Dogs can be a delight to live with or a horror. They have a lot of nasty habits. They bark incessantly, jump up on visitors, grab food out of a child’s hand, barge out the front door and race off, pull on the leash, dig holes in the garden, refuse to come on command, chase cars, snarl at strangers, scare children, rip pillows, climb on the dining table, attack other dogs, lick children’s faces, race after cats and give you heart attacks when they run across the road oblivious to traffic. Dogs like that are horrible. They are uncontrollable, exasperating and frightening.
Dogs can be trained, though. Their behaviour can be quickly and dramatically changed, by simply understanding how a dog’s brain works. A dog is a pack animal, so it responds happily and naturally to the rules of the pack. There’s a pack leader and a pecking order, which a dog instinctively accepts. He’s happy knowing who’s in charge, what’s expected of him, and he never needs rewarding to make him obey, because that’s the way it is in the pack.
Many people, however, treat their dogs like children, thinking dogs respond to love and pampering. For dogs, however, love is not enough to change their behaviour. It isn’t love that creates their behaviour in the pack, it’s clear rules as to who’s in charge and doing what’s expected of them.
Some people who understand that about dogs, though, think that’s the way you train children – that children must be made to know who’s in charge and do what’s expected of them, too.
But children aren’t dogs. Children are built to respond to love. Love does change their behaviour. When a child is loved, enjoyed, encouraged and listened to, it can change a snarly brat into an enthusiastic joy. And it doesn’t take much, either. Take the kid to school and have a good laugh along the way, and it does wonders for a child’s attitude in just minutes. Laugh with a child, joke with a child, hug and snuggle, rough and tumble and thrill in their growth, and a child in such an atmosphere won’t need rewards and punishment to make him obey. When a child is loved, he instinctively loves in return.
And where does such a radical idea come from? From God. “We love because he first loved us,” 1 John 4:19. When we know we’re loved, we love in return. Dogs aren’t wired that way, but we are.
Filed under: Children
