By Donna Shea
The season has arrived when helping kids with behavior management includes elves on shelves and being on the naughty or nice list. Children are cautioned to be good girls and boys.
As the adults, we need to be cautious too. Cautious about labeling a child as good or bad, nice or naughty. I know children that have labeled themselves in negative terms based on the messages given to them over over time and damage to self-esteem can be quite extensive. We can and should however, label the behaviors that a child is engaged in and choices that he or she is making and assist a child in learning a better, and more effective way, of communicating.
Some examples:
“You are being rude and disrespectful!” could be changed to, “That tone of voice sounds rude and is hard for me to listen to. Let’s try again.”
“Quit whining!” could become, “My ears can’t listen as well to a whining voice. What does a big kid voice sound like?”
“You’re a bad boy (or girl!)” in a different way would be, “This is not a good choice that is being made right now, what would be a better one?”
Another phrase that we as adults may use frequently is “be a good girl (or boy).” If we think about it, that is a very broad statement that we expect kids to interpret the meaning of. A more effective way to elicit the behaviors that you want from a child is to clearly state your expectations for a given situation.
Some examples:
“When we are in the grocery store, I expect you to stay by the cart, not take anything off the shelves, and to choose only one special treat.”
“We are going into the library and I expect that we will remember the rules about being quiet, listening to the librarian and putting our books back on the shelves when we are done.”
“At Grandma’s house tonight, I expect that you will be use polite words and table manners during dinner.” (You may also want to give a child a refresher on the specifics of table manners.) The more we can break it down, the more the child will understand our expectations.
Elves on shelves are fun, and Santa’s naughty or nice list can buy us good behavior for a few weeks. In changing our language, we can help children manage their behavior choices all year long.
