What Not to Say When You’re Disappointed With Your Child

by Sharon Silver on February 27, 2012

Indian boy crying2 What Not to Say When Youre Disappointed With Your Child“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” When I was little that rhyme was the big, bad, powerful statement we used to ward off the vicious attacks of other kids. 



That rhyme gave us power, but didn’t protect us from the sting of the words. It didn’t stop the ugly words from sinking in and taking root. It didn’t stop those words from becoming the way we saw ourselves, or from imagining it was the way others saw us, too. 



What got me thinking about this was a parent-child interaction I witnessed this week in the grocery store and the damage that can be done from interactions like this. The wound from labels can’t be seen by others, but are very much alive inside our hearts and minds.



If you remember the sting of mean words spoken to you as a child, why would you ever label your kids in ways that could be hurtful to them? I’m not talking about labels like "autistic" or "sensory seeking"; I’m talking about calling your child "sloppy," "liar," "stupid," "awful," etc.



Do parents who do this believe that labeling their child will change something about them or help correct a behavior? Can that ever work? 



Here's the real life incident that caused me to wonder about this question.

An "Awful" Boy

I was in line at the grocery store when I heard a mom very calmly, and very firmly whisper to her son, “Are you an awful boy?” The little one tried to pull his body away from his mom, as if to escape the sting of his beloved mother’s words, but couldn’t. He very sadly dropped his head and said, “yes.” 



This little one’s face told the whole story. It was obvious this was not the first time mom had said those words to him. You could literally see the effects of his mom’s words being accepted by his emotional self. You could see the words becoming part of how he will define himself, now, and in the future — I am an awful person. 



We’ve all read that parents need to separate the behavior from the child, that parents should tell a child that his behavior is awful, not that he is awful. I don’t agree. I don’t believe that children can distinguish between the two, not really.



Think of it this way. A group of little girls are playing. Trish looks at Suzie and says, “Suzie your hair looks funny!” The other girls laugh. Does Suzie understand that she’s just having a bad hair day or does she translate that comment into “I’m ugly”? 



I supposed she could have if her parents had coached her on how to respond, maybe by giving her a one-liner comeback like, “You think my hair is funny today, you should have seen it yesterday!” from Sally Ogden’s book, “Words Will Never Hurt Me-Helping Kids Handle Teasing, Bulling and Putdowns.” But most kids can’t deflect labels so skillfully. Labels become deeply rooted in how they see themselves and affect all future decisions about what they are and are not capable of. 



Most of us remember the sting and impact of a peer’s mean label. Imagine how much bigger the sting is when a parent labels? 



When the one person a child sees as always being right, her beloved parent, labels her, she just accepts it and defines herself by it. The wound is so deep that it requires a great deal of reprograming, if you will, to change it. 



Why do we need to use harsh words at all? There are far better words to use — words that can actually motivate a child to change.

Three Questions That Improve Behavior

When your child behaves badly, try asking her if what she did was kind. Was it safe? Was it respectful? These three questions begin the process of change and teaching — without categorizing or labeling.



As an educator, a mom, a former child, and now as an empowered adult, I implore you… stop labeling your child, even if the label accurately describes what he's done. Using words that motivate change will get you and your child where you want to go, faster.



For new ways to motivate change and correct behavior join us for the Proactive Parenting Online Parenting Skills Class beginning on March 6, 2012. Anyone can attend: working parents, stay-at-home parents and parents who live outside the US. Click here for details.

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4 Ways to Get Your Child to Listen to You

by Sharon Silver on February 19, 2012

kid cellphone 190x300 4 Ways to Get Your Child to Listen to YouRecently I asked a group of moms, “How do you get your child to listen to you?” 


Some replied, “Give consequences till he listens" and others, “Be willing to leave if she doesn’t listen.” Those things do work, but most of the time a parent has to add a reaction to the request in order for it to work. 


However what most parents simply want to know is, “Do I really have to resort to yelling  ‘please stop’, before my child will listen?

