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Children ASK … What do you want me to do?

By Holli Willibey, from Artistry in Florida

How many times have you told your child to stop doing something or to “not” do something?  The next time you catch yourself telling your child not to hit his sister, for example, you may want to consider the effects of what you are doing.

Instead of re-directing your child’s behavior to a more positive outcome for future events similar to the one that just occurred, you are only delaying the same response or leaving the choice of a new response to your child.  I maintain that there is a better way.  We will use the example of a child hitting his sister to show how you can better direct your child for behavioral success.

Example:

Tommy, age 8, hits his sister because she accidentally put her foot on him as they sat near each other on the couch.  Mom says, “Tommy, you will have a time out for what you did because you know that was a poor choice!  Come sit over here with me and tell me why you did that, and what you could have done instead.”  With her statement, this mom engages her child in a conversation that allows him to express his negative feelings because his sister’s foot was on him, and directs him to choose a better response that he can use in the future while discussing this emotional reaction.  

By acknowledging the child’s emotions and engaging him in choosing a better behavioral solution for next time, this mom is helping her child build a personal behavioral store of responses for situations he finds unpleasant.  If this mom was to just send her child to timeout without inviting him to choose better future behavior, he will be left with what he knows and will find no reason to explore new choices for future use.  Essentially, then, the punishment tells the child he did wrong, but creates no sense of responsibility for the actions and offers no alternatives.

People build behavioral stores of responses that allow them to react in new situations according to what they have learned in previous situations.  The methods I am suggesting to you work very well over time, despite the previous behavior of the child involved.  The trick is, though, that you have to be consistent in helping your child learn new responses.  In order to do this well, you must know what you would prefer your child to do to replace the behavioral choice he or she just made.  And, you must take the time to help your child explore his or her behavioral choices no matter how busy you are at the time of need.  If you use this parenting technique, you will be very happy to find that your child will become quite well behaved and will learn to make better choices than before.

Artistry, THE place to learn to sing, will be offering a new workshop series soon to help parents explore some of the issues associated with parenting.  Please call or email us to get involved:  (727) 488-4915 or Info@ArtistryinFlorida.com.