Get Your Kids To Do What You Want
Get Your Kids To Do What You Want
Get Your Kids To Do What You WantHi, here's what you need to know first. I'm not a doctor or a scientist or a trained expert in anything. I'm a mom.
Having studied personal development ideas for some years now, I've tried some out in my own laboratory - my home with our 3yr old daughter.
I've talked to friends who have tried my ideas with their kids too.
Basically, I want to share with you some stuff that works in the real world, in the hope that it will help in your real world too.
Here's the main thing you will get out of reading this:
Tell your kids what they SHOULD do.
Stop telling them what NOT to do.
How many times do you think kids hear things like:
DON'T touch that!
NO you can't go outside!
DON'T slam that door!
STOP running around!
DON'T talk with your mouth full!
Now, before you think I'm going to be telling you that you must be 'Positive' all the time, just hang on a minute. There's a bit more to it than that.
Here's a thought - how do we, as people actually 'know' something?
We're not born with all the knowledge we need, we have to learn it. So how do we learn what we know?
Let's talk about you as an adult for a minute, then we'll get back to the kids.
If you meet someone new, you usually learn their name. Do you always remember it?
Often we don't, and we blame our 'terrible memory'....
If we do it's usually because there is a strong emotional connection which is easy to associate their name with, or we have made a conscious effort to create an association and repeat the name to strengthen our memory.
Your memory is probably not all that terrible. This is just how we learn.
When we get any kind of new information, we grow a new link inside our brain. It's a physical connection between one piece of information we already knew, and something we have just learned.
To start with, the link is very weak. It's part of your short term memory and if it doesn't receive any focus it can be lost within seconds, just like that name you forgot.
But if we do give it some focus, we can reinforce it and make it stronger and more reliable for the future. I'm sure you have been able to remember something really important when you needed to.
So how does this all relate to our kids?
Put yourself in their shoes. Almost everything is new! They don't have those established and strong connections to attach new information to, many of their connections are still quite weak.
Kids do learn incredibly fast, they have to. But it's understandable that with all the 'information overload', the right response isn't always going to be accessible at the right time.
One of the more advanced things kids are expected to pick up is the concept of opposites.
Not just Up & Down, or Happy & Sad, but they also have to come up with the opposite of what they are told NOT to do.
What is the opposite of "Don't touch that chair"?
As an adult, you automatically know that the opposite is to keep your hand away from it. But a child has to learn that association.
If I say to you "Don't think of an elephant", you probably don't have an automatic opposite to think of instead. So what happens?
You're left thinking about the elephant, and if you're lucky, your brain will try and come up with an alternative..... maybe.
So when a child hears "Don't touch that chair", to start with they don't have an automatic opposite available. To them, you might as well be asking for the opposite of an elephant!
They just haven't made a strong connection for that yet, and so they're left with the thought of 'touch' and 'chair' and you can guess what happens. And then they get told off.
This is a very simplistic example, and would obviously apply to a very young child. But think about how this applies to any situation you have at the moment. What are you assuming that someone else understands? Do they actually know what you want, or just what you don't want?
There are literally millions and billions of connections that we may or may not have, even as adults. What is the opposite of "Don't hit that rubbish bin" when you're teaching your teenager to drive a car?
Why do we keep telling kids (and anyone really) what we don't want? We're assuming that they will automatically know what we do want, and then we're surprised if that's not the case.
I saw a perfect example of this with a 5 year old recently. We were getting ready for a party, blowing up helium balloons.
The 5 year old was given a balloon which was tied up, but didn't have its string attached yet. As the adult gave it to him, he was told "Hold on tight". So he held on to his balloon, excited to be helping and part of the fun.
Then another adult came in, saw him and said "Don't let go" - Poof! Up it went. And he was the one who got in trouble....
Our brains are pretty amazing things, but they are only as smart as the information we put into them.
If you trained yourself to 'know' that the opposite of an elephant, was a stapler, and you reinforced that belief, then you could expect your brain to respond accordingly. After that, if someone said to you "Don't think of an elephant", you could naturally come up with the image of a stapler.
It's just a connection in your brain that you create. Most of them (fortunately) are based on our experience and observations of the world around us.
"Don't look over there....." - gets you every time doesn't it!
So now you know why your kids don't always do what they are told (and maybe your partner too..?), how do you change the message?
Here's the simple key:
Keep On Talking......
When you hear yourself telling someone what they shouldn't do, just continue on with the thought. MAKE THE CONNECTION FOR THEM.
"Don't touch that, hands off"
"Don't slam the door, close it quietly please"
"NO you can't go outside, stay in here"
"STOP running around, walk carefully"
"Don't talk with your mouth full, wait until it's empty"
Gradually you will train yourself to tell them what you really want and you can drop the first part all together.
"Keep your mouth closed while you're eating"
The adult giving the 5 year old the balloon in the story was my husband. He is in the habit of telling kids what they should do - "Hold on tight", and it worked. He kept the boy's focus on the result he wanted.
With our daughter, we also use "Hands off" a lot, or "Hands in pockets" especially when we're in a place where there are lots of tempting things to touch like a gift shop.
It might not work for that long with young kids, but it's much easier to stay calm when you're repeating "Hands off" rather than "Don't touch". 'Don't' is such a negative word that it makes us more angry each time, and all your child is hearing is 'touch', 'touch'.....
"Hands off" tells kids what they should do with their hands which is often one of the hardest things for them to figure out. Even when they do understand the meaning behind "Don't touch", they still need to figure out what to do with their hands next.
That's just my suggestion, you might find other words that work for you, but as long as they get a very clear message, you should get a better response.
We use "Stop" quite a lot too. That's not a positive word, but it's very direct and there is no confusion. After the kid stops, then we can tell them what we want.
This concept is not a magic formula or complete solution. You and I know that kids get tired and grumpy or unwell, and they don't want to listen. They're not always going to do what you want, even if they get the right message.
But in everyday life, with our own daughter and kids we see regularly, we have seen a significant difference in their response when they are given all the information they need to understand our instructions. It just makes life easier.
I really knew I was getting through one day when I was tickling our daughter who wasn't in the mood - she said to me "Mummy, hands off!"
I hope this will help with you and the kids you know too.
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