Gain Parental Effectiveness by Using Situational Parenting

By Edward M. Grosso

 

 

 

Too often we tend to generalize.  We even over generalize at times.  We’ve all heard various forms of these statements: “All boys do that” or “Why, do you always do that?” or “My other three children never had a problem with this, what is wrong with this one?” or I can’t understand why he can’t try, how will he ever learn. These generalizations are quite pervasive and we tend to do them without much awareness.

 

We generalize to save time, work, and make our conclusions easier to manage, so there is a value to generalizing; however, I wonder if we test those generalizations enough to assure that they are serving us rather than hurting us. My sense is that many times these generalizations are unchecked. As a result, they are not serving our best interests and tend to dramatically diminish our effectiveness as parents. Take a moment to see what it might be doing to your effectiveness.

 

On the other side, looking at each parental situation would give much more accuracy and therefore, maximize our effectiveness. But, when I think of the thousands of situations and having a solution for each one it feels overwhelming. Who realistically has the time and energy to treat each situation separately?  Not many. Fortunately, Ken Blanchard and Dr. Paul Hersey created a solution for the business world to contain this overwhelming task, which they called situational leadership. More recently, Dr. Paul Hersey and Ron Campbell extended these situational leadership techniques to parenting with their book Situational Parenting.

 

The idea behind Hersey and Campbell’s technique is to first assess where your child is regarding his or her readiness, where readiness is a mixture of willingness, ability, and confidence. They placed this readiness into four groups; for each existing situation you want to find out: If the readiness level of a child is at an R1 level, which is Unable and Unwilling or Insecure or an R2 level which is Unable but willing or confident or an R3 level which is Able but unwilling or insecure, or an R4 level which is Able and willing and confident. The second step in the process is to match your parental response with their level of readiness. In a similar manner, they grouped parental responses by how much Direction/Guidance and how much Support the parent gives.  S1 is High Guidance and Low Support; S2 is High Guidance and High Support; S3 is Low Guidance and High Support; S4 is Low Guidance and Low Support.  The chart below shows a parent what response to use.

 

 

Child’s Readiness Level		Parental Situational Response
R1: Unable and Unwilling or Insecure	Use	S1:  High Guidance Low Support
R2: Unable and Willing or Confident	Use	S2:  High Guidance High Support
R3: Able and Unwilling or Insecure	Use	S3:  Low Guidance High Support
R4: Able and Willing and Confident	Use	S4:  Low Guidance Low Support

 

 

What does High and Low Guidance and High and Low Support look like? With the Guidance/Directive behavior the parent is directing the child in defining roles, telling him what to, how he should do it, when and where to do it, and with whom. With the Supportive behavior, the parent is engaging in a two way conversation, listening to the child, facilitating what is going on, and emotionally supporting the child. Below are some examples from Dr. Paul Hersey and Ron Campbell’s book Situational Parenting.

 

R1 situation: Marty does not want to put his toys away, and when asked, usually coverts a messy bedroom into a messier closet. His response to the last couple of attempts has been to toss or kick his toys into the closet and proclaim that “it’s good enough.” S1 response: “Before you watch any TV, Marty, you need to put your toys away. Today thing are going to be put back carefully and neatly. Your coloring books go on the shelf by the window. (Pause for compliance.) Now the train goes in the chest in your closet. We can finish making your room nice and neat by putting the building blocks in the box in the patio.”  

 

R2 Situation: Sarah is eager to help Dad build the perfect birdhouse. This is Sarah’s first wood working project and she can hardly contain her excitement. Dad cut out all the pieces last night. It is now time to assemble the masterpiece.  S2 response: “Okay Sarah, are you as excited as I am about putting your birdhouse together?” Sarah responds with a big smile and a nod of her head. “Now you said you wanted to build a birdhouse, so I’m going to show you exactly how to use a hammer. Take one of those nails and hold it with the point end on the piece of wood. That’s right, you placed it right in the middle of the board. That makes it much safer and easier to hammer the nail. Let’s use this smaller hammer because we have small nails. You’ll find the hammer easier to use if you place your hand right here on the handle.”

