Live Your Bachpan

Every time a child’s action or behavior is not as per what the parents expect, there is a tendency to feel that it is about us (adults). Child is not listening to you, you feel he/she is disrespectful towards YOU..child is shouting back, you think it’s meant to be something towards YOU. 

NO. In reality, IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU. It is about them.  RETALIATION, RESENTMENT, ANGER against you is NOT ABOUT YOU..but it is about certain emotions/feeling he/she is going through but is unable to articulate, express or even figure out by themsleves. It could be they are tired, hungry, upset about something at school, or may be you have been keeping too busy and distracted..It could be anything..It could even be something very illogical for you.  Your job at that time is to not know what that is. Your job at that time is not to judge them for THAT moment. Though they won’t say it, but they are looking at you and your actions to move out of that temporary zone. Your job at that time is to just help them navigate through that temporary phase of uncertainty and model a behavior which will get embedded in their mindset and they will think of it as a solution to come out of such situations EVERYTIME. So now if you shout at them for not listening to you, they will shout back..now ..and everytime they feel this or a similar emotion..and if you shout out labels such as “you don’t know how to talk” “you are disrespectful”, they will hold on to the label forever and instead of correcting their acts, they will repeat them.

Remember, more than words, children learn by actions. Actions of people around them, actions of their parents in similar situations.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learnBenjamin Franklin

Moments of failures, anger, resentment, retaliation are the best moments to train a child about difficult situations, NOT THROUGH YOUR WORDS but THROUGH your actions.

Teaching children how to sail through easy moments will be the easiest thing. In fact you may not even need to teach them that. It is important to teach them how to sail through these tough moments in life. And for them, it starts from these moments of emotional outbursts anger, retaliation etc. Self Regulation is a super power. And the ONLY way to teach that to your child is by regulating your own emotions when things don’t go as expected!

So next time if your child misbehaves, remember, IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU. It is about them. 

Some examples:

What we mostly end up doing in such situations:

“You are not listening to me, you are disrespectful, you are a misbehaving child. You don’t know how to treat elders. You are not worth speaking to..”

Some suggestions on how to deal with such situations:

  • “Hey, Is everything okay? You don’t seem to be in your best mood”
  • “Can I be of any help here? Are you tired? Can I get you something?”
  • “Is there something bothering you? Would you like to talk about it now or may be later?”
  • “I don’t feel good when you don’t listen to me. Is there a reason why you do that? Can we improve upon something that works better?”
  • “Remember every problem can be solved..we’ll deal with it..together..”

Enrol your child for one of our programs where we teach them all about acknowledging emotions, setting and achieving goals, making powerful choices and much more.

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