Getting what you want

This morning, sitting by the side of the pool, I saw human society in a nutshell. In and around the pool were children of different ages, watched over by several adults (myself included). Most of the time, the children swam and played happily. But ever so often, conflict would break out, e.g. over a certain toy. When it did, I could see the children apply a whole arsenal of tactics to get what they wanted. These tactics fall into two main categories: autonomous action, and recurring to an authority (a parent, other adult, or possibly an older child).

Autonomous actions can be split into physical actions, the most direct one being simply grabbing whatever it is you want. Or, if you are not strong or quick enough, you can try distracting the opponent first, then grabbing (best of course being a real distraction that allows one to safely claim that the other was no longer playing with the toy, but if that doesn't work, an unexpected poke in the eye can also be quite distracting). There are however two problems with the above "solutions": the risk of painful repraisal by the child who had the toy first, and the risk of one of the adults seeing you and intervening, by either taking away the toy again, or worse, by imposing punishment for bad behaviour.

(Of course, there is always the possibility of waiting for the other to lose interest in the toy, and grabbing it then, but that is an adult solution. When you are young, five minutes can be an eternity when every cell in your body is screaming for the surfboard/water pistol/ball etc.)

The second group of autonomous actions can be grouped together as "negotiating". But there is negotiating and negotiating. Usually, the child will start with a simple statement of what he or she wants, but this can range from the relatively polite request (can I have that now?), to a flat statement of fact (I want that!), to quite demanding (Gimme that!). When that doesn't work, and depending on their relationship to their opponent, they can resort to cajoling, pleading and arguing (in which case the central point is often an appeal to the other's sense of fairness), crying (attempt at emotional manipulation), or threatening (which includes threatening to tell the parents). And then there is the more rational type of negotiating, which usually includes a compromise or trade-off. Of course, this too is rife witjust h manipulation and power games, with older children often fooling the younger ones into accepting less than fair conditions, but it is definitely a step forward from grabbing what you want.

And then there is the other main option, which is recurring to an authority. In doing so, children apply most of the tactics just mentioned. The only difference is that adults are easier to manipulate emotionally. For little girls, crying usually does wonders to make a parent give you what you want (and hopefully at the expense of the other child); for little boys, anger is usually considered more appropriate. Of course, some parents are quite good at recognizing theatrics, but even those can't always be bothered to get to the bottom of an issue, the end result often being the short-term solution: grabbing the toy away from whoever has it, and yelling at your children to stop yelling.

Of course, what they should really do is teach their children how to negotiate fairly, and offer them help in the form not of decisions, but of ideas and alternatives. In the long run, that would definitely increase the total amount of peace and quiet. The problem is that that is really a lot of work. And work is the last thing on your mind when you are relaxing in the shade by the pool.

I think a lot of the people (read also classes/nations) are relaxing by the side of the pool.