The Good News About Bad Behavior by Katherine Reynolds Lewis

Author:Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2018-04-16T16:00:00+00:00

THE PARENTS SAT, PERFECTLY SILENT. Vicki Hoefle was blowing their minds again.

“The words we use to describe our kids, it’s like you feed them,” Hoefle said, pacing up and down the aisle in the center of the rows of chairs. “They’re either positive words that describe cooperative, compassionate, thoughtful, flexible, creative kids, or you’re grouchy and you noodle and you take too long and you’re stubborn and you’re defiant and you’re being sassy, and you always hit and you never listen and you’re unreliable.”

“Every time you use a word, a kid swallows it and it becomes part of their self idea.”

Listen to the words you use, even in those moments of complaint to your friends, and ask whether you want your children describing themselves that way. If the answer is no, drop that language. “If you don’t want to hear your kid say, ‘I’m the defiant one in the family,’ stop feeding them the Kool-Aid,” Hoefle said.

A mom raised her hand to ask whether she could say, “It’s disappointing when you do that,” or, “That behavior gave me a headache, please stop.”

Hoefle’s not a fan. We all need to take responsibility for our feelings. Tying kids’ behavior to your approval or your emotions can backfire in one of two ways. You might end up with children who blame their own headaches or frustration on other people—or who spend their lives catering to other people’s feelings. Instead, simply respond the way a nonrelative would respond to the behavior.

“Pick a few things you want to work on. How do you want your child to describe himself at twenty-five? Those are the words I want to start introducing,” she said.

Lisa Rowley asked how to convey ideas like intelligence if you’re hoping your child will value smarts and hard work in school.

“Intelligence, you can’t do very much about it,” Hoefle said. “Intelligent is like, you’re left-handed. That has nothing to do with the kid. You want them to be thinkers.

“So you say: ‘You’re such a good thinker? That’s using your brain?’ What do you say without it being praise?” Rowley asked.

“Here’s the strategy you guys are going to use,” Hoefle said. “You’re going to identify the trait and anchor it with the activity. When you see a child being thoughtful, you say, ‘You were so thoughtful when Michael came over and XYZ.’”

Then your children not only recognize the trait in themselves but start to truly understand what being thoughtful means. Once you do that three or four or a half-dozen times, your children start to think of themselves that way.

Kids are hungry to hear more substantive feedback than just: “‘You’re good, I like that, it’s pretty,’” Hoefle said. “Suddenly you have a kid who has a new picture of himself. This is powerful stuff. It’s so easy.”

Instead of trying to correct the things you don’t like about your kids, just focus on the tiny signs of progress, the traits you want to encourage. Even if it’s a fleeting moment when you see them being flexible, or using self-control, seize it.

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