What All Kids Want

Houston Nutt, former coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Ole Miss Rebels.

According to Houston Nutt, it is really quite simple.  All kids want two things: they want  be loved and they want to be disciplined.  Moreover, one without the other is worthless.  I heard Coach Nutt make these statements in an ESPN podcast a couple of years ago while I was out for a run.  I immediately stopped running and sent a text message containing this insight to some friends in education.  For the rest of my run that morning I thought about this statement and how it related to my experience with young people.  In a nutshell, I agreed completely with Coach Nutt.  Both elements are essential for a positive relationship with students.  Although my 14 years of experience with young people are not near as extensive as Coach Nutt's approximately 30 years of experience working with young men, my life experiences tell me he is right.

Kids need to know you care about them.  They want to know you love them, that they are more than just a face in a seat or a number on a uniform.  In my experience the more they are sure you love them, the more they will do for you and the greater their effort will be in whatever they are doing.  One of the best ways to demonstrate you care about someone is to spend time with that person.  Time is one of our most valuable commodities and one that is essentially non-renewable.  As such, most of us tend to spend time with people we care about deeply.  Thus, spending time with someone is a very tangible way of demonstrating to that person that we care about them and are invested in their well-being.  Go to their events and activities and make sure they see you there--catch their eye or make sure they hear you cheering for them!  An hour or two invested in attending a sporting event, concert, or some type of performance will go a long way toward building a positive relationship with a young person and showing them you care about them.

Young people need to know there are boundaries and they need to know where they are located.  Establishing clear boundaries or parameters for conduct eliminates some of the ambiguity of life for young people.  Combine this with appropriate and consistent consequences for violations of expected behavior and you create an environment in which young people feel safe.  Initially this may seem to be counter-intuitive as it seems as if young people are always testing the boundaries we establish, but this is almost always developmentally appropriate--even for very young children.  They are checking for consistency in our behavior; they want to be sure of us.  This probing behavior helps them make sense of the world in which they live.  This reminds me of a passage from Winnie the Pooh when Piglet comes up behind Pooh and say "Pooh?"  Pooh replies, "Yes, Piglet?"  "Nothing," says Piglet taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."  Often kids will test us because they want to be sure of us; they want to be sure that we mean what we say and that we are who we claim to be.  Therefore, perhaps the best thing you can do when working with young people is DWYSYWD, or Do What You Say You Will Do, especially when it comes to discipline.  Not only does this eliminate uncertainty in their life, but it also builds trust in the relationship.  The more we practice this behavior, the more they become sure of us and the more trust they have, and place, in us.

Love and discipline are the two most important elements in a positive relationship between an adult and a child.  One without the other will result in a relationship out of balance and lead to a lack of respect or even resentment.  However, combine these two elements and you have the building blocks of a positive, fruitful, and mutually beneficial relationship.