Do you wanna know how to deal with the pouting child? Well, I'm Nicholeen Peck,
I'm a parenting expert and I teach everyone about self-government all over the world.
We're gonna be talking about pouting children and what you can do in this video.
In this video, I wanna share a personal story about my son who did have a pouting problem and
then what you can do to help your children not have pouting problems. Just like I've done for
mine and so many others all over the world. I have four children and my youngest one Porter
was definitely my pouter. In fact, I remember when we filmed the BBC documentary that the camera crew
was constantly teasing him, calling him grumpy Porter. Because he didn't wanna smile. He didn't
wanna be in the spotlight. He just wanted to have his regular life. If you have not seen that
BBC documentary "The Worlds Strictest Parents" that our family starred in. You can click on the
link here and it will take you to that video. But Porter had a little bit of a trouble with
pouting for quite some time and we were constantly correcting it. I tell you what though, it didn't
take long for Porter to decided pouting did not serve him well. He was trying to seek attention.
He was trying to get people to understand him. He was trying to get things his way. He was the
smallest person. Everyone was very busy. His older brothers and sisters were loud in doing things
and I think he felt left behind a lot. And because of that, he chose to pout. But after we did
what I'm going to explain in this video. Porter decided pouting wasn't something he wanted to do
anymore. Even though, occasionally he would pout in the future because it is an old habit.
We we're able to easily nip it in the bud. So that it wasn't a continuous problem for him any longer.
Let me explain what we did. The first thing we taught Porter was what attention-seeking is. I
know that seems strange to teach a little guy. He was like three years old, maybe four at that time.
But he definitely could understand the lesson. We showed him this is positive attention-seeking,
this is negative attention-seeking. When a person is whining that's actually negative
attention-seeking. When a person is hanging on someone and hugging...all over the place. They are
positive attention-seeking. Both of these types of attention-seeking can go too far. But in most
cases, positive attention-seeking is considered to be acceptable and welcomed. But negative
attention-seeking is usually never appreciated. So we talked to Ported about the difference between
the two. We did a little role play example so that he could see. And then, at that point, he realized
he was doing negative attention-seeking. We then explain the way to stop negative attention-seeking
was to seek to be understood in a more productive way. So, we teach skills in our home. In fact,
in my teaching self-government parenting course. I teach four basic skills to children. All of these
skills have once step in common and that is to have a calm face, voice and body. So, Ported
already knew these skills but at this point, I reminded Porter about the step having a calm face,
voice, and body in all of these skills. We practiced having a calm face and what a calm
face was not. We practiced having a calm body and a calm voice and then of course, practice
the opposites of those things as well. So he could clearly differentiate between what was calm
and what was not calm. Then I reminded Ported that in three of the four skills that we teach.
There's another step that is common and that is to drop the subject and that when Porter was
whining and seeking negative attention, and not having a calm face, voice, and body.
He was usually not dropping the subject, He had received a "no" or something has not gone
his way that he wanted it too and he chose to complain. That was not dropping the subject.
So, when I reminded him of the skills that he knew and that all this was considered negative
attention-seeking. He now have a knowledge of his own behavior. It's so important that
instead of just attacking the behavior with a consequence. That we actually teach the children
what they're doing, what the results are, and what they should do instead. Ove the four basic skills,
probably the most useful skill for conquering pouting is the skill of disagreeing appropriately
and this is because the whole point of the skill is to help a person be understood.
In fact, disagreeing appropriately should work for children most of the time. When I say work,
it should always work that they could understood. But sometimes, they should also be able to change
your mind and that's what I mean by it should work a lot of the time. If they are going to decide
instead of going in the midbrain and pout to go to front brain and to think about your point of view
and their point of view and to discuss it openly with you. Whoah, that should be rewarded, that
is good self-government. So, how do you disagree appropriately? There's multiple steps. You look
at the person, keep a calm face, voice, and body. Say that you understand the other person's point
of view, then you share your point of view. You listen to what they to say and then you say "okay"
and drop the subject. If a child can learn how to converse with other people, not just parents but
siblings and teachers and other people in their lives too. With this type of skill of disagreeing
appropriately. They feel empowered. They feel mature and grown up and they often times get
their way too. So once they use this skill and it works. Why would they ever go back? Well,
most of them don't. In fact, many parents who take my teaching self-government parenting
course will say to me about this skill, "Can this skill be used too much? I have children that are
using this skill all the time and I feel like it's too much", and I'll say to them, "You don't
have to say "yes" and agree with their point of view every time. You can still say "no" sometimes
so that they learn to decide whether it's worth the effort of disagreeing appropriately. Or if
they should just say "okay", and drop the subject that time and they say, "Oh okay, that's probably
what I'm doing wrong." But I always remind them, It's such a good thing if they are overusing it.
That means they are seeing this skill works. It's productive and it's way better than complaining,
attitude problem, whining. All of the other things that they've been trying to do to get understood
and to get their way. They can be more mature that we really know they can. If we give them the
skills to use. If you have a child that pouts it's important that, that child knows ahead of time
how you will correct the problem when it arises. So, when Porter was a little toddler we had a
calm down spot that he would go to. Every time he pouted we would take him to the calm down spot.
Now, we have to pre-teach it to him ahead of time. We told him, "Porter, you know how you whine
sometimes and you pout sometimes, and it looks like this." We would show him what it look like
and then we said, "Every time that happens then mom's going to gently take you by the arm and say,
Oh Porter, your whining. We need to go to the calm down spot, and then I'm going to take you
to the calm down spot, and that will be a place where you get ready to get a calm face, voice,
and body and say "okay. And once you can do that, then mom will give you a big hug and a high five,
and then we'll talk about it." So the whole point for Porter is to be understood. But we
can't be understood until we get to a place of calmness first. So, he had a calm place that
he was going to go to, and that way I didn't have to power struggle with him. I recognized,
Oh his pouting right now we have a plan for this. We will go to the calm down place
and then after he gets calm we do a correction which involves some pre-teaching for future
success. Then he gets the opportunity to accept the consequence. So, part of this calm down
and correction process does mean he earned a negative consequence. It's the right kind of
consequence and it's done with some good proactive teaching. So that hopefully in the future he won't
have the same problem as often. Please remember with little children their pre-frontal cortexes
are not fully developed and so, it can take them a while and lot's of repetition and practice before
they finally internalize the skill that they need. Now, I know some of you are thinking,
"Yeah, but the pouting at my house is done by my fifteen-year-old. It's not a toddler
like you keep talking about. No worries, these skills work for fifteen-year-olds too. In fact,
I started teaching self-government skills to foster children who are all between the ages of 12
and 18 years old, and it was only after working with those children that I started teaching
these skills to my then toddlers at that time. And my children had been raised all the way up
to adulthood with these skills. In fact, when they get to adulthood because we all know
adults pout too. They'll say to me, "You know mom, I'm really glad that I know how to accept a "no"
answer." "You know mom, with my boss I disagreed appropriately the other day and it really worked
out well" Let me tell you about it. I'm so glad that in our family we learned the skills for
communication. So that we didn't have to use communication methods that are not effective,
like pouting. Did you like this video? Be sure to subscribe and if you did like this video.
I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy my next video which is, how to get a defiant child to obey.