"How to talk so your kids will listen" Does it work?

[TheStitchWitch]

I have 2 DC, DS is 7 DD is 5 and we're getting into an awful cycle of not listening to each other. :(

I find myself shouting at them on a daily basis just to get simple tasks done.
I ask them nicely and I'm ignored and it escalates from there, they get upset if I shout (I get upset when I shout) but I've tried to explain to them that if they listen when I first ask them to, eat their breakfast, put their shoes on, brush their teeth, stop fighting then I wouldn't have to shout.

I sometimes feel that I may as well not be in the room because they don't even acknowledge that I have spoken to them.

Before I had DC I was never going to get angry with them or shout, Oh how wrong I was. :(

How do we get out of this rut?

I shout too out of shear frustration from repeating myself over & over.

I'm annoyed at ds & even more annoyed at myself for doing this.

It's awful isn't it! I hate myself too.
I look at them curled up in bed fast asleep and feel so guilty that we've had a rubbish day yet again. :(

People told me being a parent was hard, they never told me I would feel permanently guilty :(

Bump.
Can anyone who's read the book give me feedback?

Read it ages ago, it all made great sense but in the heat of the moment I revert to type.

Couple of things that stuck, and do seem to work for me are

• using statements and questions - 'oops, wet towel on the bed' - or 'and where do wet towels go??' - rather than 'Get that wet towel off your bed NOW'

• encouraging them to talk by validating their feelings 'I can see how that must have been annoying - what happened then?'

• and don't sweat the small stuff - in five years time will this matter?

Not sure the last is from that book but it's one of my mantras

I really liked the book it was on the reading list for a course I did. It is hard not to revert to type but the book has end of chapter summaries and cartoons that you can revisit.

I really liked the book.

It made me look at how I spoke to the DC, and that I really did do the 'OFGS, look at the state of your room, why is it always such a mess...' and that if someone were to speak to me like that, I would think 'Fuck right off', or be upset.

Definitely worth reading.

Thank you, I'm willing to try anything. I want to tackle it now before things get worse.
I've just priced it up on Amazon and it's only £7 so even if it doesn't work for us it hasn't cost the earth.

I really like it, it had a lot of stuff that made me think. Not sure I have put it into practice though.

Also very much liked the book by same author 'Siblings without Rivalry'

I saw the siblings one too and wondered if it was any good, I think I'll get both and give it a try. :)

It is good and it does help, although I constantly feel guilty as well.

Told DP today I don't know why I thought I would be a good mother I am not patient enough, too easily annoyed, too lazy. I have all these grand intentions of the most perfect way to deal with whatever situation and then when it comes up I end up not dealing with it properly at all.

This book did give me some insight, I recognised bits of me and bits of DS. It does take time and real determination to change behaviours though.

I found it fascinating and, now that you've reminded me of it, will go & dig it off the shelf as I've probably forgotten lots of the tips from it.

I loved HTT.....in the beginning, you will revert to type - I stuck notes up in the kitchen to remind us. I also found alfie kohn's unconditional parenting really helpful as it reminds you to keep the long term relationship with your dc in your mind. And laura markham's ahaparenting website and her book are good too....

And I like this quote "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom." -- Victor Frankl

My experience was mixed, but I don't know if I used it right.

On one hand, something that worked well was that I had to remember to tell DD what I did want her to do rather than what I didn't. So, "don't play with your food" can get heard as "blah blah play with your food", while "food is for eating, please eat it nicely" is much more direct. It's a lot clearer.

On the other, one thing it was quite big on was empathising with your child's feelings, which I find gets me into a worse rut than before when DD is looking for a standoff.
"It's time to put your shoes on."
"No!"
"We need to go out. It's time to put your shoes on."
"No it isn't! I don't want to!"

At this point, I could say "I know you're cross and you must be so frustrated that I'm asking you to put your shoes on when you'd much rather be watching TV or playing with your lego. Wouldn't it be nice if we could stay at home all day and do nothing but play with lego? That'd be great, wouldn't it?"

Now a) I'm possibly getting this wrong and b) I'm no psychologist, but all the empathising seems to invite worse arguments. It's almost as if it's inviting a "so, if you know all that, why on earth are you telling me to do it in the first place?". I have no response to that, and DD digs her heels in even more, so what could have been a relatively straightforward battle of wills ends up being a major meltdown.