There are many ways to help parents increase listening. However, unless a parent is clear about the intent behind their wish to be heard, no tip will work for very long.

Knowing What Your Goal Is

In order to be effective when you ask your child to listen to you, ask yourself what your goal is. Is your goal to be heard, or is it to be listened to? There is a difference.


When you want to be “heard” your main focus is on producing words to express your feelings so “you feel heard.” 

When you want to be heard you’re not really aware, and sometimes don’t care, how the other person is impacted by what you’re saying. In other words, when you want to be “heard” you are focused on you.



When your goal is to get someone to do as you ask, or to “listen” to you, you unconsciously look for clues to tell you if your message is getting through. In other words your focus is on the other person.



Here are four tips to increase listening. (This works well when used with adults, too.)

1. Give Your Child Time to Switch Focus

When a person is deeply focused and concentrating on what they’re doing, whether it’s playing, crying, whining, fixing the car, reading or making dinner, they aren’t able to immediately listen to you. 



DO observe what’s the other person is doing before speaking. Adults and children need a moment or two to switch from one side of the brain to the other so they can give you their undivided attention. Waiting a moment before speaking also teaches your child how you’d like them to interrupt you, too. 



What if it’s an emergency? When your habit is to wait before speaking or respectfully ask, “Is now a good time?” then if you ever really need their full attention during an emergency the alarming and jarring sound of your voice causes them to listen immediately since it’s so different than the norm.

2. Don’t Talk Over a Crying Child

Talking over a crying child to insist that they stop crying is not only fruitless; it also sends the silent message, “What I’m saying is more important than your feelings.”

DO try waiting silently until the crying slows just a bit before you speak.

3. Talk Slowly, with Pauses

When a parent’s words/requests are delivered with rapid intensity most children will unconsciously retreat behind the “I’m not listening barrier” to protect themselves from the onslaught.

DO try to be mindful not to emotionally overload the other person/child. Make sure you give them a moment or two to digest what you’ve just said before you move on to the next point.

4. Watch and Adjust Body Language

Paying attention to your child’s body language is a good way to see if what your saying is getting through to them. If you’re not getting through, don’t blame them or make them self-conscious by calling their attention to what their body is doing. Instead, adjust what you are doing. 



DO make eye contact, do reach out and touch them lightly on the shoulder to create a connection, do get down to their eye level, not in their face, and do modulate your voice so your words are warm and accepting versus cold and accusing. 



Being mindful of how your words impact someone places you in partnership with them and increases the possibility of listening, whether you’re speaking to an adult or a child.
 

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5 Tips for Fighting Productively With Your Spouse

by Sharon Silver on February 11, 2012

miscommunication 300x199 5 Tips for Fighting Productively with Your SpouseIt’s Valentines Day this week and love is in the air! Many couples think that love means never disagreeing. They actually think that if they fight, their love is coming to an end. Oh, how untrue!

Disagreements are healthy, and happen to every couple. You actually get closer when you resolve disagreements. The problem is, most couples don’t resolve things; they have the same fight over and over again.

My parents never fought. I’m not kidding; I can only remember one time in my entire childhood that my parents had a fight. Then, out of the blue, they announced they were getting a divorce. We were shocked!

In the early years of my marriage, when hubby and I had a fight, I was sure we were headed for a divorce, just like my parents. Hubby taught me that disagreements are fine as long you’re working towards resolution. However, if fights are mean spirited, it not only hurts—and nothing gets resolved, it also teaches the kids to act the same way.  



Kathleen E. Finnegan, MA LPC, from Family-Marriage-Counseling.com has this to say about the impact fighting has on kids, “Verbal conflict with demeaning put downs on the other partner, or sudden outbursts and threats, is toxic to a child’s emotional and physical well being…(and) continuous exposure to battles desensitizes them to aggression.”

Here are some ideas to help you work towards a resolution when you fight, and model better ways to address disagreements.

1. DON’T Fight in Anger

Waiting until you’re really angry to express how you feel creates mean, nasty arguments that are hard to resolve. Anger can consume you and take the place of thinking or accessing how you really feel. It also teaches your kids that nothing get resolved unless there’s a fight first.

