As a teacher of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, I feel like I deal with behaviors all day everyday, and not just at school. I am definitely not a perfect parent, and there are plenty of times that I lose my cool, but these 5 tips are things that I've learned from other professionals, and I can honestly say that I feel pretty proud of myself when I am able to deal with a behavior in a calm and logical way to defuse the situation. I hope that this list will help you stay calm in the heat of the moment, and keep your relationship with your child strong and positive!
1. Concentrate on using a calm voice. This will not only model for them the appropriate behavior you are looking for, but will also keep you from having a battle over who can be the loudest. I always like to take a deep breath and use a calmer than normal tone, and I usually get quieter too. My students actually complain that they can't hear me, but it's only because I am intentionally trying to keep my sanity.
2. Remove your child from the situation. When my daughter starts getting her sassy tone with us, I can already feel the tension start to creep in. She will often keep pushing our buttons and even at a year old, she knows that slapping me is a good way to get my husband fired up. Although she often will go to hit me, and then move her hand away to hit a pillow or the floor, sometimes her anger takes over. That's when I lead her or pick her up and move her to her room. I calmly say, "I love you, but I need you to calm down before you can join the family in the living room. You can come out when you're calm." Her room is child proofed, and we have the baby monitor in there, just in case, but she is learning that she will not take her anger out on other people and will have to self-regulate.
I will say that I felt like crap the first time I did this... listening to her cry in her room for a minute or two. But I was not only teaching her how to calm herself down, I was also giving my husband and I a few minutes to take some deep breaths too. She soon began quietly playing in her room, and after about 2 minutes of her being quiet, I went in there and gave her lots of praise and played with her. The positive follow up is VERY important! Parents and their children have to rebuild their relationship that was just damaged, and this is true for all ages.
3. Short and simple. If your child is throwing a fit because they won't pick up their toys, point to one toy and say, "clean up" or "pick up and put away". It is too confusing on most children, especially younger ones to give a lot of directions at once. And, if you begin bargaining with them in the heat of the moment, like offering a cookie if they pick up, then they will become focused on only doing things for a reward.
You can, however, remind them of a preferred activity coming up. My daughter hates putting on a shirt. I'm not really quite sure why, but in order to go outside, she needs to wear a shirt. Ellie likes going outside, so instead of just demanding she wear the shirt, I will say, "first put on your shirt, then we can go outside". Since she is so young, there's no point in explaining why she can't go outside without a shirt, I just keep it simple with what we have to do first before we can move on to an activity she wants. Another example could be "first clean up blocks, then we will color". This "first, then" language is something that behavior analysts and professionals use, and works to keep from allowing the child to have extra wiggle room, like if you were to say, "if you put on your shirt, then you can go outside", which implies that the child has the choice to not wear a shirt at all.
4. Use imperative sentences. My husband gets himself into sooo much trouble when he asks our daughter if she "wants" to clean up. Of course she will say no, and right now “no” is her favorite word. I always have to remind him to tell her to clean up or to put a shirt on instead of asking if she wants to. I think that humans are built with empathy and consideration for others, and for that reason we are geared towards wanting our children to be happy. But when you want to give them a direction, it's too confusing to child to ask them if they want to do it because that implies that they have a choice. Plus, when they become older, they may learn to resent you as a parent for asking them what they want to do because they've already become used to you making the decisions anyway.
Allow your child to have choices they can make, and give them commands or direction when it's not their choice.
5. Say what you want.
This one is hard because when there is a "problem" behavior, we just want it to stop. We don't really think about what we want them to do instead. However, we can't expect our children, especially toddlers, to know what we want from them if we don't tell them.
So instead of saying "don't run", say "walk" or instead of saying "don't hit", say "nice hands" or "gentle hands". It takes a lot of getting used to, but it gives your child a chance to do exactly what they want you to do, instead of giving them plenty of grey area and driving you crazy when they skip or jump around the grocery store because they're "not running".
I hope that all of these tips help you keep your calm as you are parenting your little one (or big one). Is there a tip that you've found to help keep your cool? Leave a comment below!
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