[Martin Taylor 940609 12:10]
Bill Leach 940608.22:44 EST
I have been wondering now for a fair period of time, what the PCT
researchers may have concluded about "controlling children"?
Does PCT really even have "anything to say on the subject"?
It seems obvious to me that it is appropriate and even essential that
parents and other adults can have a responsibility to employ force if
necessary to control the behaviour of children. Examples are easy
enough if for none other than to prevent the child from premature
termination of it's own life.
Look at the problem from the longer perspective of the child's future life.
Firstly, as you say, the child must have a future life. Force at the moment
of danger, to "control" the child as an inanimate object, is sometimes
necessary for that purpose.
But this is a trivial aspect of the use of force in training. Force is
used on inamimate objects to accelerate them, resulting in changes of
motion and location. That's not what force does when applied in opposition
to another control system. The other control system applies counterforce--
the PCT concept of "conflict." The child (the other control system) is
unable to satisfy some reference value for a controlled perception because
of the force applied by the parent or teacher. Sustained error is usually
taken to be one of the "intrinsic variables" relevant to the reorganization
system. The use of force by the parent may increase the probability of
reorganization in the child (and in the parent, provided that the use of
force is itself not a desired perception). If the child reorganizes so
that its actions satisfy parental perceptual reference levels, parental
force should stop.
Some parents have high gain on their control systems for their perceptions
of the child's actions, and in this case the child will find it difficult
to reorganize to a stable state. It may either keep changing its behaviour
(continued reorganization) or reduce its gain for the perceptual controls
that seem to cause trouble (withdrawal). The parent is applying force too
much or too often. But failure to apply sufficient force means that the
child's reorganization will continue without any shaping to the parental
perceptual reference values (which may be OK for some parents).
"Force" may be metaphoric. It is the induced error in a child's perceptual
control that matters. A frown of disapproval may induce more reorganization
in a child that has a high gain for getting approval than will be induced
by any safe amount of physical force. But whether metaphoric or physical,
for reorganization to be stable (the child to learn), the force must be
withdrawn when the child's actions come reasonably close to the parent's
reference for perceiving those actions. The parent must have a reasonable
tolerance zone ("dead zone" is an unfortunate term in this context).
Anyway, that's my take on what PCT says about the use of force. I'm sure
Ed Ford will have much more to say, from a background of experience.
Martin