If It Doesn't Work - Change It
We are creatures of habit. Over the time practices become natural to us -
some useful, some not so effective, some even counter productive.
Especially the way we communicate with children gets set in us even
before we get their responsibility. Starting this week, we look at some
of these unproductive habits and their alternatives.
1. THREATENING
"If you don’t do this you won’t get that".
"If you do this (again), you won’t get that".
"Get ready quickly otherwise we are leaving you". (have you ever?)
Perhaps the most widely used method of soliciting cooperation (!!).
Effectiveness? – Well therein lies the problem – it does seem to work sometimes.
A THREAT is like an advance punishment:
One children learn how to manipulate very fast.
Two, they comply but detest it.
Three, its temporary - It won’t come naturally from them the next time.
They will wait for the threat again.
Four, It turns them against you, maybe into rebels.
Five, they learn to threat others – especially you.
Six, it projects you as an authority figure.
Seven, It charges the whole atmosphere negatively, smiles are lost, moods
are overturned and we ourselves feel terrible.
Try this ALTERNATIVE. Instead of threatening, ask for their HELP.
"It would be helpful if you could clean your room".
"It would help us reach in time, if you can get ready fast’.
"It would help your studies if you can watch less TV".
"It would be helpful if you could avoid that kind of language".
One, we are respecting the individual and building character.
Two, we are soliciting a favor and everybody likes to do favors.
Three, it is nice and sweet.
Four, it is EFFECTIVE.
2. NAME CALLING
While we have written enough about name-calling (a.k.a. Lovely Labels),
this one’s a slightly different strategy proposed by Dale Carnegie in
"How to win friends and INFLUENCE people":
"Tell your child that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has
no gift for it, and it doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost
every incentive to try and improve.
But use the opposite technique –
Be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do,
let the person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has
an undeveloped flair for it – and he will practice until dawn in order to excel".
Dale Carnegie concludes, "If you want to help others to improve, remember
… use encouragement. Make the FAULT SEEM
What a wonderful approach. For starters, just TASTE the following:
"You can do it with little extra effort"; "You did few sums wrong, but its
not too difficult FOR YOU to correct them"; "With little extra care you
can easily ensure that it doesn’t break next time".
Delicious aren’t they. Watch out what you’re feeding your young ones!
By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com
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