The ultimate reason why the parent must challenge the wrong behavior of the child is for the child to challenge his own perceptions in the end. That’s why it’s not enough that the parent would let the child understand that what the child has is the wrong perception of what happened. He also has to confront the triggers and challenge them.
An example of how to do it would be to tell your child, “The rules seem to change when I said no to you when you asked me to drive you to your friend’s house last Friday.” It could also be in this way, “The rule of not stealing no longer applies when I told you to study on the kitchen table instead of your room.”
That’s the vital part about identifying the triggers of your child’s behavior. You simply have to find them out in order for you to challenge them. Basically, you challenge the triggers through putting your ideas into words. It’s the parent’s way of saying that rules should not change because you feel bad about me telling you no. The about not being verbally abusive to your siblings stays there even if I don’t let you play your video game on a Monday night.
More often a child would say, “Well, I shouted to Helen because she was not being nice to me.” Or he might say, “I don’t like math and doing the home work makes me sleepy all the time.”
What the parent must do is to challenge it by saying, “So just because you find it hard to stay up while doing your math home work, the rule about doing your home work changes?” Kids don’t have answers to statements like this. Another statement that kids are fond of making when they misbehave is that they say because you made me angry.
The parent would have to confront the issue then by saying, “Because you’re angry at me doesn’t make it okay for you to call me bad names.” And if your kid tries to evade the matter by saying for example, “That’s crazy,” then you tell him then you are not ready for this confrontation.
You as a parent must then make your child realize that this is supposed to be an honest conversation between you and him and that both of you must be committed to it. Then you must make him realize that he won’t be able to have the privileges back until such time he realized that the rules are set and that he should follow it.
The child must realize that whenever he does something unacceptable, there are consequences to it and the privileges will not be given back to him until such time he does the alternative behavior.
Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as how to deal with ODD kids. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.
Tagged with: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder • obnoxious and abusive children • Parenting • Teen Crisis • Total Transformation Program • Troubled Teens
Filed under: james lehman • Total Transformation Program
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