Today we are going to discuss the idea of difficult conversations with your child; meaning, correcting your child’s behavior.
Now we all hate to be told that we are doing something wrong. Nobody likes it and your child is no different. Your child is going to hate it. It is going to bother him and it is going to be hard to approach him.
What I am going to give you today is a technique that will help you ease the tension so that he can actually get the message of what you are talking about. The basic idea is this, the first thing you should do before you get involved in a difficult conversation about a behavior problem that needs to be addressed, is give your child some recognition, praise, and a shot of self-esteem.
So for example, let’s say that you want to talk about your son’s behavior with his younger brother. You can first say, “You know, Bobby, you have really been helping out around the house lately, and I really appreciate it and am really proud of you for that and let’s talk about your younger brother, what can we do to make things better with you and him?”
Now, I did two things there. First of all, I acknowledged that he is doing something right, noticed it, appreciated it, and gave him thanks for it. Second, I used the word “and” to connect it to the problem/topic that I want to get to next.
Now, “and” is a very important word. We have used it many times before, “and” suggests a connection. If you use “but”, it negates what we said before, so if I said Bobby you have been great around the house, but your brother is a problem; this negates the fact that Bobby is great around the house.
When you use “and” it eases the transition, so what happens is your child gets the warm self esteem and the appreciation. Now his tension is much lower going into a topic that he feels uncomfortable talking about.
It is a very important idea to use this type of technique because it will make the conversation go a lot smoother and be much more productive. Also this works particularly well with ODD kids. So try it out, use it, and let us know it works for you.
This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.
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