If there's one thing that we know is going to happen in every home or around the world
that's raising children, it's bad behavior. So, if your child has had some bad behavior
from time to time, you're certainly not alone. That's part of being a child. This video is
dedicated to helping you know how to talk to your child about their bad behavior so
that they can have a change of heart. Changing bad behavior requires having a change of heart.
In 2009, the BBC proved that by bringing 2 troubled British teens to our home to stay
for 8 days. They brought a boy and a girl, Hanna and James. They were both 17 and they
were supposed to be incorporated into our family as if they had always been part of
our family. Well, after all of the years of treatment foster care that I had done and
all the people that I've brought into my family for so many years, I wasn't so worried about
having Hanna and James come as maybe some people might be. And that's because I knew
how to help them have a change of heart and how to have a change of behavior no matter
what types of tricks they pulled or buttons they try to push or something like that. For
2 solid days, Hanna and James had tantrums as if they were a lot younger than they were.
And they ran away 5 times. And finally after that, everyone just saw them get calm. By
the end of the program, Hanna and James were crying and asking if they could just stay
with us forever. Oh, we loved them so much and we wished that they could. Who would've
thought that reaction would've started with 2 days of solid tantrums because they didn't
want to follow the rules in our home? Well, the change of heart that they had in our home
started or occurred. rather, I guess because our home is dedicated to self-mastery. We
call it self-government. So, I teach all of my children how to govern themselves. We teach
them the skills that they need, the types of communication they need so that they can
be understood, the can identify problems and they can take steps to fix those problems.
In order to learn self-government, an environment has to have the right kind of tone and the
right kind of structure. In this video, I'm going to talk about some of the tone elements
and some of the structural elements that are vital for helping a person have a change of
heart and for being able to have good productive conversation with your child about their bad
behavior. First, let's talk about how not to talk to your child about their bad behavior.
I am sure you can think of a few things. But I think it's worthwhile to just bring it up
at the beginning that before we're going to talk about how to do it correctly, let's remember
what some of our hang ups might be. Number 1, no lecturing. Don't lecture to the children.
They don't respond well to it. In fact, they don't listen to most of it. Choose your words
carefully. Know what you'll say so that you don't have to talk abnd talk and talk and
talk. Until they give you some sort of emotional reaction that makes you feel like they finally
got it. That is what we're waiting for when we lecture, you know? A lecturing is another
type of emotional manipulation. Another thing that we shouldn't do is belittle people or
make emotional comments. People make mistakes. That's how it goes. People sometimes have
bad behavior. They're human. It's part of it. We don't to take it personally. Anytime
a person makes an emotional response like, "Pff, nice try." Or "What were you thinking?"
Or something like that, something that would tear the person down or suggest that they
weren't smart, those are all statements that come from a selfish place from a person who's
taking somebody else's behavior too personally. Don't communicate that way. Part of emotional
comments is also emotional questions. So, don't say, "Why would you do that? What were
you thinking?" Number 1, they don't actually know what they were thinking. They just had
an emotional response themselves. So, asking emotional questions is never going to be helpful.
It's probably a given but I need to say talking to your child about their bad behavior should
not include yelling. What's the point? Yelling is just you emotionally vomiting on somebody
on somebody else. And nobody should have to clean up somebody else's emotional vomit.
Another really bad idea is threatening children. Don't make threats. Sometimes, parents think
a child has to feel like everything is on the line or they won't make the right decision
or the the decision that they want them to make. That's also called manipulation. Don't
threaten your children. You need to have a system set up, skill set up. They know what
are ahead of time. And that way, they can make the correct choices. We're going to talk
more about that in a minute. 1, 2, 3? No counting, okay? That's emotional manipulation, too.
