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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Joanna Faber
When expressing annoyance, irritation, or anger, it’s important to banish the word you. The you is accusatory. As soon as a child hears you, he feels defensive.
There’s a world of difference between, “Look at this mess you made!” and “I don’t like to see food on the floor!”
It’s more useful to tell her how you feel. “I don’t like being yelled at! That doesn’t make me feel helpful. I like to hear, ‘Mom, can I have some juice, please?’ ”
Express strong anger sparingly. It can feel like an attack. Even if you use the perfect wording, it’s difficult for a young child to handle strong negative emotions from an adult. Use words like angry and furious sparingly. It’s easier to hear words like upset, or frustrated, or I don’t like it when without feeling attacked.
TOOL #8: Write a Note
The written word has a mysterious power that spoken words do not. A note can be more effective than a nagging voice.
TOOL #9: Take Action Without Insult
If your child refuses to get in his carseat, “I can see the seat belt is uncomfortable. You feel freer without it. I can’t take you to your friend’s house without the belt buckled.” Or, “I don’t want to be late for work. I’m buckling you in. I know how much you hate it!”
Notice that in all these examples the child isn’t being scolded or accused. The adult is describing her own feelings and actions. She’s standing her ground, enforcing a limit, or stating her values.
Kids are exhausting. Little kids are exceptionally exhausting. For me it’s more fun when we’re all tired and cheerful, instead of tired and irritable. These tools all help you achieve the former. And it does get easier. The older they get, the more they can be in charge of themselves, especially if they’ve had the practice of making choices and being in charge of their own behavior when they’re younger.”
Study after study has found that young children who are not constantly ordered around are much more likely to cooperate with simple requests from a parent—for example, cleaning up toys when asked—than children who are micromanaged and controlled much of the time.
Self-control can only be developed by practice, not by force!
REMINDER: Tools for Engaging Cooperation 1. Be Playful • Make it a game. “Can we get all the cars into the box before the timer beeps? Ready . . . set . . . go!” • Make inanimate objects talk. “I’m an empty sock. I need a foot in me!” • Use a different accent or a silly voice. “I . . . am . . . your . . . robot . . . Must . . . buckle . . . seat . . . belt . . . now.” • Pretend! “We need to climb this slippery mountain into the carseat.” • Play the incompetent fool. “Oh dear, where does this sleeve go? Over your head? No? On the arm? This is so confusing! Thank you for helping me!” 2. Offer a
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The key question is: how do we want our children to approach conflict? Do we want them to think about what they should do to the other person—take something away or inflict pain—or do we want them to think what can I do to solve this problem?
TOOL #1: Express Your Feelings . . . Strongly! “HEY, I don’t like to see people being pushed!”
TOOL #2: Show Your Child How to Make Amends “Your sister got scared when she was pushed. Let’s do something to make her feel better.
The quickest way to change a child’s behavior and attitude is to get him involved in fixing his mistake. The best way to inspire a child to do better in the future is to give him an opportunity to do better in the present. A punishment makes him feel bad about himself. Making amends helps him feel good about himself, and helps him to see himself as a person who can do good.
TOOL #3: Offer a Choice “We’re going to give the slide a rest for now. I can see you’re in no mood to wait for a turn. You can swing on the swings or you can dig a big hole in the sand. You decide.”
TOOL #4: Take Action Without Insult If your little firecracker continues to pose a hazard to himself and others, you may have to take action: “We’re heading home. We’ll try the playground another day. I’m too worried about children getting hurt right now.”
take action in order to protect, not to punish. I take action to protect my child from harm, to protect others from being harmed physically or emotionally, to protect property, and to protect my own feelings.
When you have a problem with an adult—say, for example, you have a friend who’s always borrowing things and returning them late or broken or not at all—you probably don’t think about how you can punish that person. You think about how to respectfully protect yourself. You don’t say, “Now that you’ve given me back my jacket with a stain on it, and broken the side mirror off my car, I’m going to . . . slap you.” That would be assault. Or “. . . lock you in your room for an hour.” That would be imprisonment. Or “. . . take away your smart phone.” That would be theft. You’d probably say something
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Taking action to protect yourself and those around you is an essential life skill for adults and a powerful way to model for our children how to deal with conflict. This approach is a world apart from the tactic of thinking up ways to cause discomfort in the hope that a lesson will be learned.
TOOL #5: Try Problem-Solving
The first step of problem-solving is to acknowledge your child’s feelings.
The second step is to describe the problem. Here’s where you can talk about your feelings or other people’s feelings.
The third step is to ask for ideas.
The fourth step is to decide which ideas you both like and cross out the ones that neither of you like.
The last step is to try out your solutions.
The beauty of problem-solving is that, unlike punishment, it offers endless possibilities. If you’re committed to punishment and your child continues to misbehave, all you can do is punish more severely. You might hit him harder or take away more privileges, but chances are you won’t get any closer to your goal of having a cooperative child. And you’ll create a lot of ill will in the process. With problem-solving, you can always go back and brainstorm some more. When you put your heads together, you’re bound to come up with something that will work for both of you.
