Do you ever find that you have to yell in order for your kids to hear you?
Today at Live On Purpose TV, how to get your kids to listen without yelling.
Like many of you, Vicki and I have a pet. It's a little dog, he's a yorkie poo, cute little
guy. We named him Mozzie and he is a smart little dog too. I was wondering
recently and I think I come in to Vicki about this, has he trained us or
have we trained him? You know what I'm talking about if you're a dog owner.
We train each other. This is true with our kids too. Our kids train us to do certain
things, to act certain ways, to respond to them in a way that they've trained us to
respond to them and we do the same with our kids. Notice that it's going both
directions because that's going to be important as we manage the dynamic of
how we're going to encourage our kids to listen to us without hopping into the
yelling mode. Now having introduced it with my dog, what if your kids have
trained you to yell? I had a dad come in to talk to me once. I can't remember all
the circumstances around his particular family but I think he was a single dad,
he had about four or five kids and he was just feeling so frustrated because
every time he asked the kids to do something, they would just ignore him
until he got so frustrated and so upset that he was yelling and then they would
finally respond. Can you relate to this? Does this happen at your place?
So he asked me a question, he said, "Dr. Paul, why do my kids wait until the twelfth time
I've asked him and I'm upset and angry before they'll do something?" How would
you answer that? Why did they wait and tell the twelfth time?
Because they have trained him to yell at them before they respond because he has
trained them to ignore him until the twelfth time so I asked him a question,
"Why do they do it the twelfth time?" Think about that for a minute.
What is different time number twelve from time number one? Picture this,
time number one dad is, "Hey guys would you please clean up all of that stuff so
that we can have dinner." Alright, now that registers with the kids as "ma-ma-ma
what did dad say? I don't know, was it anything important? I don't think so.
Do I need to pay attention to that? Probably not."
Time number two, "Guys did you hear me?" Kids are hearing "Ma-ma-ma
did dad say something? I don't know, I don't know if he said anything. Is it important? Yeah,
probably not." Time number twelve, *gets mad* popping coronaries and everything. How do
the kids hear that? "Oh, dad's talking, sounds important. I probably better do
something or I'm gonna get clobbered." That's why they respond time twelve
because they're interpreting it as "Oh, it's important now, I'm going to get
clobbered if I don't do something now." See, he has raised his voice to the point
where he triggers that understanding in their little minds. So how are we going to
switch this dynamic? My suggestion to him was, clobber him the first time. Now don't
misunderstand me, I'm not saying you should clobber your kids, I'm actually
against that but what I am saying is, move the real consequences up in the
sequence so that they follow the calm, cool, collected voice instead of the
yelling voice. We're going to train them to respond when we talk to them calmly
and in a loving tongue with a smile on our face. In fact, we can train kids to
understand that dad smiling means that kids better start thinking but they're
not equating it with that yet. So how are kids interpreting what we're
saying? I heard a phrase years ago that makes a lot of sense to me, "Bad breath is
better than no breath at all." So they don't mind having a little bad breath,
it actually makes them feel validated in some ways, so yelling at our kids is not
necessarily a punishment. In fact, from a behavioral psychology standpoint, yelling
is a trap because it is a reinforcement, not a punishment. I'm talking strictly
behavioral terms, those of you who've studied a little behavioral psychology
will understand that the difference between a reinforcer and a punishment,
a punishment decreases a behavior, a reinforcer increases of behavior.
Yelling is a reinforcer not a punishment. That's important to know because we
inadvertently set ourselves up for more problems when yell. It trains our kids
to respond then instead of when we're talking calmly. Here's a strategy that
might help and I've used this with so many clients and even with my own kids,
understand that your kids always always have choices, always, and if you haven't
figured this out yet, notice that what you give them as choices, sometimes they
pick something totally different, right? So they've always got choices and at a
very minimum, they have a choice to either cooperate or not with you.
So acknowledging their choice in the matter, let's set it up so that we have
the greatest opportunity for success. I need to go back to something that I've
mentioned before and that has to do with the rules of plumbing. Some of you may
have not heard this from me yet but there were times, early in our marriage
when Vicki and I would find that something's wrong with the house
and we need to have them fixed and we couldn't afford a repairman and so I got
to do a lot of home repairs, some of these involves plumbing. I'm not a
plumber, I'm a psychologist, there's a difference, they both start with P, that's
about where the similarities end. Except for this, I consulted with my dad
about this plumbing project that I was doing, he says, "Yeah Paul, there's the only
two rules to plumbing basically. Two things you need to know." "I'm interested
dad, what is that?" He said, "Well the two rules are first, water runs downhill." Okay,
I can see why that one's important then he pause for a minute and said,
"Rule number two, don't lick your fingers" And I laugh, it's funny right? But if you've
ever installed the toilet, you know what we're talking about here. Water runs
downhill, don't lick your fingers, what does this have to do with psychology?