Not a good one. Obviously, no hitting. I know it's become popular in the recent years for
people to think they need to spank again. But I got to just tell you. As a parent who
has brought in some of the toughest children that the state has to offer to give them treatment
and who was not allowed to touch a hair on their heads without permission, spanking and
hitting is just not necessary. I couldn't do it and I had to help my children have a
change of heart without ever touching them. Just tell yourself you can't. "I can't do
it. I can't touch them." And then it will not be one of your options anymore. It doesn't
show self-control on your part. There are very few people that could institute spanking
as a form of reprimand that would be in accordance with actual principle. Most people just do
it because they get angry. They go, "1, 2, 3!" And then they snap. That's not in control
and it certainly is not a good example. Finally, the last thing you don't want to do when you're
talking to your children about their bad bad behavior is don't react. Be proactive. Think
about solving the problem instead of feeling bad about the problem. They already feel bad
enough. We're just bringing it to their attention so just something needs to change. We don't
need to bring more emotion into the problem. It doesn't help. So now, what are the elements
for the tone and for the structure that we need to keep it in mind when we are talking
to our children about their bad behavior. Number 1, teach to their heart. Of course,
you're going to be using words. You might even touch them here and there. But teach
to their heart. Not just to their logic and to their mind. Although both are important.
One of the best ways to teach to the heart is to look into their eyes. This is a tone
element when you're thinking about your heart connecting to the heart of your child and
you're looking into their eyes and thinking about how much you care about them, that is
you teaching to their heart. The second tone element that we're going to talk about is
staying calm and being prepared. Part of calmness comes from a feeling of being prepared knowing
what words you will say. Knowing what skill you do need to teach the child. This means
you have to do some warning on your own. That's important. Every parent needs to continually
practice skills that are going to hold up their role and are going to help them communicate
more effectively with their children so that they don't have to worry about being emotional
and falling into some of the pitfalls and the bad ways of talking to the child about
the bad behavior. Calmness comes when you have a plan when you know what to do. So make
a plan for your own calmness. There's a story in m family history of my grand father's grandmother.
Apparently, she used to tend all of the grandchildren all at one time, maybe all the parents were
out on dates or something. And things would get a little crazy. And then she would disappear.
Well, one day. one of my grandfather's little cousin said, "Let's go see where grandma goes."
And they tiptoed down the hall and look around the corner and there was grandma on her racking
chair going, "Mercy, mercy, mercy." What a wise woman. She knew, she needed to calm before
she could handle any problem with the children. You need to have a calmness plan. I'm going
to help you more with that at the end of this video. So, let's talk about structure. What
type of structural elements are required for teaching a person how to overcome their bad
behavior? Well, when you talk to your children about their bad behavior, you are going to
want to focus on having predictable words that you say. When you have predictable communication,
this decreases their anxiety and increases their focus and connection with you. When
they feel more of a connection with you, they're actually better a recognizing a problem and
seeing a solution for that problem. Part of your predictable words are offering a solution
for the problem. This book Parenting A House United which as probably the book I'm the
most known for teaches parents how to do effective corrections. These types of corrections have
steps that the parent follows so that they can stick to a script. Now, I know that seems
really weird to parent your children according to a script. But I promise you, a person who
has a plan and who's self-governed knows what they will say next. And if the children also
know what you will say next, everyone feels like their correction is just a little bit
more safe. The second structural element that I want to talk to you about today is describing.
When we correct our children, in fact, multiple times during a corrective teaching interaction,
there are moments where they're parent describes what happened, what should've happened. What
were going to do in the future. And even takes those descriptions into practice times for
the children. When you're talking to your children about their bad behavior, don't they
need to see clearly where it went wrong and what should've happened if they had done things
the right way? The first time your child makes mistake, don't do a correction. Just pull
them aside and show them "This is what happened. This is what would be a better way to handle
it. Let's practice doing it the right way." But they wouldn't earn any negative consequence
so we just be a teaching moment. But then tell them, "Now, each time it happens again
in the future, you will give the opportunity to earn an extra tour and we will do a full
corrective teaching. When you do that, your child is prepared to talk to you about those
negative behaviors. They feel like you took them into consideration and did some training
first. Also, when your child is being talked to about their bad behavior and when they
get the opportunity to earn that negative consequence which in our family is often times
an extra chose, make sure that it is always the same negative consequence. We use extra
chores because the antidote for a sick character. And because a person actually gets the opportunity
to perform a task which means that I'm not just taking something away which then means
they can just blame me for whatever happened. No. They have to do something. Serve in some
way. I have a free gift for you because there are so many more things that I wish that I
could teach you about this concept of talking to our children about their bad behavior.
So, if you go down in the description below, there's a link to The Calm Parenting tool
kit. You just need more tools and you'll be more effective at all of your communications.
And your children need tools to succeed too. Go to that Calm Parenting Tool kit and get
what you need.