Doc, helped me, my child doesn't want to go to school. I've heard it from other
parents too. I've got 3 specific things that you can do about that. Today
is more about principle than it is about specific techniques. There's a big
difference between principle and techniques. I believe if you have the
right principles down, that's going to help you come up with the right
application or the techniques to support those principles. So, principle number 1
is - diagnosis before treatment. Sounds like an appropriate thing for the
doc to say, right? We have to appropriately diagnose what's going on
before the treatment makes any sense. What if you were to go to the eye doctor
and you said, "Doc, I can't see very well." And he says, "Oh here, try leaves and he
takes his own glasses off and hands them to you. No, that's not going to work
because he needs to diagnose what's going on with your eyes and then treat
appropriately to that diagnosis. So, there's a lot of reasons why children
might not want to go to school. Let's see if we can drill down on the why because
that will help us to determine what to do about it. There's this few specific
questions you can ask. Now, when I say diagnosis before treatment, I don't want
you going out and diagnosing your child. I'm hesitant to do that and I'm a
licensed psychologist. What I want to diagnose is the problem so that we
understand what we're dealing with. So here are three questions that you can
use. Number one - is this new? If your child just barely started, refusing to go to
school, that's different from if it's something that you've been dealing with
now for two years. Is it new? A similar question - is it typical of my
child or of children in general? I can't tell you how many
have come into this office. Just all in knots about something that's actually
pretty typical for most kids. So that's why I said is it typical. Is it typical
for my child and is it typical for children in general? What kid likes to go
to school? Well a few of them actually do. But that's a smaller percentage. A lot of
times, it's pretty common for kids not to want to go to school and they get pretty
creative about how they can avoid it. So that's why I want you to ask is it
typical and then the third question is it isolated or more general for my child?
In other words, is it only on Mondays or on A days or B days or under certain
circumstances that my child is refusing or resisting to go to school? If
that's the case then there may be a particular teacher or there may be a
particular class or an experience that they're avoiding rather than school in
general. So you can see how asking these questions helps us to do a good
diagnosis first before we just jump in with the treatment. Diagnosis before
treatment. Got it? Now, let's move to the second principle. For this one I'm going
to say, "Communication before prescription." Communication before prescription. It
kind of follows along the same lines as diagnosis before treatment. In the
communication before prescription principle, we want to talk to our child
in a way that encourages open conversation and communication. They
probably already have some ideas or some input about this if we can get them to
open up and oftentimes, we can draw a solution from the child that keeps us
from having to do anything at all because they're going to solve it.
Staying calm is really important in this process. If you're all upset, it's going
to be hard for your child to talk to you and to really open up.
So make sure you keep a calm voice, calm face and calm body as you encourage them
to open up with questions like, "sweetie tell me a little bit more about what's
going on at school?" Try to stay away from the "yes or no", the "closed-ended" questions
you know things like, "Is everything okay at school?" Now, if they can give you a yes
or a no, they will do that and then they're done.
We want them to open up and actually share more information. "Tell me more
about" is a great phrase for you to use and you can fill in the end of that
sentence with a lot of different things. "Tell me more about school, tell me more
about your teacher, tell me more about recess." As you start to pick up on what's
going on then you can always go back to "Tell me more about that."
And your child will start to open up and will get more information so that we can
do the right thing. Another point while we're on communication before
prescription, establish some good communication with your child's teacher.
Your teacher has more access to your child than you do during the day and
they've probably already got some ideas about what's going on. Keep those lines
of communication open. I have to say something here too because my wife Vicki,
works for the school district. And she was sharing with me a few days ago that
sometimes parents are very adversarial toward the teachers. And I know that
there's sometimes things that you're concerned about that that teacher is
doing. The last thing you want to do is alienate the person who has the most
direct access to your child on a daily basis. Think of that teacher as being
part of your team. Bring that teacher in in ways that show appreciation and
acknowledgement and then use that teacher as one of your main resources
for getting information and communication going about the problem
that you're having with your child avoiding school. You'll probably learn a
lot that way. So we've covered already diagnosis
before treatment, communication before prescription,
the third principle that I would suggest to you here today is problem-solving
before punishment. A lot of times we want to jump in and punish when really we
just got a problem we need to work on together. I already mentioned that you
can often draw solutions out of your child. Collaborate with your child. Team
up with your child to take this on. Remember the problem is not your child,
the problem is the school issue that we're having and we are going to team up
against that problem. Align with your child be on their team. Be their primary
advocate and supporter with a firm resolve to take on the problem together.
Rather than punishment, let's think about this as support and encouragement.
There's a lot that you can offer as a parent that doesn't put you in the
middle of this thing and helps your child to take a higher level of
responsibility. Encourage their proactive efforts to address this problem in a way
that helps them to move forward. Compliment them for their efforts and
for their courage. Be there as their primary cheerleader and then you are
still the parent. Which means sometimes you get to set limits that are not
necessarily popular. That's okay. It's part of what it means to be a parent.
Your job is to love them no matter what and even if. Because you love them you
want them to succeed. Because you want them to succeed, you understand that
they're going to have to do some things that are hard in order to create an
easier life. I believe that it's going to be hard-easy, we do the hard thing now
and get them easier life or you can take the easy-hard route. Which is where you
do the easy thing now and you get a harder life. Sometimes, the challenges
your kids are facing and going to school feel really hard for them. Would it be
good for them to learn to handle those hard things now so
that they can create an easier life for themselves. And you get this as a parent
because you got that kind of perspective. They don't yet. So sometimes as parents
we have to set appropriate limits. Do the diagnosis first. Make sure you've got the
communication in place. And when you've got the right information, it's okay for
you to set appropriate limits so that they learn that they can do hard things.
If you want more support with that, we've got a lot of videos in the positive
parenting playlist here on the channel. Make sure you check that out and team up
together with other parents as part of this community to share ideas. There's
two specific things you can do to share ideas with each other. The comments
section down below is a great place to interact with other viewers who have
ideas. Jump in, be part of that conversation.
You might also choose to share this video with other parents that are
conscious and aware like you are. I appreciate your being here as part of
our positive parenting community. If you haven't checked out the parenting power
up yet, don't you think it's about time? There's a link right over there and also
a link right down there in the description.