Amazing book. You have to do the work though. It's really based around changing how you communicate to be more effective and less conflict inducing.

The first time I read it DS1 was still in the belly, so I had no kids to try it out on. I tried it on my husband. results were amazing. He commented on 'how nice' I was being. I wasn't being nice at all (I mean, I'm a nice person , but I wasn't purposefully 'acting nice') I was just using the techniques from the book in our day-to-day communication. The book should really just be called 'How to communicate'.

I've just got the Siblings book recently (DS1 is 2.5 and DS2 is 5mo). I'm on chapter 2 and it looks like it will be a good and helpful read as well.

Another brilliant one which I'm reading at the moment is called "When Your Kids Push Your Buttons" - again it's American but it's very insightful and seems to go to the place that other parenting books don't in my experience, which is when you know how you should react in a situation but you always end up getting wound up and reacting in a way you don't want to and which you know ultimately doesn't help.

It's pretty hefty but it's worth just making 10 minutes a day or 2/3 times a a week to go through another few pages of it, read it with a notepad and pen and do the exercises (I found it best to read the whole thing first and then go back and do them) even if you screw them up and throw them away so nobody can read them - it really makes you reassess what you're doing and why you end up reacting in the way you do.

I love those books. They have changed my life. I keep them handy to re read as it is easy to forget the better way to do stuff. I have even written lists and stuck them on the kitchen cupboards before now.

I once recommended it to a parent of a child I taught and they wrote me the most moving letter describing how much it had helped them.

Best of luck

Ah vlad I had that fear too but for some reason it doesn't. I have no idea why. And nothing else works on DS but the feelings/granting wishes in fantasy thing does a lot of the time.

But yes I was/am always worried he will turn around and say "Yeah I am angry about it. You ARE being mean. So stop being mean then!" or get excited "You mean I CAN eat as many sweets as I want?!" But neither of these have happened, even though he was quite young the first time I did the "giving wishes in fantasy" thing.

I think sometimes we do feel far more responsible for our children's feelings than we should be and hence to "admit" that you aren't doing everything you can to make them happy feels a bit like a betrayal and the guilt comes through and that stops us from admitting it. But actually when you do they don't feel betrayed, they feel relieved that you're actually understanding what they're trying to say. And even if it doesn't change your action they seem to understand that you've taken their feelings into account and the action still stands. Weird.

Or they do what DS said today "No I DON'T feel that mummy! Stop saying that stuff!"

Hi everyone, I'm back. This is all sounding really promising:)

I bought "How to talk" for kindle because it was cheaper and I needed it instantly (I was that desperate) and will get the sibling one when I have some spare cash.

Tonight we've had the usual, tantrums, fighting, angry outbursts and although I'm not far into the book yet and have no idea how to tackle the fighting (when they're fighting I may as well speak to a brick wall) I have made sure that I connect with them when they are talking to me and have had the chance to use the "Oh your feeling angry" on DD.

DS said earlier "Mummy your being really nice to us"

This is very early stages but I'm hopeful that if I put the effort in this could work.

That's brilliant

Thanks Bertie :)
Just bedtime to get through now, which is usually a nightmare. Fingers crossed I won't lose it.

I was about to come on and post a very similar thing as I am reaching the end of my tether with ds. He ignores everything, except when he decides to argue about something.

Every. Single. Thing. is an issue. He seems to be deliberately pushing it as far as he can go until I shout, and then it gets done. But 2 minutes later we're back to square one and he's not listening again.

I am so, so tired. I don't have the energy to battle about everything.

I think I read HTT ages ago (or actually I think a friend gave me the "important" bits on a couple of A4 pages). I'm going to have to have another look at it because I can't go on like this.

I got called into school on Friday because the teacher was having the same problem - he's ignoring her whenever it's something he doesn't feel like doing. She was particularly annoyed that he was turning his head away when she talked to him .

Why is he being like? He's 6.5, has a nice life, enjoys school, friends and hobbies, no obvious signs of stress or anxiety...I cannot get my head round why he would deliberately do this when he knows it's rude and gets people annoyed and upset.
:(