From the Parent Liaison Office: Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say. 1.Say please Saying please softens our request and when followed with a specific call to action gets a kid moving. Adding a thank you ensures that your request will be followed. “Please take the trash out before dinner. Thank you.” This way, you are modelling the behaviour you want your child to learn. 2. Be specific When you say, “Clean your room.” your child hears, “Shove everything under the bed so I cannot see it.” In essence, he is doing what he was told. Prevent this miscommunication by being very clear – “Please put the toys in the toy box, and books on the shelf.” 3. Think first Often we make half-hearted requests to our child, and when he does not respond we just drop it. Usually, this happens over little issues. The problem is, a child gets in the habit of ignoring you, on both little issues and big ones. When you take a minute and think first, you can then be clear about your request, big or small, and willing to follow through to the end. 4. Pick your battles Parenting is a 24-hour a day job. If you try to deal with every issue, fix every problem and be a constant teacher and coach, you will drive yourself CRAZY! Before you open your mouth, take a minute to decide if this issue is worth a battle. If you decide it is, then win at all costs. This will prevent you from choosing the wrong battle, realizing it in midstream and backing down because it is really not important. The danger is that your child does not know you have changed your mind due to a better decision. He figures you changed your mind because he put up a good fight. Fight and win the important battles! It is good for you and best for your child. Thoughts? Please contact Tessa Kerkvliet, parent liaison officer, [email protected]
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 21:06:17 +0000
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