5 Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing at Squidoo

I have my second page up over at Squidoo on some Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing. Take a look and please sign into the guest book so I know you were there. Share your thoughts on the topic. Weigh in on the poll too.

iDog, and Up and Out of the Tween

My daughter has extended her ability to delay gratification. We give her an allowance weekly and we offered to match whatever she saved for a recent vacation she and her mother took. And she kept the bulk of her money in her pocket during the vacation and decided that she'd rather get her first iPod than collect souvenirs. I was very glad to see her pull that off. Delayed gratification is a cornerstone of emotional intelligence, and it is challenging to teach. 

Since she's only eight I'm happy that iPods now come with volume limiting capability, mainly to keep her from accidentally turning the iPod up way to loud. Those Nanos have touchy little click wheels these days. Also Hannah is not as good as some kids at monitoring that sort of thing carefully. 

Now here's the catch. She had some money left over and decided she had to get an iDog to go with her new mp3 player. Now I'm not quite as impressed with iDog as she is. He pretty much is simple robotic external speaker; produces light patterns on his muzzle to beat of music; and occasionally moves his head back and forth and wiggles his ears. That's iDog. So much for the delayed gratification piece. And for iDog to work, we've discovered, the volume on the iPod has to be cranked up way beyond the sub-half point we set on the volume limiter to preserve her hearing for future years. My hearing, by the way, isn't great, and she may be up against a genetic component too. 

I'm afraid when she's done with iDog one of these times, she'll put on those earbuds, blasting her hearing before I get a chance to reset the volume limit. It doesn't take too long to do some permanent damage. So at this point, my options seem to be  1) ban iDog,  2) throw my hands up in the air and say to myself "I guess she's almost a teen. Whaddaya gonna do?" or 3) lecture her on how delicate hearing is—try to impress upon her how important it is to make sure that she always brings one of us the iPod immediately after using it with iDog, so we can reset the volume limit again.

At 8 years old she has been cultivating that tween skill of giving off disgusted facial expressions when she doesn't like what is being said. The up side is that I have a lecture early warning sign telling me when what I'm saying just isn't likely to sink in. One of the best things I know of to help in this situation is Up and Out of the Kid. It isn't that far off from lecturing, but it is different enough that it improves on it in a couple of ways. The first way is by changing my tone so that she is better able to hear what I have to say. When we lecture, we have a tendency to lapse into being condescending. If we start catching the eye rolls and facial expressions, it can rapidly go downhill from there. We get triggered, and out it rolls: "If you're not willing to listen to me about this without the attitude, maybe you're just not ready to have an iPod." So we're off to threats, and the unstated, embedded message we send is You're Not Capable.

So with Up and Out of the Kid, I try for something more along these lines. "So Hannah, if you forget to bring us the iPod and you end up with the volume too loud, for too long, what could happen?"
"It could ruin my ears"
"Yeah. And if that happened, how long would your hearing be hurt for?"
"It could be hurt forever"
"Right"
"So after you use iDog, what do you always need to do?"
"Bring you my iPod so you can do the noise thingy [volume limiter]"
"Good thinking.  And if you're not remembering to do that, what do you think we'll need to do?"
"Not let me use my iPod."
"Right. You'd be taking a break from it for a bit. So is that something it would help to write yourself a note about, or is that something that you could just remember on your own. What is your thinking on that?"

"I can remember." [self given You're Capable Message]

"That would be great. I bet you can too."

Up and Out of the Kid is not perfect, but in my mind it beats lectures and threats by a long shot. One of the advantages is that instead of bouncing off Hannah's cranium, which is what seems to happen when I lapse into lecturing, the ideas come up and out of her nervous system. And by definition that increases the odds that she's actually going to remember to do what she's saying. Also, you'll notice lots of my saying "Right" and "Good thinking" in these sorts of conversations. Where the unstated message of a lecture is, "You're not very sharp, so I'd better spell it out for you." the embedded message in a conversation using Up and Out of the Kid is more along the lines of, "This is important stuff. And I bet when you give it some thought you'll know how to handle it." An added bonus is that since by answering my question she stated the likely logical consequence of not bringing me the iPod, she is not going to be too shocked if that comes to pass. She'd still get hacked at me, but not in the same way since she was able to predict what would happen herself. 

I'm betting she'll do well with this. God they grow up fast. 

Bargaining on the Front End

Have you ever come home from work after a hard day and had your son asks you to do something with him that you really didn't want to do, but you did it anyway because you wanted to connect with him? After agreeing to the activity the child has in mind, and it is time to wrap up,it is pretty common for the child to say something along the lines of "How come you wont play longer?" in a tone that isn't exactly flowing with gratitude.

Now sometimes, of course, this is because the child is just right. We don't spend enough time with him. In future posts we'll look at some ways to make connecting with our kids more doable in ways that are fun for both of you. But other times it is more important to focus on the process of agreeing to the activity. The vignette described above is just one of multitudes of ways that we end up as parents getting into something and then feeling resentful at our kids when it could have gone much more smoothly with a little bargaining on the front end.

