I want to share with you my favourite piece of parenting advice. I am generally cautious about preaching about my parenting approach here – what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. But this is such a universal technique, and so useful, that I wish everybody knew about it. Again and again, when I hear arguments and raised voices between kids and their parents – at preschool, at other kids’ homes, or just random strangers in the street – I wish there was some way I could tell those parents about this.
When a child tells you what/how she feels about something, listen and acknowledge.
That’s it. And it is amazing how many fights, quarrels, breakdowns and tantrums can be avoided using this simple technique.
Consider this scenario, variations of which I have experienced repeatedly, sometimes as a participant and other times as an observer. The kid has spent Saturday afternoon at a friend’s place. You now turn up and say it’s time to go home – grandma will arrive soon to have dinner with you. The kid has had a lot of fun and is not at all interested in going home.
The kid says, naturally: “I don’t want to go home! I hate having dinner with grandma!”
Now as a parent you could do a number of things.
Deny the feelings. “Of course you want to go home – you love being with grandma!”
Forbid the feelings. “How can you say that about your grandma? Never say anything like that again!”
Cajole and bribe. “Come on, we can have ice cream after dinner!”
Distract. “Oh, look at that cute dog – shall we see if it is going our way?”
Try to fix things. “Well, why don’t you invite her to our place for tomorrow morning?”
Appeal to reason. “Well, we have to go home anyway, because grandma will be there waiting for us.”
Philosophize. “That’s the way life is, you know, everything comes to an end at some point.”
Ridicule. “Well, you can’t stay here all night!”
Diminish the feelings. “Don’t worry, you’ll see your friend soon again.”
Ignore. “I don’t care, we’re going home anyway.”
Threaten. “Stop whining right now or you’ll never come here again.”
Some of these responses may work sometimes, more or less effectively. Others may give you the feeling that you’re doing your job as a parent, but are unlikely to actually be productive in any way. I’m sure you can imagine what your kid would reply to any of these – and it probably isn’t “you’re right, Mom, let’s go home”.
The next time, try this instead:
Kid: “I don’t want to go home! I hate having dinner with grandma!”
Mom: “You really don’t feel like going home now.”
Kid: “No! We were having so much fun with Elin just now!”
Mom: “You really enjoyed playing with Elin today.”
Kid: “Yes – and you came just as we were preparing a treasure hunt!”
Mom: “You had something great planned and I came and interrupted you.”
Kid: “Yes, and we even had the maps all ready. Here, look, this is my map and this is Elin’s.”
…
And by this point, or maybe after two more turns, the situation has usually been defused. The kid has gotten a chance to express her disappointment and frustration. She can now let go of those feelings and move on.
It sounds silly. It seems too simple to work. But it really does – assuming that you do it for real and don’t just pretend to listen to their feelings. Serving canned responses will sound fake and the kid will pick up on it.
I learned this technique from How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, a great book that I would recommend to all parents. It’s got other useful tips, too, but this is the one that I’ve benefited most from. Do read it.
In fact I think it’s time I re-read the book myself, again.
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