Defiance - what to do when your child says no ( 5 year old) Share

One of the most common complaints parents have is when they have asked their chi ld to do something and the child says NO !

Even if the child doesn t say no, they often ignore the request and carry on with what they are doing. This is normal behavior and your child will require some co nvincing to see things your way!! Try the following strategies next time your ki ndergartner shows defiant behavior: Be clear and consistent about your expectations - Communicate clearly, get their attention and make eye contact. Make your request short and positive. Try not t o nag. Practice what you preach! - Ensure you are modeling the behavior you expect from your child. Are you constantly yelling out NO when asked to do things? Think abo ut your behavior (and your partners), as your child will be watching and learnin g from your example. Phrasing requests Think about how you are asking your child to do things e.g. It s t ime to get in the bath", as opposed to Would you like to get in the bath now?". S ometimes something as simple as how you phrase things can stop NO" being a possib le answer. Be patient - Let your child know you are on their side. Try not to rush them, be understanding and try not to get angry. Set realistic goals - Five years olds need limits placed on them. It makes them f eel safe and you will need to be consistent and realistic with your expectations . They have the right to say NO if it is unobtainable! Think about their age and w hat they are physically, mentally and emotionally capable of doing. Have as few rules as possible but stick to them - Sit down as a family and talk a bout what rules are important and what are the consequences. Get your kindergart ner to talk about the rules at their school and what happens if they are broken. Reward good behavior - Catch your child being good. Reward them with positive re inforcement and plenty of hugs! Stay positive - Imagine there is a video camera following you through your day. I f you played it back and counted how may positive things, as opposed to negative things you said to your child, how would you do? Time out - Your child may need to go to a safe time out space to think about thei r behavior. Some parents chose send their child to their room to cool down. Make sure you clearly state why you have put your child in time-out and what behavio r you are expecting. Time out does not need to be viewed as a negative place; it can be a calm quiet place to go. You may need to put yourself there from time t o time!! Empower your child - Give them opportunities to make their own choices. Give them choices where possible. Try to slow the pace down when things get rushed. Choose your battles - Some things are simply not worth battling about. Think abo ut your child s behavior and decide if there are some things you are prepared to s lide e.g. your child s terrible color combination clothing choices. Distract, distract, distract - Always try to avoid situations that are going to c ause problems (where possible), but if you find yourself in one of those situati ons use distraction to avoid a scene. We need to remember that disciplining children does not have to mean controlling them. It means teaching them ways to control themselves. Punishment might get t

hem to behave, but only because they are afraid of the consequences. The best th ing for your kindergartner is to do the right thing because they want to, becaus e it makes the day more fun and makes them feel good. In conclusion, be patient and consistent with your approach. Remember your child is a little person who is growing and evolving in to an individual. Have respec t for the learning they are doing but ensure they are safe and happy at the same time! When a Child Says "No" by Inbal Kashtan "NO!" The dreaded word has been spoken. You asked your child to do something reasonabl e, like put on sunscreen on a hot, sunny day. Wash his hands before a meal. Put his shoes on so you can get out of the house. Pick up the toys he left scattered in the living room. Brush his teeth before going to bed. Go to bed. Yet your child at a year, two, three, four or older has a mind of his own. You love that mind of his, his growing independence and assertiveness, his desire to deci de what he wants to do and when. But you wish he would be reasonable! You wish h e would do, without so much fuss, what you want him to do. Negotiating the gap between what we want and what our children want can strain o ur patience and skill level to their limit. Parenting books attest to this, as o ne after another focuses on how to get our children to do what we want them to d o whether through "effective discipline," rewards, punishments, or dialogue. Nonviolent Communicationsm (NVC) offers a perspective and skills that take the d ialogue approach further and deeper than any other process I've encountered. The premise underlying NVC is that all human actions are attempts to meet our human needs, and that understanding and empathizing with these needs creates trust, c onnection, and more broadly peace. This premise is translated into a very concrete and practical set of tools for communication that increases our ability to reco gnize and empathize with our own and others' feelings and needs. When used consi stently (or even occasionally!), NVC can create deep connection, trust and coope ration among family members of all ages. An NVC Dialogue Recently, a parent asked me about a struggle very familiar to most parents of to ddlers and young preschoolers. Wanting to know how she might deal with a "no" fr om her 2-year-old without resorting to force, she described the following situat ion: "Sometimes my daughter refuses to get into the car seat, in which case we 'force ' her in. This issue involves protecting my child from harm. But it could be arg ued that we could simply choose to wait and not go anywhere in the car until we can talk her into getting in herself. However, like most people, we are always r ushing around, and waiting is very rarely a practical option." An NVC dialogue may or may not help the parent solve this problem quickly, but i t will certainly support her in having the quality of relationship she wants to have with her child. If she chooses to take the time to connect with her child ( which sometimes does move things more quickly) the dialogue might look something like this: Parent: Hey, it's time to leave to go to Grandpa's. Child: NO! NO! NO!

