| Bad Attitudes by Crystal Miller As parents we all deal with bad attitudes from our children from time to time. We all know what they look like and they are not pretty! They can lead to arguing, whining, complaining, fighting between siblings and lack of performance for necessary tasks around the house, lack of respect for the parent, etc. How should these bad attitudes be dealt with?? That is the subject I want to briefly address this month. Well let me say that to begin with I feel real strongly about examining our own attitudes because when we don’t have great attitudes, the kids pick up on this and will return likewise. Of course I am not saying that is the case all the time and obviously we all have bad days! But generally speaking this is where I start. I examine myself and what my children are seeing as their example. Am I complaining about my tasks for the day? Do I act grumpy or gruff or roll my eyes as I deal with life?? This is an important place to look first. But often copying a bad attitude is not the problem and the child is acting badly and it needs to be dealt with. The first things I do when I have a child with a bad attitude is bring it to his/her attention… “Excuse me, but I don’t like your attitude about this AT ALL”. Then I give him/her a choice… Either you go and have a few minutes of quiet and reflection time (but very few… ) on this and change your attitude to something that those around you (namely me!) will enjoy … or I will do it for you…. That usually implies a spanking as I feel bad attitudes are a discipline issue. When I giv! e them the option to think about it, I don’t generally give much time with this as I have seen too many children go into their room and stomp and grump around with no real changes…more time just fueling the attitude. So when I am dealing with this as a discipline issue I want to deal as swiftly as possible so that we can get back to a life of peace again. Now AFTER the attitude has changed and there is peace, then a talk about the heart, the issue at hand and the desire to find appropriate ways to express themselves or get a point across or learn all the various lessons in life there are to learn. I feel very strongly that children should not rule the household with their attitudes. To me it shows such a lack of respect for the home and the parent. So always I deal with what I consider appropriate behavior first, and then we work on the heart. For older children who have not learned the lesson on good attitudes or need reminders occasionally, it usually requires such things as lost privileges and being sent to their room and extra work added to their chore list and no “perks” in life.. you know like family movie night (they can go to their room), dessert ( “Not with the attitude I have been seeing lately”), going to a friends house (no way… ), etc.. I rarely have to take it to these levels, most likely because my older children have learned.. but there are the tough cases and it has happened in my home! :). Basically I increase the weight in their life until I see some changes. Then I back it off, highly praise them and deal with the heart issues. My daughter Carolyn has learned much about horse training in the past few years and I have watched this process with great interest and a bit of awe. It is funny how I see so many similarities in horse training and child training (Please know I am not referring to children and animals being on the same level, but rather the techniques used to get a desired result are often very similar), when you want to change a horses behavior you put unpleasant pressure on them. When they respond as you desire, you remove the pressure and highly praise. Now when I apply the above mentioned types of pressures on my children as I deal with undesirable attitudes I find that it takes one or two! times of me changing their behavior for them and they will generally respond by changing the attitude themselves after that! Reminders are needed every now and again of course. I find this an area in life that needs consistent response by the parent or the child will just continue on. And like all things seem to be in child training… consistency over time will get you the desired results… So… hang in there moms!! :) ©Crystal Miller, 2003 |
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