Anyone up for a How To Talk thread? Fed up of shouting...

[EffiePerine]

I read How To Talk ages ago and thought blithely that I would apply it to DS1 as he got older, but after months of shouting and nagging and hauling him off stuff and away from stuff and declaring 'PUT THAT DOWN OR WE WILL GO HOME NOW, NOW DS1, GET INTO YOUR BUGGY WHY DO YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME' I thought I was due a recap.

There's so much here that I need to go through it methodically. Anyone else up for a mini boot camp?

So ch 1 is helping children to deal with their feelings:

listen with full attention
acknowledge their feelings
give their feelings a name
give them their wishes in fantasy

Ah, but do you sing it?

All I want is a room somewhere...
...Wouldn't it be lurverly?

Thanks so much for this thread. It reminded me that I can do things differently. So, we were walking home the other day, hurrying to get back for tea and DS (4) wanted to go down another path in the wood, and I said no, we've got to get back. And because I'm cross and tired at the moment, and he was tired, it nearly turned into a meltdown. But for one second's effort, which is me saying 'we haven't got time to go down there, but what do you think we'd find if we did?' shall we talk about it on the way home? it was all diverted, and we had a very happy time drivelling on about all the things that were in that bit of the wood. What I love about the granting their wishes thing is that, because they are so creative, it doesn't take much effort but we always end up having a really interesting conversation. Thanks again.

Mantras working for us, too - ours are "Be kind and gentle" and "Speak nicely" as DS1 was getting v shouty (no doubt because we had been, too...) Things have definitely improved since we started making a big effort with this. Just hoping it will become more second-nature soon - I still have to constantly remind myself of how to behave!

Even though I know what I should be saying I still find it hard when I'm tired though and then feel like a complete failure.

What are the other thing apart from fantasy and one word instructions which we do a lot - oh and and acting/drawing out - acknowledgement of feelings doesnt really work here which is annoying...

What I really need is a section how to deal with constant fibbing about small things grr - why do 5 year olds love to do this? I hear 'it wasnt me' about 100 times a day.

kate: would the section on roles be a help? there's an eg there of a persistent liar - the aim being not to raise the issue of him lying again, focusing instead on how to solve the problem at hand. I can look it up later if that would be a help

hmm yes I could definately try that - I will have to get the book out again [wonders if it has come back from a friend]

Please can I join too? I got my copy from Mini IQ last week and need to do the worksheets from Chapters 1 - 3. I'll watch this with interest.

My book hasn't arrived yet

Bloody ebay

I really need to read it!!

Hmmm, we had a crapola day today .

DS1 v grumpy and challenging all day, stropping over silly little things, hitting DH when we had to go home from the playground, even though we'd done 5/3/2/1 minute warnings etc. And oh my god, the whingeing today. And he was quite rough with DS2, and he'd been getting so much better! feel quite despondent at the set-back - got a bit shouty with him, then tried to make amends and talk to him. Nothing changed, so I ended up shutting down and becoming minimally responsive - not v helpful, but I was just so hacked off. Now he's in bed I feel like crap, though. And really annoyed with myself.

His behaviour is just so frustrating. I try to say positive things to him (in the correct descriptive way!) - he stopped at a road, said "No cars!" and went across - I said "Well done for checking for cars, DS1 - that's very responsible" and he said "I only said it". I feel like when I praise him, he just pushes it away - if I say he's behaved nicely, he'll mention one less nice thing he's done. Honest to a fault (which may well turn out to be a good thing) but makes me feel undermined and defeated. Blah.

I think one flaw of the book for me is that the kids in the examples seem to change so quickly into the reasonable behaviour! Also, the examples don't seem to be really pertinent to the sort of behaviour I am dealing with. But I suspect the main problem is that I was up half the night with teething DS2 (1.5) - blardy molars oh-so-slowly emerging. Sigh.

Oh well, I suppose tomorrow is another day...

Mog: I suppose they only put it the positive examples! It isn't going to work all the time or every day and I think some days you just have to keep your head down and get through, HTTing or not. I find whingeing the worst and find I don't want to acknowledge it in case it continues!

We've all been a bit ill so back a few steps. Must look again at the role bit as I think that would be v helpful atm.

Me too...!

Over the past month I've started shouting at DD as talking in a normal voice gets me nowhere.

DD doesn't seem to mind too much, but its stressing me out and making me feel like an awful mum so I would love to find another way. Also, don't want DD to think this is now you should talk to people.

Have ordered 'how to talk'. Thanks for the recommendation.