Okay, I've got one for you. -Okay. -How to talk to your child about bad behavior? -Oh,
that's going to come up. Obviously, we're going to start the same place that we
always do here. Your own attitude, really. -Oh, yeah. -Probably the most
important thing here. We've got to behave your problem with the child. -Mm-hmm.
So, how are we going to respond to it? -Check in first with where you are with this.
Well, first of all, kids misbehave. If you haven't figured that out yet, you must be
a brand-new parent. Kids misbehave. It's part of being a kid. It's what they do.
And in that light, Vicki, it's not even really misbehavior. It's childhood. It's
what they do. When we can approach it that way, it helps us to chill a
little bit. You know, to calm down so... -Now, the
behavior definitely might need to be modified shaped changed. Because of
safety or outcomes that are going to be really negative and damaging to the
child. The first place is to look at our own attitude. Get real about that so that
you can then approach your child in a way that is more positive, more
constructive and is going to bring out about better responses. -Right. Earlier, we
did a video with Nicholeen Peck. -Okay. -She shared something with me. This
is actually years ago before we ever did the video on here on the channel. That
has stuck with me all these years and it's to maintain a calm voice, a calm
face and a calm body. Think about all three of those for a minute. Calm
voice, calm face, calm body. This is what we want to model for our kids. -Right. -And
you're much more influential as a parent when you come at it with a calm voice,
calm face and a calm body. Because you're not triggering the fight-or-flight
response in your kids. -Right. Remember, we kind of going back to things
we've said before. Ever interaction with your child, you're
inviting them to either think or fight. And so, if you come at it with a
calm voice, calm body, you're going to be inviting them to think. -Remember, we're
dealing with misbehavior here, right? Bad behavior. It's something that we want to
shape and change. So, the last thing we want to do is model out of control freak-ish
psycho mom. You want to come at it with that calm voice, calm face, calm body.
And then that's going to help you to have the conversation with your child.
-One of the next tips that we were thinking about kind of goes back to a
movie I watched a long time ago called Raising Helen. It had Joan Cusack and
Kate Hudson in it. Right? And there's a situation where this boy and girl are
they gone to a hotel and on a prom night or something like that. Anyway and... -Bad
behavior. -Yeah, Joan Cusack. And she rushes into the hotel room and...
-She's mom, right? -She's the aunt. -Yeah, okay. -But she is kind of like a very
practice mother and seen as the perfect mother, right? Or whatever so she runs in.
And she takes care of the situation. Gets the girl out of there and stuff in. And
she kind of lets the guy have it, the kid, the teenage boy. And she goes to leave
but she turns around says, "This is very bad behavior. You're not a bad kid but
this is very bad behavior." I think... -You're not a better person. "But this
bad behavior." And I just thought that was so funny. But you know there's so much in
just that little... Little there's a nugget in there. -Oh. -Super important. -A
valuable nugget because what we're doing is separating the child, their
person, their character from the behavior which is the problem. -Yeah. And I think we
need to some of the triggers that we really want to watch out for are things
like "You are", "you always". You know, those types of things. Because that is casting
who they are. Their personality is talking about them. It's labeling them.
-Yeah. So instead of "you were really bad this afternoon",
it's "You did this this afternoon". And that was inappropriate. -Mmm. "It broke our
family rules..." -Separate the person from the behavior. -One of my favorite people
that kind of really talks a lot about this it kind of goes into the difference
between shame and guilt is Brene Brown. Yeah. And when we use these
words like the "you are", you bring on a real feeling of shame.
Whereas guilt, it's good for them. It's good for us to feel guilt for
inappropriate behavior. -Appropriate guilt for inappropriate
behavior. -But shame is another thing because that
takes on the person of, "Oh, I'm terrible". So, I really want to you know, look
into that and become aware of that we're encouraging our child to separate the
behavior or encouraging ourselves really to separate the behavior from the child
as himself or herself. -Again, the wording is huge. Instead of "you are", "you did"
-Mm-hmm. -Okay? -Do you hear the difference there? Focus on the behavior because
that's where the problem is. Your child is not the problem. -And can I just say
really quick and add that it's not only helping the child. Because when they hear
that "you are, you are, you are" that's going to change their kind of
self-awareness or their self... -Concept. -Right. -Yeah. -But the words are also... I think it
changes how you see them also. You start saying, "You are, you are." And it just
changes things. You know? -Can I share a powerful thing that I learned about that?
