Happy Kids by Cathy Glass (best pdf reader for ebooks TXT) 📗

all other negative behaviour, is a way of manipulating a situation and cannot be tolerated. Don’t ever be tempted to laugh it off.

Blackmail

A child should never be allowed to dominate or manipulate you by blackmail. ‘I’ll scream if you don’t give me …’ said in the middle of a crowded supermarket must never get the child what he or she wants. You should deal with it as you deal with all the child’s negative and controlling behaviour, by Requesting, Repeating and Reaffirming, with a sanction if necessary. Tell the child that that isn’t how he or she asks for something and you don’t respond to threats.

If you give in once, the child will remember, and you will face a scene each time you don’t give the child what he or she demands.

Maintaining Control

We have now looked in detail at situations where a child’s behaviour is unacceptable and how to change it, using the 3Rs technique. But to change your child’s behaviour successfully and lastingly you may need to change some of your own behaviour, in order to regain and maintain control. It is likely that if your child is repeatedly challenging you, then he or she has usurped your position and claimed your authority. What follows has its roots in basic psychology and, together with the strategies we have looked at, will put you firmly in charge as ‘leader of the pack’.

Body language

The way you present yourself to others, through the way you hold and move your body, is known as body language and, together with the tone of your voice, gives many signals about how you expect to be treated. These non-verbal messages are subconsciously picked up and interpreted by the person you are talking to, who then bases his or her attitude and behaviour towards you on them. This is why if you are feeling positive about a particular outcome in a given situation the outcome is likely to be positive: you give off many subtle, non-verbal signals that you are expecting to achieve what you want. The reverse is also true, and it applies to adults and children.

Take a few minutes to analyse the way you present yourself to your child. This will in effect be the way he or she perceives you. When dealing with challenging behaviour, would you take yourself seriously and do as you asked if the roles were reversed and you were the child? Are you giving off the right signals? If the answer is no, or unlikely, then you need to consciously change the way you present yourself, so that you send messages of confidence and authority.

Draw back your shoulders so that you are holding yourself upright, make eye contact, take a deep breath and then in a calm, even and firm voice tell the child what it is you want them to do or stop doing, i.e. your Request. Your body language needs to give the clear message that you expect what you say to be taken seriously and acted on, and failure to do so (in a reasonable time) will result in a sanction. If the child doesn’t respond, then maintain your authoritative stance and Repeat your Request, then Reaffirm with the sanction if necessary.

After a while of consciously doing this it will become second nature, so that whenever you are faced with confrontational behaviour you will automatically become your authoritative self. Look upon it a bit like acting on stage – you are playing the part of the ‘stern’ parent; teachers do it all the time to maintain control of a class. When you are playing with your child, and for most other times, obviously you will be your usual warm and loving self, but for disciplining you need to be a figure of authority to whom the child responds.

You lead

Never let your child push ahead of you; when you open a door, you go in first with the child following. This may seem petty, but it is one of many indicators of who is in charge and ‘leader of the pack’ – the leader leads. As you open the door, whether it is the front door, shop door or shed door, go in first, and if the child pushes in or darts in ahead of you call him or her back – ‘Excuse me, Jack, don’t push ahead of me, please’ – and go in first. The new order will very quickly become so automatic for both of you that after a week or so only a few reminders will be needed.

Your chair

Likewise, if your child grabs the chair in the lounge where you were about to sit, or jumps into the chair you have just vacated and where you were to return to a few moments later, ask your child to move. You can smile but be firm –‘Come on, Jack, you know I was sitting there. Find somewhere else to sit, please.’ Your child is not simply taking your seat, but trying to take your position (and status) and therefore authority.

Grabbing the seat of an adult is often more prevalent when there is a large gathering of family or friends, and the challenging child needs to reassert and regain his or her control within the new group. The child may also try to dominate the new group by speaking loudly and continuously, or being very demanding.

I fostered a ten-year-old boy once who, whenever we visited my parents, dashed into the lounge and sat in my father’s adjustable armchair, although he knew that that was where my father sat. The child had quickly realised, albeit subconsciously, that when we visited my parents, my father automatically became head of the family, and this was the child’s way of challenging my father’s position and vying for control.

The first couple of times we visited, the boy created such a scene when I asked him to sit in one of the other chairs, as other family members were doing, that my father