Parenting Experiments

It is one of the easiest things a parent does.

You see what happens. You know what usually happens. And because you know what usually happens, it becomes very easy to believe you know why.

Your child doesn't remember, so you remind them. They don't seem to care, so you push harder. They can't be trusted, so you supervise them. Then your child responds to what you do.

And you respond to that.

I've spent years working with children in classrooms, and by the end of that work I had developed a strange habit whenever I started working with a new child. I ran an experiment.

The normal approach was predictable. I'd be briefed on the job. I'd read the case files. I'd learn the child's history, what the problems were supposed to be, what I should look out for, what I should expect.

Some of these children had already changed schools, teachers and assistants. Psychologists had worked with them. Behavioural therapists had worked with them. Structures had been designed around them. Some were close to being removed from the public school system altogether.

I couldn't afford to assume that the structure was right. I couldn't assume the child was the problem. And I certainly couldn't assume that doing more of what everyone else had already done would somehow produce a different result.

So I didn't arrive carrying the complete explanation. I arrived and watched. I became part of the room. A child wanted to show me something. Someone needed help. A group of teenagers wanted to drag me into their conversation. Something interesting was happening. I'd get involved. I'd have fun. I'd make myself useful.

And the child I was there to support would see it. They knew I was there. If they needed me, they could let me know. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn't. Either way, I had learned something.

I wasn't trying to prove that my theory about the child was right. I was trying to find out what was actually there. That distinction changed everything about how I worked.

And the experiments need to be small. One change. A short window. Something you can actually observe. No announcement. No new family system. No speech about what everyone is going to do differently from now on. Just one interruption to the certainty of ordinary life.

Then you look.

You may find that surprisingly difficult. That's useful too. Don't correct the experiment halfway through. Don't rescue the result because you're uncomfortable with what you're seeing. At the end of the day, ask yourself one question: Did you learn anything? That's it.

The experiment doesn't need to produce the result you wanted. It needs to give you something true enough to think with. That is the whole point.

Here's another:

And perhaps you notice:

You don't have to decide what it means immediately. You have found something out. That is already progress.

Parenting is continuous. You do something. Your child responds. You respond to that. They respond again. The day continues. Tomorrow, you do much the same thing. After enough repetition, you become extraordinarily good at predicting the pattern. But knowing what usually happens is not the same as knowing what could happen.

Sometimes you have to change something to find out. And because you're part of the system you're trying to understand, changing yourself is often the cleanest place to begin.

Your child responds to your behaviour. Then you respond to theirs. The loop closes.

This is the strange thing about certainty in parenting: the moment you decide what a child is, you begin behaving as though it is true. And your child gets to respond to the behaviour that follows.

This is one reason expectations can become self-reinforcing. You don't need a psychology experiment to see the possibility. You can see it in your kitchen. You can see it at the front door. You can see it when you say, "Did you remember?" And then you say it again.

The question is not whether reminders are sometimes useful. Of course they are. The question is what happens when the reminder becomes part of the child's ordinary operating environment. That is something you can find out.

I learned to look for what appeared when I stopped interfering. That became one of the most useful things I discovered in my work. When I stopped carrying the complete explanation of a child into the room, I saw things I couldn't have seen before.

I wasn't trying to prove the opposite diagnosis. I was trying not to have a diagnosis at all until I'd seen enough reality to earn one.

The experiment is not the answer. This matters. A parenting experiment isn't a trick that produces a particular behaviour. It isn't a gentler way to manipulate your child. It isn't a new system to install.

You can spend years trying different consequences, different rewards, different words, different routines, different systems. Or sometimes you can change one thing and watch.

The first approach asks: How do I make this happen? The second asks: What happens if I stop doing what I normally do?

That question can take you somewhere your parenting advice never could. Because the most valuable thing you can discover isn't that your technique worked. It is that your original understanding of your child was incomplete.