Helping your own children understand your expectations
This is a blog primarily about teaching. Both at home and at school! This post is about you as your child's first teacher - their parent.
Many parents, me included, have moments where we scold, remind, lecture, feel exasperated etc. about our children's behavior. "I've told you a million times not to interrupt me while I'm on the phone." "How many times do I have to say . . . "
Even if you manage your own classroom smoothly, being a parent is different in many ways. Behaviors that would never happen in a classroom setting might happen at your home more often than you would like.
So I have a question for you - how often do you teach your child what you mean by your expectations? How frequently do you model what will happen if they don't meet your expectations.
I'm sure you have told your child something like, "In this household we are kind." or "I expect you to be kind to your sister." etc. Telling is not teaching. You actually have to teach your child your expectations. Frequently.
Teaching behavior is complicated. It is even more complicated than learning how to read. Remember, it easily takes children from kindergarten through the end of third or fourth grade to really know how to read. And some children still struggle through middle school. Yes, it takes a long time to teach a child to read. It takes even more time to shape behavior.
While you may feel and get frustrated when a child forgets the sound for S many days in a row, you don't lecture the child about trying harder. You don't say, "You knew that yesterday. How many times do I have to tell you the letter is S. If you forget that one more time you are going to lose your screen time for the rest of the week." No, you would never say that. We all understand it takes practice to learn to read, not punishment.
What if learning to be kind is the same thing? What if learning to follow directions quickly is more complicated than learning to read? What if we responded the same ways to behavior mistakes as learning mistakes, unless we were 100% sure that the child really had learned the skill?
You would reteach the skill - without showing any exasperation.
Let me show you how I do this. Not perfectly - I have plenty of room for improvement:)
I needed to cut my seven year old's nails this afternoon. She Hates getting her nails clipped and has very strong reactions about it. We used Collaborative Problem Solving to come up with an agreement about length. She still, though, complains loudly and is much less than cooperative sometimes.
I started to cut her nails, and she immediately started complaining loudly. I said, you are not being kind, counted her to 3 and gave her a time out.
While she was cooling down, and I spent a moment reflecting, I thought - I need to start by reteaching my expectations.
After her timeout, this is what I said, Let me show you what it looks like to be kind when I need to cut your nails. You pretend to be the mom and pretend to cut my nails. It should look like this. I acted out with my body where my hands should be, how limp they should be etc.
Let me show you what getting nails cut should not look like. I started to act like her. The things in quotations I said while acting like my daughter. These are all things she has said in the past while getting her nails cut.
"I hate you. (I whisper to my daughter - you say that's 1) I hate short nails. No No No. (I whisper to my daughter, you tell me that's 2) This one doesn't need to be cut. (You say - that's three. You need to take a time out)" And then I act like I just had a time out in my room.
I didn't teach the timeout because that is a skill I had taught earlier.
What happened after I modeled my expectations to her. I started to cut her nails again. I counted her to one and then she seem to settling and was able to meet my expectations. She was able to get through cutting her nails. More importantly, she started to practice more impulse control about how to get through something she finds immensely difficult.
This was far from the first time I have modeled all of these steps. It would be easy for me to feel frustrated that I have to model this every single time. On the other hand, I can see the improvement. She used to get upset for very long periods of time and now she hardly ever does that for nail clipping. The modeling can be very quick now - less than 30 seconds of reteaching is all she needs to remember how to be kind and cooperative. Eventually she will have learned the skill and I will no longer need to model.
Many parents, me included, have moments where we scold, remind, lecture, feel exasperated etc. about our children's behavior. "I've told you a million times not to interrupt me while I'm on the phone." "How many times do I have to say . . . "
Even if you manage your own classroom smoothly, being a parent is different in many ways. Behaviors that would never happen in a classroom setting might happen at your home more often than you would like.
So I have a question for you - how often do you teach your child what you mean by your expectations? How frequently do you model what will happen if they don't meet your expectations.
I'm sure you have told your child something like, "In this household we are kind." or "I expect you to be kind to your sister." etc. Telling is not teaching. You actually have to teach your child your expectations. Frequently.
Teaching behavior is complicated. It is even more complicated than learning how to read. Remember, it easily takes children from kindergarten through the end of third or fourth grade to really know how to read. And some children still struggle through middle school. Yes, it takes a long time to teach a child to read. It takes even more time to shape behavior.
While you may feel and get frustrated when a child forgets the sound for S many days in a row, you don't lecture the child about trying harder. You don't say, "You knew that yesterday. How many times do I have to tell you the letter is S. If you forget that one more time you are going to lose your screen time for the rest of the week." No, you would never say that. We all understand it takes practice to learn to read, not punishment.
What if learning to be kind is the same thing? What if learning to follow directions quickly is more complicated than learning to read? What if we responded the same ways to behavior mistakes as learning mistakes, unless we were 100% sure that the child really had learned the skill?
You would reteach the skill - without showing any exasperation.
Let me show you how I do this. Not perfectly - I have plenty of room for improvement:)
I needed to cut my seven year old's nails this afternoon. She Hates getting her nails clipped and has very strong reactions about it. We used Collaborative Problem Solving to come up with an agreement about length. She still, though, complains loudly and is much less than cooperative sometimes.
I started to cut her nails, and she immediately started complaining loudly. I said, you are not being kind, counted her to 3 and gave her a time out.
While she was cooling down, and I spent a moment reflecting, I thought - I need to start by reteaching my expectations.
After her timeout, this is what I said, Let me show you what it looks like to be kind when I need to cut your nails. You pretend to be the mom and pretend to cut my nails. It should look like this. I acted out with my body where my hands should be, how limp they should be etc.
Let me show you what getting nails cut should not look like. I started to act like her. The things in quotations I said while acting like my daughter. These are all things she has said in the past while getting her nails cut.
"I hate you. (I whisper to my daughter - you say that's 1) I hate short nails. No No No. (I whisper to my daughter, you tell me that's 2) This one doesn't need to be cut. (You say - that's three. You need to take a time out)" And then I act like I just had a time out in my room.
I didn't teach the timeout because that is a skill I had taught earlier.
What happened after I modeled my expectations to her. I started to cut her nails again. I counted her to one and then she seem to settling and was able to meet my expectations. She was able to get through cutting her nails. More importantly, she started to practice more impulse control about how to get through something she finds immensely difficult.
This was far from the first time I have modeled all of these steps. It would be easy for me to feel frustrated that I have to model this every single time. On the other hand, I can see the improvement. She used to get upset for very long periods of time and now she hardly ever does that for nail clipping. The modeling can be very quick now - less than 30 seconds of reteaching is all she needs to remember how to be kind and cooperative. Eventually she will have learned the skill and I will no longer need to model.
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