A week and a half ago I posted about stopping negative behavior, and the following was asked:
>>What about when you are really busy? mentally? Your hands are covered in red beet juice? You are nursing a baby? your surrounded by carefully folded laundry and 3YO is jumping on the sofa? Do you drop everything else? Because that is my conundrum… I have other obligations than just spending time disciplining the 3YO.<<
Being busy with other things is a real challenge that we face every day! Keeping your littles close by and in sight is very, very helpful in preempting problematic behaviors, and it’s a big first step. But realistically, you can’t preempt everything, every single time – at least I can’t!
How I respond depends on what stage my child is at. If they’re in what I consider the active training phase, then I make responding to situations that need my attention a top priority. While raising a child is ongoing, the intensive stage of teaching them what is acceptable and what isn’t is pretty finite. During this stage they’re learning that you mean what you say, every single time.
This isn’t convenient or easy for the parent. That’s part of the power of your unspoken message to them, that helping them to learn proper behavior is your top priority and they’re not going to get away with something because you’re on the phone, in a store, or in the middle of something. So if I’m nursing the baby and a child jumps on the couch, what to do when telling them to stop doesn’t produce results? I stop nursing the baby and help the jumping child to stop (as I wrote about in the above mentioned post). If I know that I won’t be able to follow up, I won’t make the request. Better to ignore something than to tell them something you have no ability to follow up on, which teaches them that you can be ignored.
Practically, it means saving certain activities for when they’re not in need of supervision – when they’re napping, in bed for the night, or when they’re visiting a grandparent. Cut down on what needs to be done – during the initial learning phase, drop your standards of your house, outside commitments, and anything else that will take away from your kids to the absolute minimum. A number of tips I shared regarding making the postpartum period easier would be useful at this time. Make super simple meals, use paper plates, and get to sleep early – it takes a lot of emotional energy.
I know how daunting it sounds to have to make supervising, preempting, and responding a top priority. It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?! But what you’ll find is that it really won’t require nearly as much effort after the initial time investment (how much that will be depends on your children and how much time they’ll need to get the message). You’ll quickly find your kids’ behavior improving, since a) you’re not waiting for situations to escalate so they aren’t becoming the huge deal they may have been before (thus require huge amounts of emotional energy), and b) you’re consistently dealing with it right away so your kids are making a clear connection between their behavior and your response. Very soon, you’ll find you’re spending much less time disciplining and much more time enjoying them. The time investment is relatively small, but the payoffs are huge!
Avivah
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