Ron Zeller is world class leadership expert in trainer. He passed away a few
years ago. But I had run on my podcast. And he taught me something about naming.
Because what we name something determines our own behavior toward that
thing. -Right. -And the example he used he said like, "Adam in the Garden of Eden". And
his job is to name all the animals. Well, he saw a horse and he named it jumping
theme leaping creature. -Okay. -Ron was pretty old. Maybe he was there.
But anyway, I still didn't get it and Ron said, "He didn't name it lunch." And then it
kicked in. What do you do with lunch? -Yeah. -You eat it. What do you do with the
jumping thing a leaping creature? Maybe you marvel at it, you watch it you get on
and ride around a little bit. -Yeah. -What you name something determines
your own behavior toward that thing. -So, we want to be really careful not to
label our children look at their bad behavior. We had an example with this in
our own family. And this is a little bit of self disclosure but one of our
children, we had named him, "He likes to push the limits". -Hm-hmm. -Do you remember
that? -Or "he drives me crazy". -And that's... You think, "That's not a name." Well, yeah. It
was. And that's how we were interacting with him. When I learned this thing from
Ron, I made an intentional effort to rename my son. I trust you to make good
decisions for you. Whole different name. -Yeah. -And the point is it changed how
I showed with him. -Right. -That's the power of naming. -You know Paul, in my work, a lot
of what I do in working with children is trying to help them understand how they
influence the world around them, people around them and things. And you know, and
that's one of the important things with bad behavior is helping the child, your
own child to see how their behavior is impacting those around them. -This is
something that we call empathy. -Right. -Really. It's understanding and caring how
other people feel. And it's really a part of moral development. -Yeah. -When we gain
empathy, we're operating in a much higher level of moral development. So, in talking
with your child about the bad behavior, we're separating the child from the
behavior so that they're not owning that they're a bad person.
It's just bad behavior. Yeah, it's a good example of that. And then we want to
connect them. You know what? I'm working with a mom and her daughter where the
daughter had some very bad behavior. -Mm-hmm. -Okay? After the fact, she realized
what kind of an impact this had on her mother. Who now needs to help her out in
the juvenile correctional system. And there's... -Some different things. -It's an
imposition on mom and mama is worried about and she saw mom crying, okay? And up
until that point, this teenage daughter didn't realize that what she did had
that profound of an impact on her mother. -A lot of the times kids think outside of
me, no problem. -Yeah. -As long as I know how it's affecting... Especially
teenagers get to that. It's just a very myopic. So, helping them see and look
outwards at how their actions affect those around them.
And you know, this is a super important thing in this world when it comes to
social skills. -Mm-hmm. -There's a lot of things about social
skills where if we just realize what our behavior, how it is affecting those
around us. -You're going to wonder sometimes "What's an appropriate
consequence to give my child for this bad behavior?" Here's one that you might
try especially with older children and teens. And they have to be at least on
stage 2 to do this, okay? So... And you can go back and review teaching children
responsibility if you want to review those 3 stages. Or if you have the
Parenting Power-Up. It's all in there. If they're on stage 2, they're cooperating
with you. And you can use this kind of a consequence. I want you to write an essay.
Okay. Now, this is why it requires cooperation, okay?
We handle stage one in a different way. I want you to write an essay that says
what you did that violated our family rules or you know that was wrong what
was the behavior, who did it impact and what were the ways that those people
were impacted, okay? This encourages and develops empathy. Now, they might just
throw it back in your faces. "I'm not writing your stupid essay." Right? -Now
you're back on stage 1. -That means they're on stage one. So, we're going to use a
different kind of consequence. That's why I said you can do this with stage 2.
Again, the idea is to encourage and reinforce empathy. "What is the impact
that my behavior has on the world around me? And
especially on the people that I love?" We've got a lot of videos for you on the
positive parenting playlist. One that we've done on this very topic. How to
correct a child's bad behavior with positive parenting. You can watch that
one next and just continue your learning quest. We got your back.