I think there are two analogous rules in psychology. Rule number one, this is the
water runs downhill rule, some things you control, other things you don't. Get clear
about that, it's important and especially when you're dealing with your kids, some
things you control, other things you don't. Things like their attitude and
whether they're gonna cooperate or not, you don't control that, they do.
Here's rule number two, pay attention to the things you do control. This is going to
save so much heartache as a parent because we're going to focus our efforts
on what is within our own control to accomplish. Now let's go to the strategy.
Try this and make some comments down below about what you experienced about
this, I would love to hear from some of you on this. Here it is,
give them two choices, alright? Give them two. Now there's always more than
two but you're going to give them two choices. Either one is okay with you,
either one. We make this mistake as parents sometimes to say, "Okay you do
this or else.." Or else what? We give them a choice
that is one that we like and then they go pick something that we don't like.
That's why I want you to give them two choices, either one you're okay with.
Let me give you an example. You can clean your room yourself or you can hire
someone else to do it, either way it's okay with me, as long as
it's clean to my satisfaction I'm good. That's an example of two choices you're
okay with either one, okay. For a younger child, you can come with me on your own
feet or you can come with me on my feet, either one is okay with me. Do you see
either way they're coming with you. Are you going to come or not? Are you gonna come
or am I gonna leave you home? Look, if you're not willing to leave the kid home
and you shouldn't be, if they're young enough then this would be an issue, then
don't use that as a threat, they'll see right through it and your words will be
garbage. We're going to talk about turning your words from garbage into gold so
that when they hear your voice, your melodious pleasant voice, they listen and
pay attention because that's gold. See, we're turning words from garbage into
gold. So we're gonna give two choices you're okay with either one. Now here's
the kicker, you control one of them. Why? Because that one becomes default. That is
the one that is going to happen if they refuse to choose, they chose that one.
So in the examples that I gave, you can clean your own room or you can hire
someone else to do it, either one is really okay with me. Which one do you
control? That one because if they choose not to clean their room at all and they
probably didn't call up Annie's maid service, pre-paid of course, to come and
take care of that room for them, then what did they choose? They chose to hire
someone to do it and who did they choose? Chose you. Yeah, now you might be thinking
"I'm not going to clean my kid's room, they're supposed to do it."
Okay, fine. Remember we gave them two choices, you can clean it yourself, you can hire
someone else to do it. Either way is okay with me, don't go back on your word
and say, "Actually I'm not okay with that one now." You be okay with it.
I told my kids, they learned this pretty early, you can hire me any time you want
and then I gave them my rates. There's no kid out there wants to pay 200 plus
dollars per hour to have their room cleaned but that's my rate, just saying okay.
And I'm happy to come clean your room for that much, just give me a call and
we'll make an arrangement. Nobody hires me to clean their room for 200 plus
dollars an hour. Why? Because that's too expensive. What if your kid hires you to
clean their room? Well that's going to cost them something, I'm not saying you
should charge them 200 bucks, what I am saying is, it should cost them something
and you need to be able to control that cost, that's another conversation that
we'll probably have in another video, but you got to be okay with both
choices because one of those you control and that's the one that is default.
Go to the younger child example, you can come on your own two feet or you can
come on my feet, either way is okay with me.
You got a two-year-old who wants to do everything "by myself" right?
Have you heard that one? Yeah, which one did they want to choose? Well they want to be
in control of some things, they might choose their own two feet but if they
don't choose to come with you, you get to pick them up because they're two and you
can still do this, you get to pick them up and they get to go on your feet.
Now you might think well I just want them to come, I don't want them to fight
me. Right? Here's a little tip, think versus fight, think versus fight.
Every interaction you have with your kids is going to invite them to do one or the
other. What do we want them to do? Think because if they're thinking, they're
going make some pretty good decisions. What do they want to do. Sometimes they
want to fight and so they've trained us to yell at
them so that they can fight with us, it's not fair but it happens okay, and I don't
say they're doing this maliciously, I don't think they are, I think it's just
working for them and bad breath is better than no breath
at all. We're going to turn our words from garbage into gold so that when we
speak in that melodious loving tone of voice that we always use as a parent now,
they're going to hear that and they're going say, "What?" Okay, so pretend for a
minute that you give them that choice. You can come on my own two feet or you
or you can come on your own two feet or you can come on my feet, either way it's
okay with me. And then "I'm not coming" So you pick them
up and you take them. Now what happens the next time?
Assuming that you were calm and cool and collected, you didn't lose your cool and
fight. What happens next time when you say, "Hey we're going, would you like to
come on your own two feet I would you like to come on mine? Either way is okay
with me." Do you see what we're talking about?
Would you like to clean your own room or would you like to hire someone to do it?
Either way is okay with me. If they just paid a big cost the last time, they're
going to be thinking now. See now I've accomplished think versus fight, we've
turned our words from garbage into gold so that we can talk to our kids and we
don't have to yell and we've just trained them to respond to us
differently because of how we've approached them.
So now maybe you won't
have to yell as much and your kids will actually listen, you've turned your words
from garbage into gold. Live On Purpose TV has some more gold for you,
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