I sat trapped on the plane, hurtling toward Orlando, strapped to my seat, about 30,000 feet above the ground. I say “stuck” because my seat, even my entire row, was constantly being shaken, slammed and thrown by a couple of angelic-looking, blonde-haired little monsters in the row in front of me.
Twelve-year-old Michael and his eight-year-old brother found relief from boredom the only way they knew how…fighting, scuffling, and harassing everyone in three rows in all directions.
At first, I, too, was irritated by the little blond jerks. But when his father finally got up from his seat to threaten the children with physical harm, I started to smile. I almost laughed actually. Not because the boys were finally speaking sternly. But because of the image that came to me.
Suddenly, the children reminded me of a pair of blond Golden Retriever puppies, happy, loud…and completely out of control. Michael and David, not receiving instructions from their parents, adopted familiar behaviors on that flight. They “broke it, from the ground up.”
Dad yelled at the kids in that low, angry tone that well-behaved parents use when what they really want to do is yell out loud at their kids at Walmart. And he marked them. Most of the coach was grateful. But the good effects of that rebuke were too temporary. My seat began to rock and roll once more. The puppies, I mean the children, defaulted back to standard child behaviors.
That’s when mom intervened. She came bringing gifts. She sweetly told them that her options included certain death at the hands of her father…or they could do the activity games in the shopping bag she dropped in her lap. She walked away.
The boys tore up that sack like golden cubs in a liverwurst stuffed Kong. Bags of pretzels, disposable cameras, coloring books and playing cards gushed out of that cornucopia of kiddie treats like a geyser from Old Faithful.
It was a good thing.
Yes, they were still children.
“We are almost there?”
“How many minutes are left?”
The questions and the protests still gave the kids a chance to be, well, kids. But the worst of the chaos was over.
I have this weird tendency to see dog training as a metaphor for life itself. In my opinion, there is not much in human behavior that escapes a direct correlation with dogs. So I thought about Michael and David and why they reminded me so much of the puppies. Then it hits me.
Dad came and told them what not to do. And that didn’t work for more than a few moments. Mom had a better idea. She showed the children a new behavior they could do, while also presenting them with a consequence if they didn’t choose the new, more rewarding behavior she had designed for them.
The parallel with our lives arises when we help dogs or puppies to stop unwanted behavior. It is effective to teach a dog a new behavior that is incompatible with her unwanted behavior. It is less effective to simply correct a dog for doing something wrong.
Take jumping on people. You can simply correct it. But the temptation remains. Also, put yourself in the 21st century. We have dogs for the “warm and furry”. We are less and less likely to knee your dog when the dog just wants to say hello. So instead of fighting the dog, why not teach him to sit and offer his paw for attention? He can’t just do that and jump now, can he? Plus, it’s such an engaging trick that he’s likely to gain a lot more attention for the dog and thus become rewarding.
Dick Russell, a professional dog trainer in Louisiana, says he teaches the same “sit and paw” routine to space guard dogs. A dog doesn’t usually sit, shake, and protect a child’s space at the same time. I handle this problem in a different way. Using gentle touch with the leash and collar, I teach the dog to move and give up any space the humans want to take. Either way, you have taught the dog what he SHOULD do as well as what he SHOULD NOT do.
As for Michael and David, they played with their new toys for quite some time. However, I watched them periodically, hoping that the old behavior would reassert itself. I smile, thinking of the dog training kit located in my checked luggage. If only I could have children, we could all retire to my own private island, where the dogs run free and the children are well behaved.
