the child. Giving an order is much more effective than giving reasons for the order without ever giving the order. I still think the main reason parents do that is because they are afraid their child will get mad at them or cease to love them if they just tell the child what to do or not do. Remember, giving the order is not enough. You must follow through and provide the consequences for obeying or not obeying the order. That is a fundamental rule of behavior modification. It will sure help a lot if you will quit worrying about whether your child loves you or not. Have a little faith in that.

That same day my daughter and granddaughter were telling us about an interesting museum exhibit in which the children could dig for dinosaur bones. Marianna started telling us about a rude little boy who threw sand in her eyes, took another little girl's digger away from her, and ran through the area yelling and bothering the other children. It seems every now and then his mother said, "Honey, please don't do that," but then did nothing when he kept doing it. His father just sat and watched. It's not hard to see how that little boy is growing up to be a complete nuisance. Orders mean nothing if they are given as requests and are not followed by consequences.

That reminded me of a little eight- or nine-year-old girl I watched in a restaurant. She dumped the dish of butter pats on the table and played in them, stomped crackers on the floor, and got up and wandered among the tables. Once her mother said, "Don't play with the butter, okay?" Naturally, the girl ignored her mother and went on with what she wanted to do with no consequences.

These parents are going to be shocked and bewildered when their children grow into teen-agers and start giving them all the trouble teen-agers can give to parents. They will probably wonder why people don't want to be around their little darlings.

In addition to the importance of learning how to give orders effectively, let me stress again the importance of following through. An order without consequences is not even a message, much less an order. The child who gets no notice for following orders, or no aversive results from ignoring them, will soon learn to let them bounce off.

Failing to follow up on their orders is a very common mistake among parents. Often it may be just laziness. It's a lot of trouble to check every time you give your child an order to be sure he does it. Or in many cases it may be not realizing how important it is to follow through. But making sure your orders are followed is at the very heart of effective discipline.