Jay Heinrichs has imperfect children:
Those of you who don’t have perfect children will find this familiar: Just as I was withdrawing money in a bank lobby, my 5-year-old daughter chose to throw a temper tantrum, screaming and writhing on the floor while a couple of elderly ladies looked on in disgust. (Their children, apparently, had been perfect.)
He gave his daughter Dorothy a disappointed look and said something:
She blinked a couple of times and picked herself up off the floor, pouting but quiet.“What did you say to her?” one of the women asked.
He had said, “That argument won’t work, sweetheart. It isn’t pathetic enough.”
To disagree reasonably, a child must learn the three basic tools of argument. I got them straight from Aristotle, hence the Greek labels: logos, ethos, and pathos.
You see, Heinrichs has decided to teach his children rhetoric, and an artfully pathetic argument is one that effectively plays on the audience’s emotions, not the speaker’s.
Heinrich concludes with Aristotle’s Guide to Dinner Table Discourse:
- Argue to teach decision-making. When you argue the various sides of an issue with your kids (“Beach or mountains this summer?”), they are learning to present different options (“Both!”) and then decide which choice to follow.
- Focus on the future. Arguments about the past (“Who made the mess with the toys?”) or the present (“Good children don’t leave messes.”) are far less productive than focusing on what to do or believe: “What’s a good way to make sure that toys get cleaned up?”
- Call “fouls.” Anything that impedes debate counts as a foul: Shouting, storming out of the room, or recalling past family atrocities should instantly make you choose the opposite side.
- Reward the right emotions. Respond to screaming and anger by not responding, except to say, “Oh, come on. You can do better than that.”
- Let kids win sometimes. When they present a good argument, there’s no better teaching method than rewarding them. My overreliance on the slow cooker, for instance, made my son beg for “dry” food. “Even the cat’s meals,” he said, “aren’t all wet.” Good point. I served hamburgers next. Very dry hamburgers.