Bargaining on the front end can apply to anything from playing a game, to letting them watch a movie, to having a friend over. Here is an example of a mother using this idea with her daughter. Mom has some work that she needs to wrap up at the computer, but her eight year old daughter wants her to take a break to play some badminton, "Come on Mom" it will be fun." But mom remembers that last time that she played a game with her daughter she ended up getting a lot of attitude when it was time to wrap up. So instead of getting into the game only to feel frustrated and unappreciated when she needs to stop, she says something like this:

"Well let me see. If I can take a bit and put the work I'm doing on hold, what do you think I'm going to hear when I need to stop. Am I going to hear, 'Mom, you never play with me long enough. You're no fun at all'? Or will I hear something more like, 'Thanks for playing Mom. That was fun.'?"

The child will usually agree to the second option that involves using some social skills and expressing some appreciation. When we ask for that on the front end, the child agrees to the "terms" and in answering the question, the more prosocial words actually come "Up and Out" of their nervous system. Making it much more likely that those words will come to her. It also leaves the parent with more dignity. Reprimanding the child after the fact, rather than doing the bargaining on the front end feels mean spirited to the kid and doesn't do much for our parenting self-concept.

Now any kid worth keeping is often going to forget anyway. When she does, and starts off with "But you never play...", you can interrupt in a calm assertive tone, saying, "Ohhh. What did you say that I was going to hear?" For most kids that is enough to cue them and they'll slide right into the groove of expressing appreciation. When they do it is important to circle back and let them know..."Remember when you asked me to play catch with you, and I had to stop and get dinner going, and you said, thanks for playing. That really felt good. When I hear that it really makes me feel like playing more often." On the other hand, when that isn't enough to cue them, then you can wait until the next invite, and express some sadness..."Remember last time we played checkers, and when I had to stop, you scowled at me and kept that up for the next hour. I'm not sure I'm up for that today. But try me tomorrow. If you let me know what your plan is for that, I bet I'll feel more like playing.

So don't get into the activity and end up feeling resentful. Talk about the terms on the front end. Use "Up and Out of the Kid" to prime your child to be successful. And play more often.

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What You're Not Saying That Says So Much

Early in my teaching career I learned about a concept that first got me thinking seriously about just how important our use of language can be when talking to kids. I overheard a skilled, veteran teacher making a mistake with a kid. I remember clearly that it was a group of first graders walking down the hallway. One of the kids was messing around in line. His teacher walked up to him, took him by the arm and escorted him to the back of the line. While she was walking him, she said something along the lines of "Since you can't behave yourself, you can go to the end of the line." Even as inexperienced as I was at the time, it occurred to me, "You know, I think she just told that kid that he can't behave himself. I'm not sure that's really a message that is in her interest to give to him, much less in his interest." As I reflect on this, I think just hearing that interaction and realizing its importance was probably a major influence to my deciding to change my career to working more closely with children, families and adults as a parent coach and therapist.

Now like all of us, at some of my, shall we say, less than stellar moments, I make this exact sort of mistakes. Lots of times I'll even be aware that I'm doing it and still not be able to pull it together in the moment. What is going on in these interactions, often below the level of what is actually said, is that there is an implicit message. The gist of that message generally says one of two things. It says either, "You're a capable kid," or "You're not capable." Now any single sentence said to a child is not likely to harm her over the long term. The problem would seem to come from repeatedly hearing You're Not Capable messages, and hearing relatively few of the other sort.

To get more of a handle on this principle lets look at an example with a younger child. You could say, "If you don't start eating politely, you're going to be heading to your room." You could even add "Mr." to the end for emphasis. Not quite as bad as the one in the teacher example above, but still not in the You're Capable camp. An alternative way of saying something like this might be, "We'd love to have you eating here with us as long as you're using your manners." Notice that both ways of stating this are getting at setting the exact same limit with the child, about eating at the table. But the second not only sounds more inviting, it implies that the child has good manners and has an option of whether to use them or not. On a side note, it also sounds like the adult wants to be with him. Most importantly it implies that he's capable and in control of his behavior, a message we want him to hear again and again.

Another variation on the example above is to use the Up and Out of the Kid principle that I originally heard described by Betsy Geddes, a former Portland Elementary School principal and a colleague of Jim Fay's. I'd heard other use the strategy, but no one seemed to call it anything or have a name for it. I've used that phrase ever since to describe the idea to clients.

Up and Out means rather than simply telling a child something (which often tends to slide into unhelpful lectures filled with inadvertent You're Not Capable messages) asking a key question that brings the answer up and out of the child's nervous system. This might sound like, "Geoff, if the goofing around at the table continues, what's your best guess about what might happen?" said in a friendly, confident voice. This not only invites the child to think through likely results of his behavior giving a chance to change course, it also sends a subtle and powerful message, "Geoff, I think you are a responsible and smart enough kid that you can figure this out with just a brief prompt. I don't need to spell it out for a sharp kid like you."

A big way that you can incorporate this into your parenting or work with kids is to start out by just listening to how you and others talk. When you have a sense that a You're Not Capable message was imbedded in what was said, try to imagine what the alternative way of phrasing it might be. If you can't think of it in the moment, write it down and post it as a question in the comments section and we can brainstorm You're Capable alternatives right here at Awareness * Connection.

And don't get down on yourself when you find yourself giving your child You're Not Capable messages. The most highly trained of us still do it. We all do from time to time. The first and most important step is simply increasing awareness (note the name of the blog). If you give yourself credit for that first step of just awareness, you'll likely move on to become increasingly effective in communicating with children in ways that invite long term responsible behavior.

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