The other day, I told my husband that I wanted to write about behavioral change, but was stuck trying to find an example, he laughed and said, "Tell the d'oh story!" So, at his suggestion, here's a little tale that has reached the status of legend in our household...Way back in the days when Mark was still my boyfriend and not yet my husband, we were having a discussion about change over lunch with friends. And Mark and I were disagreeing. He contended that, to change behavior, all that was necessary was to decide one wanted to change and put a wholehearted effort into it. After all, his mother had just stopped smoking, cold turkey, after forty years, proving that it was possible to make dramatic changes, given sufficient motivation. I said changing behavior was a difficult and complicated thing and that one person's ability to quit smoking cold turkey didn't make it universally possible for everyone. So much of our behavior is ingrained, unconscious, reflexive or just who we are that willpower and determination could only get you so far.
And I said I could prove he was wrong. I made him a little wager to act as an incentive. I bet him that he could not go a day, just one day, without using his favorite exclamation: "D'oh!"
He scoffed at me. "One day? I could go a week! I could go a month! I could stop forever, if I wanted to and just put my mind to it." So, deciding that a single day was beneath him, that he and his willpower would so surely win, we settled on a week. Having shaken hands on the deal, he got up, walked into the next room, and leaned over to pick something up. His glasses fell off, and clear as day, not a minute after he swore to go a week without saying it, I heard the word "d'oh!" echo through the house. And then, when he realized what he'd done: "D'oh." And peals of laughter rang out from all of us.
In the end, that funny little demonstration didn't really (go figure) change his deeply held beliefs. He continued to go on believing that he could stop his own compulsive sexual behavior if he just tried really, really hard. Now, he wouldn't have bet that he could take off his glasses and will himself to read the clock across the room, but he still believed he could change deep behavioral and neurological differences. It took him a long time to realize that he had to more than try hard, he had to try hard in the right ways; he needed help and tools, just the same way that he needs eye exams and glasses.
But who can blame him for thinking that behavior is easy to change? It's a common belief in our society. In fact, in spite of my own professed beliefs that change was hard, and in spite of proving that changing something as little as saying "d'oh" was hard, I somehow believed, just like Mark did, that changing something as big as his social and sexual behavior would be easy, "if he really loved me."
And this same assumption, that changing behavior depends largely on willpower, is what teacher Wendy Portillo was acting on when she staged a kindergarten cross between Survivor and Intervention to get Alex Barton. She assumed that Alex was (because all children are, right?) capable of instantly performing as desired, if only the right carrots and (perhaps more importantly) sticks are present. She assumed, as so many of us do, that to effect change all one really needs to do is provide sufficient motivation. Prove to Alex that change is really important and then, voilà, he will exert the necessary effort and all will be right with the world. And this comes with the twin assumption: making people realize just how poorly they've done or how much they've hurt people is an excellent way to provide that needed motivation, be it in the form of shame, guilt or even empathy.
The sad truth I've seen played out in my life, from that small "d'oh" to addiction to autism to my own issues with anxiety and codependency, is that change is hard, and that different things are difficult for different people. Something that is as easy for me (with my 20/20 vision) as reading the clock across the room can be unbelievably difficult, or even impossible, for others. While something that's as difficult for me (with my migraines) as reading a page of white text on black background isn't noticeable at all for someone else. And that trying to solve interpersonal problems by telling people they ought to try harder to change is a recipe for frustration and resentment.
In Wendy Portillo's classroom, mistaken beliefs about change meant that something that may not have been intended as cruel, was. Over and over again, Wendy Portillo was saying, "Alex, it's really important to all of us that you behave the same way the rest of us do. You must not be trying, because if you were, you could do it." And over and over again, Alex was saying, "I can't. I know that for other kids, it's easy, but as hard as I try. I just have no idea how to do that or even where to start." But she didn't believe him.
She was frustrated by the behavioral equivalent of having a child in her class with vision problems and no corrective lenses. And she handled it by telling the child to work harder at trying to see better. And that child was probably left wondering why the world looked blurry, why he was so weak willed that he couldn't do the hard work the others must be doing to make things clear.
And that's eliciting a lot of exclamations much stronger than "d'oh," bringing more tears than laughter and causing everyone involved to lose a lot more than a playful bet.
22 comments: