How to Talk so Kids Will Listen.../Unconditional Parenting/TCS thread

[flamingobingo]

Not sure if this will work! But come here and post if you want some helpful creative thinking from other parents also striving to talk in a way that will make their kids listen, parent unconditionally or to take their children seriously (more links)

No judgey-pants allowed, and only 'I want to find out more' questions, please - no debates

Firstly - please, someone, please, tell me how to get my 4yo to stop spitting! She's got into a real habit. It's not proper spitting, but raspberry blowing, but she's got into this horrid habit where she just does it so frequently.

It's driving me mad, and I am getting to the point where I am thinking the only solution is to threaten her with something - can't think what though, and don't want to do that anyway .

Please help!

With the throwing, as well as 'ow' remind him that throwing hard things hurts.
If he doesn't stop, put the baby things away and get out something he can throw. You can him involved 'you feel like throwing, what can we throw safely?'. See what he comes up with. He might like to scrunch up some old paper into balls and aim for a bucket or cap.

These things take alot more time and attention than 'calm down' so it's hard with a baby as well.

About the porridge, perhaps he would have liked the idea of some dry cereal sprinkled on top. If not, I'd have probably eaten the porridge myself and let him have the cereal!

You say he used to find choosing hard but it sounds like he knew what he wanted this morning. Perhaps give him another chance to be in control of what he eats for breakfast and see how it goes?

I don't think saying 'it's a shame you feel so angry' is helpful. I can see you are trying to empathise but I think I would find this really irritating if someone said this to me, especially if they were the cause of my anger!

Thank you so much for the tips. I think a book is a great idea and this sort of approach has worked well for other issues in the past. I think DD would also love to choose some hankies. Many thanks!

He can always have a snack later if he has had a light breakfast.

I think an important thing to remember is that, just because children don't learn something (like not hitting/picking nose/whatever) right now, doesn't mean they won't learn it at all. Expect it to take time. The point is, though, that punishment doesn't work either, so no point in thinking 'I can't 'do' TCS - they're still hitting' when punishment just teaches them all the wrong things and doesn't work anyway!

I think food is a big issue - don't make him porridge unless he asks for it? Let him self-regulate his own food? Mine can have what they want, when they want, and their diet is really, exceptionally well balanced. It's really, really, really difficult to let go and let them do that though, to trust that it will work. In what way were you giving him choice before? Like saying 'would you like this, or this?'? I leave it up to them completely, either to ask me for stuff, or for me to say 'right, what would you like for lunch?', for example.

However, we do eat together as a family so I make one main meal a day. I try to make things all the children like - and I do meal planning, so I write up on the calendar what we're having so they know what to expect. I don't make special, extra meals, but if they don't want what's on offer, they usually have cereal instead, which they're happy with. And then, quite often, they have a plate of whatever I cooked anyway!

I wouldn't bother with saying 'calm down' - have you ever found that it helpful someone saying it to you when you're wound up about something?

So....personally, I think I would have done what you did in reality, but what I think I would like to have done was:

• not say 'stop doing that' but say 'here, could you throw these instead please because those hard things might break and/or hurt someone'. Starting out with a 'don't do that' thing can put a child's back up straight away, so putting a postive 'do this' spin on it may have stopped it all getting out of hand

• Have plenty of snacks on hand for him to eat if he gets hungry later and cereal doesn't fill him up

• We only bother making food that our DC's have asked for (apart from the evening meal, when we only dish up what they've asked for) so that we waste very little, so I wouldn't have bothered making the porridge (btw, can porridge be refridgerated and re-heated later on?)

Room tidying: I think there's stuff on Joyfully Rejoicing (link on the OP) about chores and children. I don't bother with incentives, but my children often respond to a timer - let's see how much we can get tidied in 5 minutes? Or I accept that I need to do all the putting away, but the children can at least gather it all together for me, so 'how much stuff can we get in this ikea bag?' (that works particularly well because then I can chuck the ikea bag in the spare room if I don't get all the stuff put away in time

Great thread -

Flamingobingo - sympathies about the tantrums! DS1 (3.10) has some real whoppers about things that seem to me very innocuous (like putting his shoes on in the wrong order, not being first to reach the door). Exasperating as it is, in DS1's case, I think that he really does see these little things as 'life and death' issues. I try, as much as possible, to do what he wants, eg taking his shoes off and starting again if I get it 'wrong'. If it is not possible to do what he wants, I explain why, ask him to think about it, and if he carries on crying, I say how sorry I am that he is sad, and let him get on with it while offering what comfort I can. When he is finished, we have a cuddle and a drink (water for him, gin for me - no not really!!) and continue the day.

Most people think I'm too soft and that DS1 and DS2 will have more and more tantrums, and turn into rods for my back (how I hate that phrase!) but I have so far not found this to be the case. Interestingly, DS1 does not have tantrums if he is refused something such as some vast lego model we haven't got room for. I don't think he has tantrums to get his own way. Rather, I think that he feels things very strongly and just doesn't have the self control to put those feelings aside and move onto something else.

