My Success By 6 Experiment #4
Success By 6 offers parent workshops in partnership with a few local hospitals. This effort recently expanded to include monthly workshops at Norton Suburban. I decided to attend the first workshop to make sure everything ran smoothly and because I was interested in the topic. Dr. Jeanette Nunnelley presented her workshop, “Powerful, Practical Practices in Behavior Guidance.” I generally think that I do a pretty good job in the positive discipline arena, but I thought that I should see how I compare to the advice of an expert.
I was pleased that so many of the strategies that she described were ones that I already use with Luke. Here are a few of them:
- Ignore inappropriate behavior and/or redirect. If what he’s doing isn’t going to hurt him and it is just annoying me I try to walk away. And if he is not making the best choice, it is easy to “trick” him into focusing his attention on something else.
- Catch your child being good. When he uses good manners or is sweet to another person I praise him and tell him how proud I am of the behavior I want to see more of.
- Use simple preventative measures. No one likes to be rushed. In our frantic family one of the most valuable strategies that we use is to give five minute warnings (followed by a countdown of minutes) when it is nearing time to move to our next activity.
Of course, I have had the opportunity to sit in on countless early childhood training sessions when I worked in the child care field, and I have real-life experience with lots of other people’s children who I have cared for. So, I should already know these techniques. The part that pleases me the most is that I almost always put them into practice. Don’t get me wrong, everyone loses their patience sometimes. I know that I have fussed at him in a less than appropriate way on at least a couple of occasions.
I can think of one bedtime in particular. We had gotten all set: all clean from bath, pajamas on, lots of books thrown into the bed waiting to be read, and goodnight kisses for Daddy. In my mind we were all set for a typical bedtime. Apparently Luke had other things in mind. He kept getting out of bed to go get stuff telling me, “I be right back.” He would come back, get back into bed, think of something else and jump out of the bed again. I probably ignored this behavior for a little too long because I finally had enough and told him in a raised voice that if he didn’t get into that bed then we weren’t reading any books at all and I was leaving the room. My overly-sensitive child cried. He hung his head and wouldn’t look at me. He finally said, “I’m mad.” I felt bad about hurting his feelings, but I was impressed with his ability to name his feeling. We snuggled and read books after that, but it still wasn’t an exchange that I felt good about.
The biggest take-away for me from Dr. Nunnelley’s workshop was her reminder to be an appropriate role model for your child. This is actually something that I am trying to be intentional about in everything that I do: Be the change that you want to see. So, of course it makes sense for me to be the kind of person that I want my son to be.
What works with your child? When have you been frustrated?
photo credit: brungrrl