DO Speak Up

When siblings fight we ask them to use their words before they get angry so they don’t hurt one another. Parents need to use calm words, too. To do that make a vow to begin expressing what you feel, when you feel it, the moment something comes up. That gives you both the ability to access and express your feelings before they build to the point of consuming you, thereby giving you a real shot to talk, not yell, how you feel.  

2. DON’T Nit Pick

If you nit pick about everything, the love between you will begin to be replaced with bitterness.

DO Look at Yourself

Take an honest look at what’s bugging you about your partner. Is there a bigger issue, or is it really just the little things? Once you find the source of your anger decide what your needs are, and what you want to do about it. Taking action teaches your children how to be responsible for their feelings, too.

3. DON’T Stop Listening

Fighting when you’re angry stops any “true” listening from taking place. It also teaches the kids that fights are more about determining who’s right than they are about listening to the other person’s point of view.

DO Repeat What You Heard

The best way to “truly” listen is to make sure you’ve heard and understood what the other person wanted to say. Try asking the other person, “This is what I heard you say… am I correct?” Doing that allows any misunderstandings to be corrected immediately, before you end up fighting about something the other person didn’t mean to say.

4. DON’T Blame

Blaming someone you love usually comes from rehashing unresolved feelings and tends to use attack words.

DO Resolve

When you say what you feel, when you feel it, and vow to work on the issue until both parties feel it’s resolved, then blame tends to disappear. The way you handle your issues either teaches your kids how to dish the dirt or how to resolve disagreements.

5. DON’T Repeat the Same Fight

Does it ever feel like you begin fighting about one thing and end up fighting about the same issues again and again? That’s because the issues weren’t ever truly resolved, so they show up in fight after fight.

DO Problem Solve

Try problem solving the issue so it remains the central focus and the past doesn’t get rehashed. Here are five steps to get you started.

1. When feelings come up stop, breathe and regroup before speaking. Remember this is just a problem, not a threat. If there is a threat, or you fear abuse, deal with it immediately.

2. Each one of you should state the problem, as you see it, so you’re both on the same page. Vow not to bring up the past unless truly relevant.

3. Each one of you should suggest three options for how this can be resolved.

4. Then discuss any possible consequences that may come out of handling the problem as suggested.

5. Choose how you want to resolve this.

This way of handling fights may feel strange in the beginning, but experts agree that remaining angry, with no resolution in site, not only erodes your relationship and models bad habits for kids; it can also affect your health.
 

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6 Ways to Prevent Sibling Rivalry

by Sharon Silver on February 5, 2012

siblings 219x300 6 Ways to Prevent Sibling RivalryWhen siblings fight, everyone in the family is affected. When a parent hears, “Give it to me!” “Get away from me!” or “No, m-i-n-e!” their first reaction is to yell, “Stop it!” or “How many times have I told you!” 


Many parents with more than one child have told me: “They fight terribly. . .They will play happily for ten minutes and then the fighting begins again.” Sound familiar?

Kids fight for many reasons. Just like everything else in childhood, the underlying reason kids fight is that they need to learn something.

What Can Kids Possibly Learn from Fighting?

If you were to look at a family tree you’d see that siblings are listed on the same arm of the tree. That means they are of equal status when it comes to the rules in a family. But the sibling relationship is bigger than that. It’s actually a child’s first opportunity to learn about and prepare for long-term relationships. 



Brothers and sisters teach each other about give and take, even when they don’t want to. They’re practicing how to love a person, even when they don’t like what that person did. Siblings are constantly learning tolerance, patience, kindness, and most of all, conflict resolution.

Most parents want to stop the fighting. But I’d like to suggest that you switch your focus from stopping the fighting, which teaches valuable skills, to stopping the rivalry. The rivalry is what can cause lifelong damage between brothers and sisters. Here are some tips on making this switch.