Does anyone who does UP have MSN so I could ask a few questions about it please?

acebaby I don't think you're making a rod for your own back either. IME, you're doing exactly the right thing!

DD2 has just started doing this in the last few days I had a counselling session today and mentioned it. My counsellor thinks it's just a huge build up of excitement and trepidation about going to stay with her grandparents (DD's grandparents, not the cousnellor's grandparents ) exploding the minute something upsets her. Fingers crossed she'll stop doing it when she comes back next Tuesday (she's going away on Saturday).

this is such a great great thread. I could spend all afternoon on it. But first there are one or two things I have to do IRL

would you all mind just stopping posting until I've caught up on reading it all? Thanks ever so. [that was a joke]

acebaby - the tantrums will pass

DD has them about similarly trivial (to us) things. She used to have many more. She is 4 now and sometimes we see the tantrum coming and then there's a big internal struggle and then she manages to ask for what she wants in an agreable way.

Whenever she tantrums I never reproach her being angry but when she has calmed down, I ask her to tell me in a 'kind' voice what the problem is and then we see if we can solve it.

This started off through necessity. When the reason is seemingly trivial and your child suddenly goes crazy, you genuinely don't know what the problem is. Over the years I have got better at understanding what she is screaming or sobbing in rage so nowadays I usually do know but I don't admit it to her .

By flamingobingo on Fri 22-May-09 13:49:41
I think an important thing to remember is that, just because children don't learn something (like not hitting/picking nose/whatever) right now, doesn't mean they won't learn it at all.

That is very true, and thank you for reminding me.

PATIENCE NEEDED HERE*

Hmm, there is stuff on the Joyfully Rejoicing link regarding chores . . . but it seems to involve waiting for the children to get older so they do them voluntarily . . .

Any other great suggestions? I have to say that as I remember it A S Neill's suggestions on children and jobs was very much along the same lines, ie very small children will join in because they find it entertaining, but between then and teenage years it is not going to happen without coercion (I know he is rather old fashioned, but I find him more temperamentally agreeable IYSWIM probably because of being English rather than American - the JR stuff tends to make me want to throw things and scream myself, which probably wouldn't add to general family harmony.)

takver - chores:

I don't believe anyone should be forced to do chores in a family.

If someone thinks the kitchen floor needs sweeping... let 'em sweep it.

Forcing children to take on certain responsibilities teaches them that the opinions of others about the state of their house are more important than their own dust-tolerance threshold. It makes it harder for them to find out how clean and tidy they prefer things to be.

Left to themselves, children do learn about household tasks - by helping when they feel like it, or doing tasks because they want to do them for themselves.

It's important that parents should also only do the household tasks they want to do. If if you want a tidier house and don't want to clean it yourself? Make enough money somehow to hire a cleaner. Swap cleaning for cooking stews for a non-chef neighbour. Give a local teenager piano lessons in return for hoovering. But don't make it your children's problem.

[cut and pasted from an old blog post, not meaning to be aggressive at you]

I can't agree with that Ommward. Keeping your living space clean should be the responsibility of all who live there.
What if your children's dirt-tolerance (not just dust) levels are unhygienic. That they really don't care how bad it gets, keep all the towels in their room.
I don't like doing the washing or washing pots. However, if I didn't do them and nobody else did either, what then?
We couldn't afford to employ someone to do these things so have to do them ourselves.
Which I think is what we should do. We made the mess, we should clean up after ourselves. Same goes for if we are out and about. If any of us has rubbish left from a day out we dispose of it ourselves. We don't throw it on the floor because we don't feel like clearing away. And that begins at home.

Oh and I love the Joyfullyrejoicing board.

ommmward if you saw our house, you would realise that we all apply that approach, not only dd.

Our flashpoints tend to be things like (just an example) dd wants her school jumper to be clean - I feel that she has a drawer full of clothes, and either she can put the washing out herself (we live in a co-op with a shared machine, so all she has to do is take the bag to the central house, it will be put on by someone when it reaches the start of the queue) or wait until it reaches the top of my priority list - ie probably when she has no clean clothes at all, or when I have a full load from all of us.

Or - like last night - she was given a whole bag of clothes which I've washed - she wants me to read a story - my response is 'fine, if you help me sort & put away these clothes' we can do it then I'll read, otherwise I'm not reading until bedtime (when I usually read to her).

What would the UP / TCS response be . . ..

Housework is a big bugbear of mine when it comes to TCS - I can't get my head around it. I find it very frustrating that I am the only one who tidies.

The children like their toys to be playable with, but expect me to keep them that way. And, indeed, being an adult, I'm better at doing that than they are anyway.

Same goes for clothes. And I get annoyed if I do all the cooking, but no one helps me clear it away (well DH does).

Now, I have to say that most of the time my children do respond to my pleas - sometimes they even do it willingly, especially on the occassions that they are motivated by a 'let's see what we can get tidied in 5mins' kind of game.

But...chores is where I do most of my coercing - lots of threats (I'm not going to play your game with you until the place is tidy and I won't play it if I have to do it all on my own either, because I'll be so cross!) and bribery (if you help me tidy up, we can have some ice cream)

With us, room tidying is not such an issue - dd doesn't want her room tidied, and so long as I can reach the stuff of mine that is in there I figure its up to her (we do have the occasional blitz when she gets to the point of not being able to play in there at all).

