LANCER'S ANSWERS PARENTING ADVICE

A Recent Chat With A Parent And Some Lancer Answers

Re: My 3 Year Old Is Actually Driving Me Crazy.

Regardless of your circumstances, here is where to begin. Concentrate on improving your self-control under ALL circumstances with him. Concentrate on your emotional reaction to his actions. Your goal is to develop the self control to remain at peace and poised NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES. This is the hard part, but it can be done. As long as he makes you react, he is in charge. Treat every episode that causes you stress as your opportunity to practice staying calm. Self-control grows stronger through exercise, like any muscle. In addition, get your life in balance. Start calming down even when you are not with your child. Slow down. You can't get to everything. Give yourself time to nurture YOU. Start looking at your own emotional issues as well. Consider my tape Raise Yourself: How To Overcome Your Parents Patterns

Re: His impatience, whining, and sometimes meanness comes from ME!! Do you have any idea how difficult that is to admit?

Yes, I know how hard that is to admit but I also know that the courage to do so starts you on the right foot. The key to being in charge with children is to get into better charge of yourself. This is where to focus, on finding out what is troubling YOU and to begin venting out your anger in appropriate ways.

Re: it is so frustrating being so calm and patient when he is so insistent on not doing as I ask!

Continue working on improving your self-control and remember this: over-relying on words and reasoning to direct a 3 year old will land you in the nut-house in no time. Stop repeating yourself. Take more time to connect with him before you direct him. Remember the 3 options of overlook, positive, firm responding discussed in the recording The Child Discipline Process. Use gentle physical involvement to guide him, and demonstrate in front of him what you want him to do. Use positive, loving engagement with your child 95% of the time – the better you connect, the better you direct.

Re: I realize that yelling is not helping the situation, but is hard to calmly ask a child to do something, and to be completely ignored. This morning I asked to put onhis shoes so that we could leave, and I was met with silence. I could not think of a comparable consequence for this disobedience, so after asking several times, I just BLEW UP!! It seemed ridiculous for an adult to be literally begging a child to do what he was asked. I spanked him, and put on his shoes myself! Please help me Bob, I love him dearly, but cant live with his behavior as well as my own.

As we discussed in the workshop, yelling and spanking really don't work, though they may provide a quick fix. If he does not put on his shoes, you have three options. Let him leave barefoot and don't make an issue of it (when he sees you as a friend he may be more inclined to listen), turn the process into a game in which you help him but get him to do as much as possible of it himself (this builds up his momentum of doing it on his own) or simply say that if you need to do it there will be a consequence. Give yourself all the time you need to come up with one, it could be anything he likes. Of course, he still may ignore you. If you have to put the shoes on him, do so calmly and then just follow through with the consequence. This teaches him to take responsibility for his choices.

Regarding a child ignoring you.

3 year olds get very focused on their own agenda. It seems like they are ignoring you, but they really do not have the control over their attention that you expect from an older child. When the child ignores you, stand close until he looks at you. Then say what you have to say. If he ignores your request or direction there, consider your three options. Remember that joining the child in the action or demonstrating the behavior in front of him triggers his instinct to copy you.