Don’t Placate – Educate

If I offered advice to parents about how to raise their kids (which I don’t) I would suggest this same common sense advice because I see parents placating their kids quite often. It doesn’t work.

The most important line on the above image is the last one.

It’s very difficult to know how to please your leader, or adhere to social expectations if you don’t receive the information about those boundaries.

Just imagine starting a new job and nobody tells you the rules of the office. Thirty days later you sit down with your boss for a review. You think she’s going to praise you for the great job you’ve been doing. Instead, she tells you that she needs to let you go.

You can’t believe it. You produced more product and audited more documents than any of your office mates. You don’t understand why you are being fired?

Seeing the confusion on your face, your boss tells you that you were 5 minutes late on two of the last thirty days, and that is grounds for dismissal.

“But you never said anything to me about that!” you protest.

“I’m sorry. Those are the rules,” she replies.

You feel as if you don’t deserve what is happening to you. Why didn’t your boss teach you up front, and give you feedback when you weren’t meeting her expectations?

Dogs experience the same sort of situations all the time from owners who never take the time to educate them about the rules of the society in which they co-exist. Instead, they use a system of placating the dog by bribing them to perform behaviors, which is the complete opposite of setting boundaries and giving feedback (consequences) about crossing them.

To understand this principle better, check out this Common Sense Dog Advice:

Dogs don’t have the capacity to explain how they feel about lackluster leadership, but it often shows up in frustration-motivated behaviors which can result in negative responses from an angry owners. Worse, dogs are genetically designed to please a leader in a social hierarchy. They can’t escape from their heritable influences. It’s just not fair to use a placating strategy to control your pet dog.

Don’t Placate. Educate. Your dog will appreciate it more than you may realize.