Four Year Olds Do It Naturally

16 years ago when I first moved to France with my horses, I had an experience with a child. She was Lydia, the four year old daughter of my friend.

Fergus. [https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2b/3a/b7/2b3ab74a5e210e3d1b237f734aea1e09.jpg source]

Those of us with horses know that a lot of your time is spent, not riding, but picking up poop in fields or in stables. I was out in the field with this little girl (because I've been given the task of looking after her for the day), and this little girl was helping me pick up the poop. All of a sudden she threw all her tools down and said, 'I have had enough with this. I don't want to do it anymore.'

I thought to myself, “Ok, what am I going to do about this?” I realized I had a few options since I really needed her to help me with the horses.

So at first I thought I could threaten her, and say to her, “If you don't do this, I'm going to tell your mom and when she comes home you're going to get punished,” or something to that effect.

Alternatively, I could try and offer an incentive to do it, and say, “If you do this, I will give you a reward at the end. We'll play a game or you'll have an ice cream.”

Then I thought I could try and explain to her exactly why I'm doing these tasks. So what is this system that I'm a part of and why do I do this every single day?

These three options are the self same strategies deployed by many who manage performance in organisations!

Then I wondered whether you can reason with a four-year-old child.

As I’m always ready for experiments, I went and sat down with her on the grass. I asked her simply, “Why do you think I do this?''

She said, “I have no idea. I only do the things that I like and I don't like doing this.” So I replied with, “Well I don't really like doing it either. So given that I don't like doing it, why do you think that I do it?” To which Lydia replies with, “Well you must be stupid, I don't do things that I don't like.”

So I stopped and asked her what would happen if I didn't follow through with these tasks (i.e. picking up after the horses). She sat and thought for a moment, and then she looked up at me with wide eyes.

She said that the fields would be full of poop, to which I asked why that mattered. She said, “Mommy told me if the horses are standing in poop, their feet can get really sore, and they would have poor feet.”

Girls and Horses

I tried to probe and see if she would say anything further. She continued by explaining that the horses wouldn’t be able to eat grass, which is something horses love doing. I then asked her again if that mattered.

The little girl was able to rationalize that since the horses wouldn’t be able to eat grass, they wouldn’t be happy, and they would grow hungrier and be thinner as a result.

I responded by essentially repeating this information back to her, “Ok so you’ve told me the horses would have poor feet, they would be hungry, and they would be unhealthy. But I’m with you though, let’s go and have some fun!”

The little girl exclaimed, “No! No! We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to do it now!”

That was a big lesson for me to learn. When somebody, especially a child sees the value in what they do, and sees they have agency in a system, it can make a massive difference in their lives. She's just four years old, meaning that at four years old, she can think systemically and can make choices.

See also [[A Tale of Poo]]