Parent: Are you enjoying what you're doing and want to continue doing it? (Inste ad of hearing the "no," the parent hears what the child is saying "yes" to by gu essing her feelings pleasure, and her needs play and choice.) Child: YES! I want to keep gardening! Parent: You're really having fun gardening? Child: Yes! Parent: I'm enjoying seeing how fun it is for you. I'm worried because I like ge tting to places when I say I will. (Instead of coming back with her own "no," th e parent expresses her feelings and her need for responsibility.) If we want to get to Grandpa's when I told him we'll be there, this is the time to leave. So would you be willing to get into the car seat now? (Mom ends with a request that lets her daughter know what Mom would like at this moment that may help Mom meet her needs.) Child: NO! I want to garden now! Parent: I'm confused about what to do. I like when you do things you enjoy, and I also want to do what I said I was going to do. (Mom is showing her daughter th at she cares about meeting both their needs.) Would you be willing to go into the car seat in 5 minutes so we could get there soon? (Mom offers a strategy that might meet both their needs, again in the form of a request.) Child: OK. Or maybe it wasn't that easy. . . Child: NO!!! I don't want to go! I want to stay home! Parent: Are you VERY frustrated now? YOU want to choose what YOU are going to do ? (Mom connects with her daughter by showing her understanding and acceptance of her daughter's intense emotions and need for autonomy.) Child: Yes! I want to garden! Parent: I see. I'm feeling sad because I want to make plans that work for everyo ne. Would you be willing to think with me about some ideas of what to do that wo uld work for both of us right now? (Again, Mom expresses her care for meeting bo th their needs and comes up with a new strategy that might also meet her daughte r's needs for choice and autonomy.) Child: OK. Depending on the child's age, ideas for strategies to meet everyone's needs migh t come from the parent with feedback from the child, or from both people. My son started coming up with strategies to meet all of our needs before his third bir thday, often innovative and workable ones we had not considered. Even if the child still says "no" at this stage, NVC continues to offer options for dialogue that deepen connection. With repeated experiences that give the chi ld confidence that adults respect his needs as well as their own, he will steadi ly develop greater capacity for considering others' needs and acting to meet the m.

meeting needs as the basis of strategies. In using NVC, we focus on how to meet all of our needs, sometimes postponing dec isions until we have made a connection with each other that will be the basis fo r a solution. Having connected, the parent and child working on the car seat sit uation might come up with a variety of strategies, depending on which needs are most alive for them. The parent might realize that she could meet her need for r esponsibility by calling Grandpa and making the date an hour later. She might ch oose to meet her need for consideration by expressing her feeling and needs more passionately and seeking understanding from her daughter. Or she might connect with her needs for harmony and ease and choose to change the plans. If the plans are changed out of a clear choice to meet needs, this is quite different from " giving in" to the child's "whims." Connecting with the child's needs might yield other strategies. The child might have a passionate need for play, which might be met by coming up with a plan for what she'll do when they get to Grandpa's. She might have a powerful need for a utonomy, which might be met by leaving it up to her to decide when she's ready. She also has a need for contributing to other's lives. If the parent finds a way to express her own feelings and needs and make clear requests to her daughter, she might help her daughter connect with her intrinsic need to contribute to oth ers so that it becomes the child's choice to get into the car seat rather than a "power struggle" which she lost. In any case, when the parent persists with honestly expressing her feelings and needs and empathizing with her daughter's feelings and needs, mother and daughte r will build the skills they need to find strategies that work for them througho ut their lives. What difference does hearing "yes" make? When our children say "no" and we hear "no," we are left with two often unsatisf ying options: Either we accommodate their "no" or we override it. When we choose to transform our children's "no" into an understanding of the "yes" behind it, we gain deeper insight into what motivates our children's actions: needs that ar e shared by all human beings. Understanding our children more deeply, we usually feel more connected to them a nd they to us. People who are connected have a greater capacity to think creativ ely about strategies to meet their needs, extend their goodwill toward one anoth er, and exercise more patience and tolerance when their needs are not met in the moment. In my family, this does not mean that we always solve everything easily . But it does mean that we nearly always nurture our connection through these di alogues, and that we trust one another deeply with our feelings and needs. This is the quality of relationship that I want with both my child and my partner. Changing our responses to our children's "no" means, in part, letting go of the power we have over our children by relinquishing (or at least reducing) our own "no" to them. It means being willing to let go of our attachment to our strategi es based on understanding our own and our children's needs. It means focusing on the nature of the relationship we want to have with our children, what we want to teach them, and what kind of world we want to prepare them for. Yet using NVC does not mean giving up on meeting our needs! Our deep human needs matter, and we have powerful tools with which to meet them: expressing our feel ings and needs passionately, and learning to identify what it is we would like t hat would meet our needs without an attending cost for our children. Without bla ming, shaming, or demanding acquiescence, we can meet our needs by connecting wi th ourselves and our children.

There is a risk to making requests of our children instead of demands or ultimat ums: They just might say "no," and we might think that we have to accept it. Of course, we haven't lost much, because children often say "no" even to our demand s! How delightful, then, to discover that by hearing the "yes," we gain freedom to not take "no" for an answer. We can use a "no" (from our children, our partne rs, ourselves) as the beginning of a rich dialogue that can bring all of us clos er and move us in the direction of meeting all of our needs.