The Good Behaviour Book: How to have a better-behaved child from birth to age ten. Martha Sears

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СКАЧАТЬ recognize this is happening, you will have to apologize for the harshness of the feelings communicated toward her person by “the look”. Be sure that stop signs and stop sounds stop the behaviour and not the growth of self-worth in your child. Your child should understand that you disapprove of the behaviour, not the child. Follow the look with a hug, a smile, or a forthright explanation: “I don’t like what you did, but I do like you.”

      “the voice”

      Besides mastering “the look”, reserve a special tone of voice for those occasions when you must get your point across vocally. A veteran disciplinarian shared her secret with us: I am an easy-going mummy, but my children know just by my tone of voice when they have crossed the line. One day our two-year-old was misbehaving and our four-year-old said, “Don’t mess with Mummy when she talks like that!”

      Coincidentally, one day while we were writing this chapter, two-year-old Lauren came prancing into our study clutching a bag of peanuts. Instead of grabbing the peanuts from her and shouting “No!” (they are on our chokeable food list for children under three), Martha looked Lauren straight in the eye and calmly said, “Not for Lauren.” Her tone of voice and concerned look stopped Lauren in her tracks. Martha picked Lauren up (still clutching the peanuts) and headed off for the pantry, where they found a safer snack. By using our standard “not for Lauren” phrase and giving her a safe alternative, she didn’t have time to consider throwing a fit, which a no surely would have produced. (For more alternatives to no, see discussions of redirectors and here). In any family there will be items that are “not for” the little one. When you use this phrase calmly and consistently from early on, the toddler understands you are protecting him.

      “No” is so easy to say. It requires no thought. It’s knee-jerk automatic, yet irritatingly oppressive. Saying “cannot” communicates more, and you’ll use it more thoughtfully, reserving it for situations where baby truly cannot proceed. You’re respecting his mind as you protect his body. In our experience, babies respond to “Stop!” better than to “No!” It gets the child’s attention, and stops behaviour long enough for you to plan other strategies. “Stop” is protective rather than punitive. “No” invites a clash of wills, but even strong-willed children will usually stop momentarily to evaluate a stop order, as if they sense danger ahead. Strong-minded children often ignore “No” if they’ve heard it a thousand times before. Even “Stop” loses its command value if overused.

      Give positive substitutes. Present a positive with your negative: “You can’t have the knife, but you can have the ball.” Use a convincing expression to market the “can do” in order to soften the “can’t do”. “You can’t go across the street”, you say with a matter-of-fact tone of voice, and then carefully state, “You can help Mummy sweep the drive.” There is a bit of creative marketing in every mother.

      Avoid setups. If you’re taking your child along with you to a toyshop to buy a birthday present for your child’s friend, realize that you are setting yourself up for a confrontation. Your child is likely to want to buy everything in the shop. To avoid the inevitable “No, you can’t have that toy”, before you go into the shop tell him that you are there to buy a birthday present and not a toy for him so that he is programmed not to expect a toy.

respectfully, no!

      Each stage of development has its “yeses” and “nos”; the stakes just get higher as children get older. Learning how to give and receive a “no” is part of maturity and part of discipline.

      “No” is a child’s word too. Prepare yourself to be on the receiving end of “No”. Your two-year-old has just run out the door. You ask her to come back. She yells, “No!” Your first reaction is likely to be, “This little pipsqueak is not going to talk back to me that way. I’ll show her who’s boss …” (In our family, being disrespectful is a real “no-no”.) Understanding what’s behind that two-year-old and that two-letter word will help you accept this normal toddler behaviour. Don’t take “No” personally. Saying no is important for a child’s development, for establishing his identity as an individual. This is not defiance or a rejection of your authority. (See the meaning of defiance.) Some parents feel they cannot tolerate any “nos” at all from their children, thinking that to permit this would undermine their authority. They wind up curtailing an important process of self-emergence: Children have to experiment with where their mother leaves off and where they begin. Parents can learn to respect individual wishes and still stay in charge and maintain limits. The boundaries of selfhood will be weak if the self gets no exercise. As your child gets older, the ability to get along with peers in certain situations (stealing, cheating, drugs, and so on) will depend on her ability to say no.

      By eighteen months Lauren had surmised that “No” meant we wanted her to stop what she was doing. One day she was happily playing with water at the kitchen sink. As she saw me approaching, and in anticipation of my stopping her play, she blurted out an emphatic “No, Dad!” Lauren had staked out her territory, and she had concluded she had a right to do this. Her “No” meant she was guarding her space. I verbalized what I thought her “No” meant: “You don’t want me to stop you. You want to play with the water. Go ahead, that looks like fun.” If I had wanted her to stop I would have said, “Sorry, not now. How about a squirt bottle with water in it?”

      the humour of “no”

      One afternoon Martha walked into the TV room and saw Matthew and his friend watching a video that the older children had rented and watched the day before. (Later we found out Matthew had also watched it at that time.) She took one look at the movie and realized she would have to ask him to turn it off. Besides, it was the middle of the day and the boys should have been playing outside. As she stood watching the movie for a few moments, planning her course of action, Martha caught the flavour of the character in the movie and in a spurt of inspiration decided to use humour to say no. As she clicked off the TV, she spun around on her heels and launched into a monologue using the character’s facial expressions, accent, and hand gestures. She must have done a good job of impersonating this actor because both boys sat staring at her wide-eyed as though they couldn’t believe a mum was capable of such improvised insanity. They both jumped up and headed out the door as the voice of this character told them to find something better to do. They were still laughing.

      Personalize “No”. We are convinced Lauren is destined for public relations. Her “No, Dad” was the diplomatic way to say no. By adding “Dad” she personalized her message. Rather than giving a dictatorial “No”, we add the child’s name. If you tend to shout, personalized address at least softens the sound and shows respect for the listener. Some parents confuse respecting the child with granting him equal power, but this is not a power issue. The person with the power should respect the person taken charge of. That consideration holds true in parenting; it holds true in other relationships as well.

      Be considerate. When you have to stop a behaviour, there is no reason to be rude. For example, your baby discovers the tape dispenser someone left out. This is a wonderful toy. Instead of descending on him and snatching it from his hands, causing him to wail pitifully as you carry him off, you can take a few moments to explore it with him. Then you say “bye-bye” to the tape and hand him a decent length of the fascinating stuff to compensate for not getting the whole roll as you turn his attention to a perhaps less interesting but more age-appropriate activity.

      When you say it, mean it. Follow СКАЧАТЬ