Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try not to flip out on your kids it still happens? Do you ever find yourself lost in the maddness of “why won’t these kids just listen?!” Does it ever seem like no matter what you do or try your kids continue with the same behaviors you want to stop? This might not be what everyone wants to hear, but we as parents could be contributing to this. We need to be the change we want to see. I know, I know, but let me explain…
The other morning, as my kids were running rampant through the house and just refusing to listen, I had to pause and think what was in my control and how I could rein in the wild things. Rather than continuing to repeat myself with the same “stop this” or “stop that”, I decided I needed to get a handle on what I was and wasn’t allowing in our home. My thought was if I can have a visual list of what I want them to be doing, then it would be helpful to have them (well everyone) refer to it if we slip up or forget.
So I sat down with my kids and made a list of household rules. This is actually something I had done years ago with my oldest that worked well, and I guess it just got thrown aside with the chaoticness of adding four more kids. The way it worked was if he broke a rule, rather than reprimanding him I pointed to our list of rules and told him to go read it. So it was time to bring that back!
What I wanted for this list was positive statements of what I wanted them to do rather than what they couldn’t do. For example, instead of “no name calling” I wrote down “kind words”. So why did I want our list to be positive statements of what they can do rather than what they can’t do?
Kids are going to do the last thing they hear. For example, telling a child “DON’T RUN!” the last thing they hear is “run” so that’s what they’re going to do. If you phrase it as what you want them to do, like “walking feet”, you have a better chance of them doing what you want them to be doing.
By making a list of ok behaviors rather than a list of things they can’t do, it takes the question out of what they can do instead. When we tell our kids what they can’t do, we often do not follow up with what they can do. Kids can’t always think of an alternative so they need us to help their little minds.
I learned this when my oldest was diagnosed with ADHD and I needed to rephrase and say things differently. The example given to me by his doctor at the time was when you tell your kids “don’t jump on the couch!” they don’t know what else to do, so you would instead say something like “Sit on the couch please, you may jump on the trampoline”. I’ve held onto this and implemented it with all my kids and I can tell you from experience it works more times than not.
So back to our house rules…
Well as I was writing them out and thinking of the behaviors I didn’t like and what I wanted to see instead, I realized I was doing some of the not ok behaviors myself.
How am I supposed to expect my kid to use kind words if I’m not always using kind words? How am I supposed to expect my kids not to scream and yell when they’re upset if I’m doing that? How am I supposed to expect my kids not to throw things when they’re super angry if I’ve done that (not proud of this but it’s true)? How am I supposed to expect them to respect each other’s stuff if I’m not doing that by taking others’ things?
Just because I’m the parent doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want and tell my kids to just listen to what I say because I said so. ‘Do as I say not as I do’ is not the way to go. It’s hard for some people to hear, but a lot of the time our children’s behaviors start with us. WE need to be the change we want to see. WE need to model the behaviors we want to see.
From here I then started making a list of the things that were challenging to me and what I could do about it.
Bringing awareness to how my actions were affecting my kids has helped with the energy in our home. Being conscious of our words and actions and making a point to not just tell our kids what they should be doing but actually showing them makes all the difference. Be the change you want to see.
What I did next was I got out my notebook and wrote everything out: what I wanted, what I didn’t want, what needed to change and how I could make that happen. Writing it all out helped me to see what I need to work on and how I could take control over the energy in my home. And here is how I broke it down:
- What do I want my kids to remember?
- How do I want them to feel?
- What needs to change?
- How am I contributing?
- What is in my control?
- How am I going to do this (plan)?
Now that I knew what needed to be worked on, I could start doing what I needed to be the change I wanted to see. Day by day, moment by moment. Now here’s the thing…it doesn’t happen overnight. Just like we are retraining ourselves to react and respond differently, our kids have to retrain themselves too. If they’re used to getting yelled at when they do something wrong, it’s going to take them a bit to adjust to the change.
Give yourself grace. It’s going to take time. The first step is recognizing it and taking accountability . The next step is committing to the change you want to see while being patient with yourself and your kids too.
To make it easier, I created a printable workbook to help you figure out how to be the change you want to see. Click here to check out and download my FREE workbook.