Another week of Heleniq A blessing us with her insight. This week, she discusses how to avoid the negative attention-seeking efforts your child may make. Or how to handle them once they arise. Communication, not getting worked up over little bits, and what to look for with your kiddos. Learn where to rain so you don’t water anything unnecessary. This post is a fabulous one!
Let’s get right to the goods…
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Children often act up because they want your attention.
From a psychologist with 20 years of consulting and teaching parents and families, I can definitely confirm that children love special love from their parents, this is how they measure their value. Without it, they’ll take anything they can get, including attention, even negative attention.
Most children also love a big deal…they want to copy it and make a game out of it because they are naturally playful. That’s why they copy the school teacher making a cross face and pack out laughing after. To them, it’s all a theatre, and strong emotion is a brilliant theatre, right?
If you don’t want them focusing on something, the best way is to ignore it, even a few times.
So, play deaf or walk away, when children have tantrums and they will quickly learn that there’s a better way to communicate. I mean, you probably know this already, but still, without a certain amount of spiritual fitness, you are very likely to react to challenging behavior if you’re anything like the 80% of normal parents out there. So perhaps it is helpful to understand even more so, what else you can do and why it is so significant.
Kersey coined a term to explain how we could give attention to the behavior we like—not the behavior we don’t.
“Rain on the grass, not on the weeds”. In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff. Instead, here are three of the 8 strategies I developed to help parents communicate better with their children, without criticism, blame, shame and frustration.
Ignore it, Even a Few Times
Play deaf or walk away when children have tantrums and they will quickly learn that there’s a better way to communicate. This helps you develop your spiritual fitness by reacting negatively much less and also primes your child to focus more on favorable behavior.
Exploit the “Energy Drain”
When a child acts up, it can become extremely draining for you over time. Sometimes this has been called the energy drain, and if you use it right, it can work to your benefit. For instance, you might defuse a sibling confrontation by saying; “Wow, you need to take that fight with your brother somewhere else, because listening to that could cause me a big energy drain, and I don’t think I’ll have the energy to take you to the park after dinner if you carry on with it.”
Redirect, Redirect, Redirect
Kersey recommends offering a positive behavior to replace misbehavior. This is much preferred to constantly shouting “No”. The reason for this is that Kids who hear “No” or “Don’t” a lot start to tune those directives out. Instead of telling your child not to, for instance redirect them to something else. So, for example, when s/he is acting up at the grocery store, redirect the child to help pick out oranges or rearrange the items in a grocery cart. A kid running around a swimming pool might be challenged to walk “as if on marshmallows.”
Learning how not to sweat the small stuff is as much for you as it is for your child, an exercise that helps clean out your home from toxic shouting and screaming chaos and reaction.
Instead, learn to guide and give your messages to your household in a powerful and firm, clear, and nonemotional style of communication. Communicating better with children, without criticism, blame, shame, and frustration helps them develop a much healthier level of self-esteem. And of course, when they feel respected by you, they will learn respect for others because children copy what you do not what you say.
Catch the upcoming webinars on HeartChild Harmony at Home May 31 on zoom or email Heleniq A for a quick chat what to be focusing on next to get Harmony in your home.
Heleniq is passionate about women. Believing they are leading a new paradigm of leadership for society, she has advocated deeper look into femininity from her student days where she volunteered for South African rape survivors. She presents her insights at conferences in Liverpool, Athens, Holland, India, South Africa, and Cyprus.
She also uses rhythm to elevate women’s’ creative mystery, she deepens her loyalty to women with a continuous study of ‘Feminine Power’, Art of Love and Soulmate Series, Alpha females and women’s’ entrepreneurship with world-famous feminine thought leaders and femininity experts.
For this, she hosts the Women Of Truth X factor group on Facebook, LinkedIn and hosts international Women of truth Conferences and project.
Heleniq Argyrou www.heleniqa.com
Peak Performance Trainer, Heartchild Family Ultimate Peak Performance Program Speaker
ahaiqmail@gmail.com +357 99238660 / +31611101757 Skype: Ahaintelligence
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