Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC

Many supermarkets now have a thick yellow painted line somewhere within or at the edge of their parking lots.  This particular line is not there to delineate a parking space or to provide any other type of guidance for automobiles or their drivers.   It is there to show you a boundary point.  There is a sign inside the store that says if you push your shopping cart past that thick yellow line in the parking lot the wheels of your cart will lock.

A few months ago, my car was parked on the street only about 10 feet past the parking lot.  I decided to try taking my shopping cart those few feet past the boundary line with every intention of returning it to the cart corral after loading my car.   I figured if worst came to worst and the wheels locked at the yellow line, I would carry my grocery bags from my car and then roll the cart back behind the line to the cart corral. 

I figured wrong.   The wheels seized as soon as I crossed the yellow line, but when I pulled the cart back behind the yellow line the wheels did not unlock.   Do you have any idea how heavy an empty shopping cart is when you have to drag it on its locked wheels to the cart corral?

Now imagine this.   Imagine a supermarket that arranges for its shopping carts to freeze at some point in the parking lot but they don’t mark a line or any other notification of where that point in the parking lot lies.   Instead, they equip each cart with a speaker; when the wheels seize, you hear, “you have passed the line so your cart wheels are now locked.”   You seek out the store manager and express your frustration, and the manager replies, “you should’ve known not to go that far.”  That’s hard to imagine, isn’t it.  

I wonder if you can imagine how often I speak with parents who inform me that their child did something too much, or too often, or too long, and when I ask them, “what is the correct amount you had wanted,” the parents say, “I don’t know exactly, but he should’ve known when it was too much.”

The supermarket provided a success strategy.   I don’t like the way they worded it but I can understand how expressing the success strategy the way I would want you to express it might be a bit clumsy for the supermarket.   The sign in the store says, “If you take the shopping cart beyond the yellow line the wheels will lock.”   That is a description of failure and might be deemed a threat.   I prefer to describe the behavior that will lead to success, but I don’t really expect the supermarket sign to read, “As long as you keep your shopping cart between the store and the yellow line the wheels will continue to turn.”

My concept of a “success strategy” is based on the wording of the phrase we say every Shabbos morning: sur mai ra va’asei tov.  Why not just say, sur mai ra, just stop doing something bad, and leave it at that?   Because we rarely leave it at that.  If we don’t find a replacement behavior, we’ll sooner or later repeat the behavior we had hoped to replace.   A success strategy is a replacement behavior, it’s a concrete awareness what you do want instead of what you don’t want.

In addition to preventing relapse into the behaviors you don’t want, a success strategy has another very important benefit: it gives you and your child the opportunity to celebrate success instead of bemoaning failure.

I was meeting with Mattis and Blima who had been unable to find a babysitter for their 3 year old daughter Peshi this particular week.  Peshi had been sitting quietly on the floor near the sofa playing with a doll for most of the session.  Then, she got up, picked up her doll, and walked towards me.  Her mother paused and watched Peshi as she came up to me and pushed her doll against my arm.

Don’t do that, Peshi, Blima softly chided.

Peshi drew the doll away from me, and stood looking at me.  Blima and Mattis resumed their conversation with me.  Peshi again pushed her doll against my arm.

Don’t do that, Peshi, Blima a little less softly chided.

Peshi again withdrew her doll, and stood looking at me.  Blima and Mattis resumed their conversation with me.   Peshi again pushed her doll against my arm.

Peshi! I said don’t do that!  Blima chided, not at all softly.

I spoke softly to Peshi.

Peshi, how tightly can you hug your doll?

Peshi clutched her doll to her chest.   Rather than telling her to stop pushing her doll against me, I had asked her to put her doll against herself.   Of course, as long as she was pushing her doll against herself, she was no longer pushing her doll against me.   I had given her a success strategy, and she was succeeding.

When a child succeeds at meeting an expectation, it is very important that you notice and acknowledge her success.

How often do you think I interrupted my conversation with Mattis and Blima to acknowledge Peshi’s success as she continued to hug her doll rather than pushing the doll against me?  I didn’t.

I did repeatedly acknowledge Peshi’s success.   I did not interrupt my conversation with Mattis and Blima.

Every ten or fifteen seconds, as Peshi continued to succeed at hugging her doll, I looked toward her, made eye contact, pretended to be clutching something against me, and smiled her.  She smiled back every time.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with specialties in marriage, relationships, and parenting.  He works with parents and educators, and conducts parenting seminars for shuls and organizations.  He can be reached at 718-344-6575.