Do as I say, not as I do

IT IS ONE of the (many) things not fully understood when coming new to parenthood: the constant scrutiny you will be under as a role model for at least the next 18 years.

It might take a while to appreciate how your every move is being watched. But the first time you see your toddler doing a perfect mimic of you dropping a cup on the floor and uttering an expletive, realisation begins to dawn.

There’s no hope of doing one thing while trying to teach another. Yet who hasn’t, at some time, committed the classic parental hypocrisy of shouting at a truculent child: “Don’t shout at me!”

Even if swearing and shouting are not your weakness, we all have bad habits we would rather our children did not copy. But the obligation to be a responsible, well-mannered adult at all times, even in the privacy of your own home, can be a right pain.

Sometimes, only a slammed door or letting rip in colourful language can express what you’re feeling; there are days that are made to be spent under the duvet, occasions when only junk food hits the spot, and times when little white lies have to be told on the phone. But no, not in front of the children . . .

Setting a bad example apart – remember what might be reported in front of the whole junior infants class and their teacher the next day.

Why is it that when we model “good” habits over and over again, such as hanging up coats, putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket and replacing used toilet rolls, they seem to go unnoticed? Yet put your feet up on the coffee table just once or take a swig of fruit juice straight from the carton when you think no one is looking and such behaviour becomes instantly ingrained in your offspring.

And that’s only the trivial stuff. We probably don’t need scientific studies to tell us that children of smokers and drinkers are more likely to indulge, earlier and more often – we all know about “monkey see, monkey do”.

Yet the message from the likes of consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr Bobby Smyth, that parents might have to modify their drinking if they are to deter teenagers from misuse of alcohol, is not always welcome.

And last month Róisín Shortall, Minister of State at the Department of Health, attracted the ire of some when she suggested maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be sharing the contents of your drinks cabinet with underage children at home.

For actor Mark Wahlberg, it was dissuading his children from wanting tattoos like him that exercised his mind. Now a father of four, he took two of them along to see the ink-stained reminders of his youth being removed last year.

"I don't want to have my kids getting tattoos," he said on NBC's Todayprogramme. "I'm taking my two oldest kids with me to the procedure, where they can see how painful that is."

There may have been no tattoos to remove in my household, but there’s been no more polishing off a packet of chocolate biscuits in one evening since the little darlings learned to count.

The boys are so concerned about keeping tabs on each other’s consumption of “treats” that, when they engage in a frenzy of mutual accusation and denial, I am forced to admit that, um, actually it was me who ate the last three.

As they get older, I fear we are nearing wine-bottle-counting territory. Now they stay up later, they are around to see a bottle of wine being opened because it’s Friday, or one of us had a bad – or a good – day, or because we just feel like one.

Clinical psychologist Michael Mullally is not aware of any research showing that bad habits are more contagious than good ones.

It is more, he suggests, a case of not noticing, to the same extent, the good habits we are passing on.

He is continually surprised by the emphasis people put on discouraging negative behaviour rather than encouraging positive behaviour.

Children learn more by what they see and what they experience than by verbal instruction.

“There is not a lot you can do to change the genetics, so your greatest avenue for influence is the behaviours that you teach,” he points out.

However, “you can only influence your children to a degree – they are going to come under other influences as well, and they will invariably and inevitably pick up habits and traits that you don’t particularly like.”

For a bunch of obviously perfect parents across the water, Peppa Pigwas the culprit when they were bemoaning the emergence of bad habits in their pre-schoolers earlier this year. Answering back, demanding chocolate cake and, shock horror, splashing in muddy puddles, were all blamed on the popular cartoon series.

When it comes to a hankering for chocolate cake or a bag of crisps, some of us look closer to home. But unless the habits your children are picking up are particularly abhorrent or injurious to other people, don’t get too energised about it is the advice offered by Mullally.

Far better to teach your children to think for themselves and to have a sense of compassion and caring for people, rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of do they hang up their coats, he says. “At the end of the day, the important thing is that your children are loved and happy, rather than that they behave themselves in a totally politically correct manner.”

Perhaps it is okay, then, to let our guard down from time to time – as long as we don’t make a habit of it.

‘I’ve been a dedicated nail-biter for years, since I was a very young child’

Author Sarah Webb’s “pretty awful” habit of biting her nails is one she would rather not pass on to her children, although she already sees her eight-year-old daughter Amy Rose doing it.

“I’ve been a dedicated nail-biter for years, since I was a very young child,” she explains. “Ive done everything I can to try to stop – nasty-tasting nail polish, manicures, rewards, all to no avail.”

It gets worse at times of high stress – such as now, as her latest book, The Shoestring Club, is published this month. “I have literally no nails.”

