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Training is Not Enough!!
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The death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau is tragic in many ways. We all find sadness and lessons to spare. Here is what I find. I wrote an entry last year on the new parenting book, Whale Done Parenting:How to Make Parenting a Positive Experience for You and Your Kids. It's written by a "mega-selling" author who teamed up with SeaWorld killer whale trainers to help you train your kids as successfully as they train their orcas. Here's the pitch:
"How is it they can get a killer whale to urinate on cue, and we can't get our son to pee into the toilet?" Amy Sheldrake, young mother and killer whale trainer-in-training, marvels at the complex behaviors her superiors at SeaWorld are able to coax out of these enormous beasts, while she and her husband struggle to make their beloved--and much smaller--son Josh obey the simplest rules.
We all want our children to obey us implicitly, to do everything we want them to do. But there's a catch. When the focus of our "training" is primarily about getting our kids to do what we want them to do, we're in for trouble. The lesson is obvious, so I won't beat it to pieces. You can train a killer whale to do flips and tricks on command with yummy bits of fish as rewards, but treats and tricks don't change his heart. Tillie the orca is still an orca. He is still a creature with a wild, whale heart, just what he was created to be. 
Why we are training whales to entertain us is something of a mystery to me. And an even greater mystery---why we would emulate whale-training techniques to "train" our own children.(Or, why we would mimic the training of mules and dogs, both of which are advocated by Christian parenting authors.)Â If we buy into this, we're likely in for some heartaches of our own as our kids grow up.Â
Some suggestions: Let's "teach" our children instead of "training" them. Let's teach by living out the gospel in front of them. Let's guide their behavior, but more, let's aim for the heart. Let's give up parenting for our own convenience.
Our children are too wondrously and fearfully made to be reduced to animal training. They wear the fingerprints of a God who delights in His own creativity, poured out in a nearly infinite variety of faces and personalities, giftings, temperaments, minds, spirits. Don't we know this, how incredibly unique and complex each one of our children is? "Glory be to God for dappled things" Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote exultantly in his famous poem.
Glory be to God for dappled children, I add,
"for all things counter, original, spare, strange,
whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
with swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
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Comments
Thank you for taking the time to write. And thank you for your very encouraging words. God does want us to breathe--to breathe the fresh air of His grace, especially as we raise our children!! Bless you, Kristin in your God-given labors of love!
But I do like being reminded to focus on the positive, which is the psychology behind clicker training. When guiding my kids' behavior, it's easy to slip into my own unhealthy pattern of focusing on and criticizing their undesirable actions, attitudes or behaviors and forgetting to reward, thank, acknowledge, and praise those attitudes/behaviors that reflect great character, wisdom, self-control, etc.
I had a great conversation with one of my teenage daughters about this. She thought that in the context of a respectful, loving relationship, it would be great to hear more positive input from me and be spotted for the good she does.
So though the whale approach is weird, maybe one good thing that can come from the basic concept is that it can create a positive environment in which kids can grow up.
A breath of fresh air; God-inspired.
Thank you for following your highest calling!
Kristin Nelson, mother of two in Minneapolis, MN
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