If nothing is working, you may have to reconsider your basic expectations. When children are not ready to behave in a way that is safe for themselves and others, we default to managing the environment. We don’t expect babies to keep their fingers out of electrical sockets. We cover them. We don’t build playgrounds next to highways and expect toddlers not to run into traffic after a rolling ball. We fence in the playground. We don’t leave bowls of chocolate bars in the middle of the table and expect preschoolers (or their parents!) to eat just one. We give one to each person and put the rest
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Problem-solving doesn’t always have to be a laborious, time-consuming, multistep activity. Sometimes it’s a simple shift in perspective. Instead of thinking, “How can I control this child?” we can think of our child as being on the same team and invite his help and participation.
Show respect for the conflict. Don’t minimize the problem.
Remove the disputed object temporarily.
When the disputed object is in one child’s hand it will be hard for them to think clearly. The struggle will continue. You’ll need to say, “I’ll put the remote control up on the shelf for now, while we figure out what to do. I bet if we put our heads together we can think of a solution that feels fair to both of you.”
Your kids will be pleased with themselves when they come up with their own plan. What’s more, they’ll be learning to fight less and negotiate more when they have conflicts in the future.
Rewards have many pitfalls. They don’t address the cause of the problem. They are used to manipulate the other person rather than work with her, which can lead to resentment. They are subject to inflation. And they have a dark side. A reward is offered with an implied threat: If you don’t do what I say, you’ll miss out on something good. Most people would prefer a partner who is willing to work with them to solve a problem.
What went wrong? The corollary to “you can have this wonderful thing if you do as I say” is “you can’t have this wonderful thing if you don’t do as I say.” The reward slips its mask and reveals itself as a punishment in disguise.
No promise of reward will help a child learn how to get along with a younger brother, figure out when his bladder is full, learn addition facts, or enjoy healthy food.
You can let them know that fun activities await them when chores are finished. “As soon as we get our teeth brushed, we can have bedtime stories.” “As soon as the blocks are put away, we can go to the park.” You’ve avoided the unpleasant and manipulative “If you do this, then I’ll give you that” statement, and replaced it with information.
The main weakness of the “time-out” is that it doesn’t address the problem. Let’s say your son shoves his little sister away from his blocks, and you grab him by the shoulder and rush him to the time-out chair. What do you think he’ll be saying to himself as he sits in that chair?
You can invite your son to make amends, if the mood is right. “Ella is crying. How can we make her feel better? Can you find her a toy? Or do you think she’d like a pretzel?” Once the drama is over, you can have a conversation
If you really want to use the phrase time-out in a positive way, you can say, “We need a time-out so nobody gets hurt! Quick, Thomas to the kitchen, Jenna to the living room!” You may even say, “I’m getting frustrated. I need a time-out. I’m going to my bedroom for a few minutes to calm down!” This kind of time-out is intended to protect, not to punish. It’s a way of letting our children know that sometimes we need to take a break before we can solve a problem.
They still have fights, but when Kara cries, I say to Jamie, “Oh no, Kara is sad. We need an idea to make her feel better.” It’s hard to believe, but it actually transforms him.
You don’t have to wait for a problem to occur in order to use problem-solving. When possible, plan ahead!
When we use problem-solving in place of punishment, we are truly modeling the attitude we want our kids to take toward conflict in their lives. Not “I’m a bad kid who doesn’t deserve a bedtime story.” Not “I’m a failure as a mom because I screamed at my kid,” but rather, “How can I fix my mistake?”
When there is conflict between us, we don’t need to put our energy into fighting each other. We can combine forces to search for a solution that respects the needs of all parties. The child is an active participant in solving his problems. This will stand him in good stead in the years to come. Punishment has a short shelf life. Little kids grow quickly. It’s difficult to physically punish a child who is larger and stronger than you are. As children become more independent it becomes harder to enforce punishments. How do you ground a teenager or take away his screen privileges without becoming
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REMINDER: Tools for Resolving Conflict 1. Express Your Feelings . . . Strongly! “HEY, I don’t like to see people being pushed!” 2. Show Your Child How to Make Amends “Your sister got scared on the top of the slide. Let’s do something to make her feel better. Do you want to offer her some pretzels? Do you think she’d like to play with your sand bucket?” 3. Offer a Choice “We’re going to give the slide a rest for now. I can see you’re in no mood to wait for a turn. You can swing on the swings or you can play in the sandbox. You decide.” 4. Take Action Without Insult “We’re heading home. We’ll
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But when we use words that evaluate, we often achieve the opposite effect. As you probably noticed when reading the scenarios above, praise that judges or evaluates can create problems. It can make us focus on our weaknesses rather than our strengths. I’m not really that great. You should have seen me ten minutes ago. It can make us doubt the sincerity of the person offering the praise. Does he really mean it or is he just trying to make me feel good? What does he want from me? It can feel dismissive. Did he even look at all that work I did? Maybe it wasn’t worth the effort. It can make us
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The first rule of praise is that it’s not always appropriate to praise. When a child is engaged in an activity, there is no need to disturb her concentration by looming over her and offering unsolicited comments.
TOOL #1: Describe What You See A more useful way to praise is to resist the impulse to evaluate and instead to simply describe what you see (or hear or notice with any of your five senses).