Cleaning - similarly not an issue - none of us do much, and what happens is usually when either dh or I can't stand the place any more.

What I struggle with is things that dd wants to happen, but doesn't want to do. I have had exactly the same argument with adults plenty of times in shared living spaces, so its not particular to children . . . With adults, the answer that everyone can live with often seems to be a rota of some sort and some basic agreed standards - has anyone come to any similar agreements with their children???

Yes, I'm talking about shared living space tidying - their room can be as messy as they like, but I simply cannot live in a messy sitting room. But I also cannot fathom the idea of making them have all their stuff in their room - we all share the house so we can have our stuff where we like in it IMO.

And I guess a rota would work with older children, but my oldest is only just coming up to six. Then I've got a 4 and a 2yo and a baby.

Thanks for the thoughts on managing the situation. I think this is making me stop a bit and think about the relative importance of certain house rules etc.

I tried throwing/hitting other things suggestion and it seems to make him angrier, definitely doesn't work.

I'm a bit sceptical about food - I was letting him choose and it reduced down to toast/bread with butter. Sometimes ham. He also started to get cross and ask me what I could offer.

I think the 'calm down' point is really good, it is the most irritating thing anyone could say to me!

One more incident of hitting today (which is unusual), but must run to door

What happened when he just ate bread, butter and ham? Did you try and cajole him into eating other stuff? (which is what I do ). I find that if I can ignore the food situation, then they do get bored of whatever food obsession they've got after a couple of days, and then their diet begins to get more balanced. But the balance is over a few days/a week, not every day IYSWIM.

We are total unfooders here. By which I mean - I offer whatever I'm cooking anyway, but if a child wants something else then, as long as it's pretty easy, I do that instead. So no-one could refuse my lovingly made spag bog and demand roast chicken instead, because it takes 2 hours to roast a chicken. But I'll certainly do them a different type of protein - quick grill some bacon, or a plate of cheese, or microwave some of the lentils which got refused last week and have been sitting in the freezer waiting to be desired again, or pull a packet of smoked salmon out of the freezer (cut it up with sharp scissors and it defrosts in about 3 mins, by which time it's probably already been eaten). Or whatever other kinds of foods are regular in your house. I mean, it all gets eaten. Left over porridge? Fine. I stick it in the fridge and have it myself tomorrow. Actually, my Dp is a complete ganet, so the idea that it will still be sitting in the fridge tomorrow waiting to be eaten is kind of funny (very recently he said how kind it was of me to keep leaving a little proteinacious breakfast snack in the fridge for him, just ready for him to eat when he gets up - usually sausages or bacon. I didn't like to say that I cook more than enough of both so that I can offer them to the children and he's just getting the rejects!!!)

We have been through patches with very limited diet, but I hold my nerve and the repertoire expands out again seemingly miraculously. And the carbo/protein/fruit/veg seems to balance out over a month even if it doesn't balance out every day or every meal There has only been one day in my motherhood when the only thing consumed by a (very small) child was chocolate buttons. They quickly learned how icky that made them feel and asked for more variety from there on, even with unlimited chocolate button availability

Often I don't think family conflict is actually about the surface incident. Turning down 15 different breakfasts and hurling toys at the baby may actually be about wanting Mummy/Daddy to stop racing around and concentrate on me, already. I mean, I've been asleep for 12 hours and I MISS them. Leisurely breakfast with child-centred conversation/activities, baby tucked out of sight in a sling, or playing on a playmat so Mummy's hands are free for the older child - those sorts of things might prevent the need for throwing and hitting entirely. And I know conventional parenting says that if a child is attention seeking you shouldn't reward them with attention. But if you're a child who needs attention and noone noticed your subtle and polite hints (there may have been more or less of those depending on age and personality, obviously) then what the hell are you sopposed to do when seeking attention except attention seek.

In imaginary land, where I am a perfect zen mother, I am always so present in the moment that my children never have to attention seek [rolls around laughing hysterically at this fantasy]

Oh gosh, so agree about the attention seeking thing. So sad that it's such a negative thing when actually it's usually a child trying to tell a parent they need more attention. They don't want it, they need it.

Yes, the attention-seeking thing always makes me sad to hear, too. They're children. They
i need
attention. They're not just being arsey!

Havn't yet read all of this- it is really going fast! BUT had to post as veru stronlgy disagree with Ommward regarding- if someone thinks kitchen is dirty let them clean it-
I don' think thata a dirty kithen is a matter of opinion- okk people have different tolerance levels- but in our house taht would mean I always have to do everything as I am only one who (supposedly) notices- or as I suspect my DH )(and this is a big bone of contention for us) pretends not to notice until it gets magically cleared..
I don't think this whole no one should do what they don't want to do etc, etc is that practical..

I want my DS to learn to hel with chores- and I think that I don't care so much if he does it for a slightly wrong reason.. I want it to become a part of normal everyday life.. No point questioning it too much...