1. Don't Be Judge and Jury

Most parents think that part of their job entails being both judge and jury. The problem with that is that the kids don’t learn how to resolve things themselves. When a parent decides who is right and who is wrong and what should be done about that, one child remains angry and one feels like the winner. They’re not working together to practice the resolution skills that they’ll need to be successful in life.

2. Instead, Be a Facilitator

To get your kids to be on the same team, you need to help facilitate and guide them toward resolution of their own fights. You do that by teaching your kids how to express the feelings that motivated the fight in the first place. Put the same questions to both children until resolution has occurred. For example:
Molly, why are you mad? And Sam, why are you mad?
Molly, please give me three ideas to work this out. And Sam, what are your three ideas?
(For more specifics, check out Seminar #6, “Mom, she took my stuff again!”

3. Explain That We Do Not Hurt Those We Love

Since kids are immature thinkers, the best way to enforce this rule is to define it further. This might sound like, “One way someone gets hurt is by accident. The other way is when someone uses his or her body as part of a fight. Which one is against the law in our house?”

When a child is busted for physically fighting with a sibling do not expect him or her to say, “Gee mom, that was handled so calmly, I appreciate your wisdom.” They’re angry. Try not to address the anger, just yet. You can say, “I’d be angry too if I had to lose my video time because I was fighting.” If you demand that your child not be angry, you’re walking into a power struggle. You’ll have picked up your end of the rope, as I described in my column, How to Deal with Back Talk from Your Kids.

4. Don’t Compare Your Kids

Comparing makes a child feel unappreciated and unloved by you. It never makes them rise up to work harder. Some kids increase the fighting with a sibling when they feel compared to him or her. Other kids swallow those feelings and seethe with resentment and lack of self worth.

5. Focus on Each Sibling's Unique Talents

Each child deserves and needs to be seen as someone special, with unique talents and skills. Help your kids create high self-esteem by using "specific praise," not global praise, as you focus on their unique talents. To learn how to do that, see The Key to Building Your Child’s Self Esteem.

6. Read the Best Sibling Book Ever!

The best book I have ever found to teach parents how to facilitate conflict resolution with siblings is Siblings without Rivalry by Faber and Mazlish. It’s engaging and easy to read. They use cartoons to illustrate what to say and do. You will learn so much from that book!
 

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How to Deal With Back Talk From Your Kids

January 30, 2012

Don’t you dare talk to me that way! When a child is being verbally disrespectful, or as we called it in our home, emotional biting someone, a parent’s defensive wall goes up and she screams right back! Most parents who are having loud, ugly words screamed at them would react. The question is “is there [...]

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How to End Power Struggles Over Food and Sleep

January 20, 2012

How many times have you been in a power struggle with your child over food or sleep? 

 One big reason parents get trapped into these types of power struggles is because we think we “should” have the power to decide what, when and how much our child eats, and how, when and where our [...]

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Limit Setting: Creating a Play Outside Childhood—in an Electronic World

January 5, 2012

Every kid begs for video games. Parents hear the plea over and over again until they’re so worn down they knuckle under and buy one. Now Mom and Dad face their worst fear, junior sits down and won’t get up. And when he does, he’s aggressive and screams, “But the game isn’t finished!” At that [...]

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What to Tell Your Kids When They Ask if Santa’s Real

December 18, 2011

Santa is everywhere you look during the holiday season, and that can be confusing for children. Seeing so many Santas inevitably brings up the question, “Is Santa real? And if Santa is real, which Santa is real?” No parent wants to lie to his or her child. And no parent wants to burst the magical [...]

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How to Get Through Holiday Prep Without Yelling at Your Kids

December 18, 2011

When you’re preparing for a major holiday it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all there is to do, and when that happens you can easily lose patience with your little ones. Then the guilt sets in and you think, “How could I yell like that, this holiday is about bring joy and love to all, [...]

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It’s All About You: Checklist to Stay Sane During the Holidays

December 18, 2011

Can you believe it’s the end of the year? Most moms are exhausted at this point in the year and still and have to find the energy for the big holiday push. So how does a mom stay energized and get it all done? One way would be to hire an elf to help out, [...]

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