Why do lectures stop working on kids? Dr. Ray jokes about the parental lecture, explains why we give them, and says the longer the lecture, the less it is heard.
Why parents lecture
A staple of parenthood is the parent’s lecture, especially when the kids pull some stunt or do something that absolutely collides with the character you’ve been trying to teach. We feel desperate, and when we get desperate, we lecture.
To us, a lecture really isn’t a lecture until it hits maybe 30,000 or 40,000 words. To kids, a lecture is anything that begins with “I want to talk to you” or “When I was your age” or “What were you thinking?” or “Listen up.” A compound sentence, that’s a lecture. Two independent clauses linked together by “and” or “but,” that’s a lecture. To them anyway.
Why do we lecture? We think that given enough words, there’s going to be more persuasion. Somehow, some way, we will move through a chain of reasoning or cite other evidence that, as we proceed through the lecture, is going to essentially make a case. Maybe our first 800 words didn’t do anything, but who knows, 801 through 4,000 just might. We cling to the hope that we’re going to get through. I’m not saying we don’t. I would think that we would, approximately 1.62% of the time, but there’s always the hope, springing eternal.
My mother’s lectures
My mom was wonderful at lectures. “Raymond Nicholas Guarendi. How many times are you going to make me call you in here, Buster? You know, buddy boy, you seem to think I talk just to hear myself talk. You seem to think I like the sound of my own voice. I’m going to tell you something, you better listen and you better listen good, because I’m not going to say it again. I was not put on this earth to serve you. There are five other people in this house. You think we’re going to involve our schedule around yours? You mark my word, there are going to be some changes around here, because I am sick and I am tired. I have just about had you up to here. You don’t realize how good you’ve got it, but you’re going to find out something, because I’m going to tell you something else. You look at me when I talk to you. Don’t you look at me like that.”
I didn’t really move. I mean, she wasn’t mad enough yet. My mother’s philosophy was, if the first 30,000 didn’t get you anywhere, double it. “You think you’ve got it tough? I am going to tell you what tough is. When I was a little girl, I used to walk 18 miles uphill both ways to school in a foot of nuclear waste with no shoes. We had one pair that glowed for 14 brothers and sisters. My turn only came around every two weeks, and I always gave my turn away. That’s the kind of girl I was. I got up at five o’clock in the morning, two hours before we were even allowed to go to bed, split a cornflake for breakfast with six brothers, carried the school on my back, did their homework along the way. You want to know something? I was grateful for what little I had.” What’d you have, Mom? “Nothing. Weren’t you listening? But we were happy children.”
The law of diminishing returns
The temptation to lecture is ever present. We just want to get through. We want to explain to them why we are parenting the way we’re parenting, why we think the way we think, why we don’t let them do what they want to do, why we do let them do what they don’t want to do. We just have to get through to them, to understand.
You know the irony? As most kids get older, I’m talking seven, eight, nine, they do understand. At some primitive level, they do. They just don’t agree. That’s the difference. A client will be in my office with a 14-year-old, and I’ll say to the kid, “Would you please tell your mother why she has that rule?” And this kid says it better than I could say it. I get the smelling salts out, I revive mother, and I say, “What do you think of that?” She says, “Well, I never thought she understood it.” I say, “She always understood it, Mom.” She didn’t agree. There’s the difference.
If you want to lecture, go ahead, but keep in mind, you get past a certain point where you’re not only getting no results, you’re probably regressing. Law of diminishing returns: the more you talk, the less you get listened to. Make your case, make it clear, ask if they have any questions, and then probably let it go, because after a while, you know what you sound like? Charlie Brown, when he’s holding up the phone, and you hear, “Want, want, want, want, want.” Or, and this is something I’ve noticed people do, they lecture their dogs. Did you ever notice that? “Now you get in here right now. What did you do? You see what you did in here? Are you allowed to do that in here? No, you’re not. And what happened the last time you…” And you know what the dog hears? “Blah, blah, blah, blah, Max, blah, blah, blah, Max.” Let the dogs give us a lesson. So if you want to lecture, go ahead, but keep in mind, the longer the lecture, probably the less it’s heard.
Dr. Ray goes deeper on this in Discipline That Lasts a Lifetime.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.