Episode 291 – Do As I Say

Surely every culture has a saying comparable to “Do as I say, not as I do.” And most likely such sayings persist over generations because the desire to tell others what to do while we do as we please remains a common human short-coming.

But while we may worry most about our peers or, gasp!, superiors pointing out this inconsistency and thus may be more mindful about displaying such behavior in their presence, somehow we convince ourselves we can fool kids and animals. And sometimes we may succeed.

But other times when we think we’re fooling them, they wind up fooling us. The trouble is that we may not realize this until we give them a command that it’s really important for them to obey and they blow us off.

As I recorded the last in this series of podcasts on parental strategies that create problems for kids and animals, it dawned on me what the parental hold-up is. Sometimes we adults don’t want to grow up. But be that as it may, it’s never to late to try.