Giving children options

Options

Giving a child options can make things very messy indeed. In a classic case of telling a child to go to bed, many will say, “Go to bed now or you will not have any sweets tomorrow.” This contains the curse of providing an option. The child will probably get the sweets anyway. They may consider it better to stay up late than having a few treats. Your command is being undermined. Simply repeat, “go to bed now”, over and over and bit-by-bit they edge towards the door, then up to bed. Ignore their protestations and stick to the instruction, no deviation, and no compromise. If they come back down, pick them up, without any discussion and put them back in their room. Repeat until they stay in bed. Options provide choices. The fatal word, the small seemingly innocuous word; Or. Or is a word that causes the headache. Do as you are told, or I will tell your father. Stop please, or you will get a smack from your mother when she gets home. To create boundaries, pay attention to your use of the words or/else.

If your child disobeys your instruction once, they will disobey a second time. They will continue to disobey you. Once is enough for the rot to set in. You ask nicely - and get ignored. So, you resort to shouting but still get ignored. Your patience wears thin, so shouting becomes the norm. As frustration sets in, some feel inclined to hit and smack to get any sense of control. Those that never allow their children to get the upper hand in the first place never shout and most certainly never need to smack a child. They have authority without resorting to physical reprimands. Authoritative but not akin to a military commander. Patience and persistence - never backing down. Teachers that can control the class are liked far more than those that can’t. Hapless, hopeless parents use fashionable new age willy-nilly styles which buck tried and tested methods.

Children test you by being obstructive. They have a gadget that you want to use. They refuse to give it to you and make things as awkward as possible by tucking it under their arms. You ask them, over and over, to hand it to you. Then you reconsider whether you really need it. Once you ask them for it, you must not back down. If you give up, they win. From there, they will find untold ways of disobeying your instructions. Things will get progressively worse. Keep asking until they relent and give it to you.

The minute you start letting them win you begin the slide down into eternal grief. Letting them win does not refer to allowing them to have a head start in a board game, which some parents might do to give them hope and more engagement. Instead, it means that if you make a ruling you must stick to it. You must stick to it right through to the end, consistently. Too many parents will get exasperated and give up allowing the child to take over. As the years pass, you end up with less and less control and it becomes a bigger challenge trying to be at peace with them.

There is a big difference between being overly controlling and merely setting boundaries. When the line is crossed you reign it in. Why waste time and effort getting them to tidy their bedroom if it is not a fire hazard, just close the door and forget about it.

Some parents will have one child that is a bit more awkward than the rest. Whilst more patience that ever is needed, all children are fundamentally the same and can be nurtured equally well. Make no mistake, no child is so special that standard techniques of handling them do not apply. It is a battle of wills between adult and child. The adult has to dig deep to find the capacity to prevail. Having said that, is it possible that you have a psychopathic super awkward one on your hands? Maybe, but on balance of probabilities it is unlikely.

They can’t have what you haven’t got. So, when you offer a yellow ice lolly and they start getting into a tantrum because they want a red one, just take no notice. Why some would go to great lengths to explain that the shop is out of red ones, and this is all you have is perplexing. By saying, “Do you want it or not?”, it introduces them to the realities of life; we can’t always get what we want when we want.