Here you are, already on Day 3 towards your goal to stop yelling. You’ve learned thus far to talk less, act more and to find out how you can create more predictability around some of the tougher times of your day – meal times, bed times, transitions (like getting ready to leave).
You know the scene — you have just made a request for your child to get ready — “Time to get your shoes on!” you call out enthusiastically. You go into the kitchen to start making lunches or clean up the breakfast dishes believing that your child is, indeed, getting his shoes on.
You come out just in time to grab your keys and coat and head out the door when you discover that he has actually been coloring for the past 10 minutes. You feel a flush of anxiety and frustration wash over you because you don’t want to be late and this shoe delay may just be the task that does it — prevents you from being able to leave your home in a timely, calm state.
Despite your rising blood pressure, you maintain your cool and remember your tips from Day 1 and Day 2. You get down to his eye level, put your hand gently on his back; he looks up at you and you say, “shoes” with a twinkle in your eye. You’re hopeful and yet, probably filled with fear that he won’t do it.
Guess what? You’re right! You know him so well! He wants to finish his picture for you. “Noooo, I’m not done!” he pleads. You’re torn by the sweetness of his desire to create art for you and the desire to pull your hair out since he seems completely oblivious to your absolute need to leave ASAP.
Deep breath. What are you supposed to do when you face his refusal to cooperate? You suck in your desire to yell or to get angry in this moment and you take a deep breath and…
Day 3
Adjust your expectations. Acknowledge your child’s age and keep development in mind.
Face it mama, your young child really has no concept of time yet. Children don’t even learn how to tell time until around 2nd grade!
Being early? Being late? These concepts of time are not relevant, nor are they a motivator for your child to do what you’ve asked of them.
Knowing that life with young children…
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takes longer,
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is noisy,
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messy,
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and can push your buttons
– your own virtues of patience and flexibility need strengthening.
Strive to predict how your child will respond to your requests and be present with him until follow-through when you suspect that he may get distracted or go into slow motion without your hands-on help.
Making requests of young children, even just one, but especially with multiple tasks, requires that you understand what is cognitively appropriate. Recognize that you’re dealing with an individual whose short-term memory, attention span, and concept of time is still in development.
If those shoes need to be on those feet in order to leave in 5 minutes, take the time to see that it’s done, rather than creating more work for yourself by assuming he is fully capable of complying to your request on his own. Remember, only you know exactly what a “few minutes” really means.
By keeping your expectations in check and guiding your child from point A to point B with fortitude, you are helping your child every day learn how to be responsible, helpful, and self-disciplined. In order to teach him something, you must be patiently present to see it through.
I know it’s hard, tedious, and exhausting – believe me – I know! Let’s face it, if you give in to the yelling, it becomes the only voice your child will ever “hear” as their cue to cooperate. Your patient presence is far more beneficial in achieving your ultimate goal of creating a peaceful home.
Thank you so much for writing this. It is so hard to get a child to cooperate at times…I find myself wanting to yell more with my teens than with my younger children. They are not as easily “encouraged” to do what you want. One thing that has helped with the young ones is to engage in whatever they are doing at the time I need them to do something else…for instance, if my daughter is playing with dolls say “the babies need their rest time now” with complete enthusiasm. I often have to manipulate my own interests to encourage her to “flow” with me.
Angie, you’re completely right about this and I will be posting about this concept you’re speaking as part of this series. We’re so used to pulling our children out of their imaginative worlds and creativity to get back to “reality” with our requests and demands “time to go!” and so your suggestion here of helping them stay in that beautiful world they’ve created and making it work in “our” world is just perfect. The example you share is great. Another is when I need the children to begin cleaning up I might say, “hurry, the wicked stepmother is coming and she’ll turn us all into frogs if we don’t clean up this mess.”
Thanks Raelee, talk about being right on point! I’m working on adjusting my expectations, and we had an excellent 100% tension free awesome day. Talk about a gift for the holidays! Now on to bedtime. Keeping my fingers crossed that things continue to go smoothly.
I have had to remind myself of this when getting my daughter ready for preschool! I want her to become independent, but at the same time I need to remember that the concept of time is still abstract to her. Great tips!
Inna – awesome to hear that you had a less tense day today! Listen, I wouldn’t be posting these ideas if they weren’t to help me too. I have to work at the expectations every day myself =) These kids keep me on my toes.
Thanks Raelee for this challenge. Last 3 days were a little bit easier and kids seem to be less tensed. I still can’t adjust routine. It’s hard to start to establish it when you are full time working mom. I’m taking 5 days vacation from Thursday and will work on establishing rhymes. I hope it’ll work. My biggest tense right now is youngest. He is 3 now and last 2 weeks he has tantrums, whenever he doesn’t get what he wants. He still doesn’t speak and it makes a little bit harder to deal with his tantrums.
Hi Karina,
I’m so glad that this challenge is helpful! Your little guy is probably very frustrated because, like you said, he can’t express himself verbally. My youngest didn’t speak until he was about 2.5. We used sign language to help him tell us what he needed. Some of the basic signs like those in this video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmhsDtV9I1o really helped diffuse things. We were eligible for a speech therapist to come to our home for free (because he was under age 3) to work with him once each week on language skills. But overall, I don’t think that was necessary because he was speaking in full sentences very shortly after she started coming and I believe the signs helped him the most. Giving your 3 year old ways to express himself is key to helping him feel less stressed and frustrated. Know that his tantrums are his way of releasing his pent up frustration. Never allow a tantrum to hurt himself, others, or to destroy things. A crying tantrum is normal for his age as you set reasonable limits. I will be addressing how to respond to a tantrum on Day 5, so stay tuned!!
Hi Raelee
Today was less successful. For the last week I have trailed a new routine, putting my 2-year old down for her nap early morning. I would start our warm meal for the day while she is asleep and we would eat when she wakes up. It has been working really well, less stressful on me.Today we could not follow the new routine and we were all hungry and tired trying to prepare dinner at 5pm. And it didn’t work. I still feel positive at least now I am reviewing what has happened and working out ways to avoid it from happening again.
I just hope there is a post on how to deal with difficult and repetitive behavior as part of the 12 Days challenge 😉