 

R3 Situation: Mark has worked very hard on a science project. He has done an exceptional job researching and preparing his project for display. He created a device that lights up in the back window of the car if the seat belts are not connected. His efforts have been rewarded and what was once excitement has turned into serious apprehension. Mark has been selected to represent his class in the school’s science fair. He exclaims to his Mom, “Everyone in the school is going to be looking at my project!”

S3 response: “Mark, you sound concerned, tell me why being in the fair bothers you.”

“I’m going to look like a dork,” says Mark. Mom asks, “Because you’re in the fair?”

Mark replies, “No, not because I’m in the fair, I wanted that. You don’t know what some of the other projects are like. One kid made a robot that actually moves.”

Mom responds: “Is your concern about being compared to the work of other students?”

“It’s not the competition Mom, but kids always compare. This year there are a lot of great projects,” says Mark, “Mark, I know how hard you worked on your project. You amazed me with the facts you had on the number and severity of the damage in accidents when people don’t wear their seat belts. It sounds like given what you have said about the other projects, and how good yours is, this is going to be one exciting science fair. Have you congratulated any of the other winners?” 

 

R4 situation; Pat is extremely conscientious about completing homework assignments. You have been pleased with her consistent display of self discipline and responsibility. According to the feedback on today’s report from Pat’s teachers, they too see the effort and fine results. S4 response: “Hey Pat, I am really proud of the way you keep so focused on your homework. Are you aware of how good your study habits are?’

 

When I think of mismatching your response, for example, using S4 when a child is at R2, I see a tremendous waste of time and energy for both the parent and the child. I also see increased frustration for both, a loss of confidence in both, and the possibility of negativity stored around that situation that will cause more energy and effort down the road, and finally it simply doesn’t get done. For a mismatched example, let’s use the R2 Situation above; Sarah is eager to help Dad build the perfect birdhouse. This is Sarah’s first wood working project and she can hardly contain her excitement. Dad cut out all the pieces last night. It is now time to assemble the masterpiece. Here is an example of a Mismatched Response: “Now we’re going to learn to hammer nails. Are you sure you still want to do this?” Sarah nods her head yes as a smile appears. You have the pieces right there on the bench, let’s see you put it together.” Sarah executes the first tap of the hammer safely; the second blow of the hammer sends the nail flying and the boards falling over. Dad immediately takes the hammer; “Okay you are going to hurt yourself using the hammer that way. Let me show you how to put it together properly. Now Sarah as an R2 is unable and willing or confident. As such, she needs High Guidance and High Support, which is S2:  What she got was closer to Low Support and Low Guidance, which is S4.

 

A question to raise to yourself is: “what is the ultimate cost, physically, financially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually of staying with these generalizations” –a calculation worth taking. I believe the cost over time is devastatingly high. Take a look.

 

Models like these have the tendency to look over simplified for the complexity at hand – especially when I think about raising children. Though these models can’t handle the entire complexity, they have a remarkable ability to increase your effectiveness from wherever you are. They are relatively easy to use and can align both parents on how they response to situations. It acts like a short hand language between parents, which can save incredible amounts of time.  It can make you feel stronger and more successful as a parent.

 

It’s time for you to try it. Experiment with this and see how it improves your family. And stay tuned to other articles on how to accelerate your children’s readiness; their abilities, willingness, and confidence.

 

Some resources:

1.      Situational Leadership by Ken Blanchard and Dr. Paul Hersey

2.      Situational Parenting by Dr. Paul Hersey and Ron Campbell

3.      Submit questions to norman@normantonelli.com or edwardgrosso@sbcglobal.net

 

 

Feel free to pass this on to a friend who could use it.

 

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