John Cowan - Plants and children

Plants hate me. They hiss at me as I walk past them… the ones that are still alive, anyway. When I look at the jungle I laughingly call a garden I don’t know whether to try and weed it or charge people $2 a head for a wilderness nature ramble. Whatever the opposite of a green thumb is, I’ve got it.

I don’t doubt I deserve their ill will, but nevertheless I doubt if my plants conspire to commit hari kari just to annoy me. Plants seldom wilt, brown and die purely from revenge or naughtiness. If I am confronted with a plant that is drooping and yellowing and loosing its leaves, then yelling at it is not going to fix it. I could shake it, tell it how ashamed I am of it and threaten to give it a clip around the buds… but it won’t do it much good. I know. I’ve tried it.

Even with my stunted horticultural ability, I know that a plant needs something: repotting, fertilising, watering, moving into the sun, spraying, pruning, whatever.

Let’s transplant that analogy into your family. Yes, children can be aggravating but, just like my plants, I don’t believe they are deliberately plotting to drive us mad.  Dr William Sears said, “The basic tools of discipline come from knowing your child and helping him feel right. A child who feels right, acts right.”

All children spontaneously throw up the odd bit of peppery behaviour, but if you are consistently being confronted by a pattern of uncooperative and disagreeable behaviour, then see it as a symptom of some underlying need. You have to take a step back and try to get a bigger picture. Is my child getting enough time and attention? Are they having enough fun? Is there an unmet nurture need? Are they being bullied? Are there drugs involved? Is there some underlying health issue?

Just like a baby’s cry, a child’s behaviour means something.