Recently I was only partially engrossed in a classic movie, probably on Turner Classic Network, when an all-too-familiar statement came from the parental lead character – “If you don’t behave, I’m going to leave you in the car.” Flooding back to me came a litany of, well, threats from my childhood that today would, I’m sure, be interpreted as child abuse.
I think the sentence jumped out so clearly from the other movie white noise because I haven’t heard statements like it for a long time. While 2009 parents might never utter these words or never follow through if pressed, in my day, we really believed our parents would leave us in the car, leave us behind if we walked too slowly or refused to come when called or wash our mouths out with soap. The proof was in their follow through. My parents never made idle threats. You could bank on the consequences of your actions. This was never more clear than the Christmas when there were no presents because “someone” had peaked in all the hiding places and shared the bounty with their siblings. Santa doesn’t bring presents to naughty children!
Childhood traumas aside, I began to consider how often we live under perceived threats in our lives, trying to evaluate which ones might be real; or living with people trying to change our behavior by intimidating us. How much more powerful is accountability when secured by setting clear goals and measuring expected outcomes. Today, has the generation brought up on behavior modification predicated on threats simply gotten successful enough to hire an attorney? And if the newest of the generations was never threatened, what did their parents use to modify their behaviors? Future employers will probably want to know.
Filed under: Perspectives and Trends | Tagged: behavior modification, idle threats