There are worse things she could be doing when stressed, she concedes, but she frequently feels ashamed about the state of her hands.

She was teased at school about making strange faces to concentrate as she writes – and it is a habit she continues to this day. “These range from twisting my mouth up, to scowling, frowning, biting my lip and sticking my tongue out. I just cant help it.”

Now that she has noticed both her younger children doing something similar during homework, she has been making a concerted effort to stop.

Another habit Webb might have to curb, now that her five-year-old son Lago has been seen to do it too, is shouting and chucking things at the television when people on it annoy her. Soft toys to hand don’t do any damage when used as missiles, but remote controls are another matter.

After a decade of working in childcare before he became a father of two boys, it was already second nature to Mick Kenny to be on his best behaviour in front of children.

He thinks his worst habit is getting a “tad” annoyed at other road users when driving. “What I should be keeping in my head escapes.”

However, he tries to vent his emotions with mild-sounding words like “muppet” – although this has started to confuse his sons, aged four and six, now that the Muppets are back in the news with a film opening this Friday.

If he lets out a word he shouldn’t, there is instantly a chorus in the back of the car saying: “Ooh, I’m telling Mammy.” So the boys certainly know it is something they shouldn’t be copying, and he thinks it is good for children to understand that sometimes you do make mistakes.

“In fairness to parents, you can’t be an angel 100 per cent of the time,” says Kenny, who is manager of the Urlingford Community Care Centre in Co Kilkenny.

Both he and his wife, who also has a childcare background, believe it is very important to lead by example. “Good habits breed good habits.”

He is very aware of how he conducts himself with other people – even when he has reason to complain – and says it is the difference between being assertive and just plain aggressive.

Childcare workers are important role models, so the few staff members in the Urlingford centre who smoke usually retreat to their cars for a cigarette, out of sight, rather than hanging around outside as in other workplaces.

“Even for the kids to see it, it is not a good habit,” Kenny says. “It is giving them the message that it is okay to smoke.”

The day PR executive and mother of three Carmel Doyle caught one of her sons reading his book in the toilet, she knew it was a habit that had to be stopped there and then. So she had words – with her husband.

As for her own behaviour, she would like to stop the panicked routine when she’s trying to get out of the house, can’t find the keys and is in danger of being late. “You don’t realise you are doing it until you see and hear it again coming from one of the children.

“My middle child in particular seems to have picked that up and I feel a bit guilty. He would be genuinely concerned that he’s going to be late for school and I have to say, ‘Calm down, you won’t be late’. It is not good for a child to be worrying that you’re late.”

Children pick up every single thing, she points out. “I don’t want my children turning out to be people who dash around like I do.”

She also finds herself doing something her mother did, which she swore she would never do – walking around the house, ranting about clothes and things on the floor. “I go into this complete dialogue and I am sure my kids are going to do it to their kids.”

You have to be careful about the mixed messages, she acknowledges. “You can’t say to a child you have to eat at the table, when I’m enjoying tea and a biscuit on the couch.”

Working from home, she worries about the length of time she has to be on the computer because she does not want her children spending too long on technological devices.

“I will give them the big lecture and they will say straight back to me, ‘What about you?’ And I’ll say that’s work. But they don’t seem to get that.”

She recalls an incident the previous night, in which she was forced to account for her behaviour.

“My eldest child was laughing with his brother and I said, ‘What’s so funny?’ And he said, ‘Mam you actually called a Minister a dick.’

“I was caught and I had to say I did. He said, ‘Well why did you do that?’ and he was laughing . . .”

“Because I think he is a dick, he doesn’t use his head,” she explained, believing that, in situations like that, honesty is the best policy.

'I hope [chatting] is the one bad habit they have picked up'

Now that Sue Jameson’s three children are grown up, her habit sharing is no longer a work in progress but a done deal.

“Competitive acquisition I would say is the worst trait that I have passed on,” she says. “We are all competitive skip divers – even dear daughter was seen head first upside down in one outside a club the other night.”

It wasn’t the drink but the lure of somebody else’s cast-offs. “It is a bad habit. It means we keep bringing home trash; chairs that only need a little mend and a table with three gammy legs, ‘we’ll fix that’ – and we never do.”

Another of her bad habits is doing everything at the 11th hour and one of her offspring, she says, is now a “supreme procrastinator, better than me”.

She thinks they have also inherited her attitude to life of “ah sure, it will be all right. Therefore nothing fazes them – even the things that ought to.”

Jameson is also partial to “endless chatting”, which means it frequently takes her ages to go anywhere and do anything, but can also be an asset in her work as breastfeeding consultant, reassuring new mums.

“I would hope it is the one bad habit that they have picked up – that they will always have time for the people in their lives and complete strangers, people they know nothing about who will cross their paths and could be an opportunity waiting to happen.”