Some of Central’s teachers and staff were skeptical of Greene’s model at first. Our desire, as adults, to see children suffer over their bad behavior is deeply held and hard to dislodge. Greene’s method hinges on retraining staff to nurture strong relationships—especially with the most disruptive kids—and to give all kids a central role in solving their problems. That part is critical. Not only does it provide the kid with a stake in the solution, but it often reveals the underlying difficulty.
For instance, a teacher might see a challenging kid dawdling on a worksheet and assume that he’s being defiant, when in fact the child is just hungry, having missed breakfast that morning. A snack ends the impasse. Before Greene’s model, “we spent a lot of time trying to diagnose children. Just talking to each other isn’t going to figure it out,” said D’Aran. “Now we’re talking to the child and really believing the child when they say what the problems are.”
The next step is to prioritize each student’s challenges—whether it be transitioning from recess to the classroom, keeping hands to themselves in the hallway, or sitting with the group in morning meeting—and then tackle them one by one, revisiting the plan as each skill is mastered. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it requires some shuffling of resources and a completely different mind-set.
At Central School, the administrators used building improvement funds for renovations that would facilitate problem-solving conversations, turning one classroom into an open work space for D’Aran and the main office staff, with couches and tables where kids could relax, play, have a snack, cool down, or have a heartfelt chat. They divided another classroom into a resource room and a special ed room. The school committed to twenty weeks of teacher training, with frequent coaching from Greene’s trainer via Skype. After all, coaxing a recalcitrant second-grader to express their needs can be a lot like enticing a shy kitten into your lap—teachers needed support as they learned to broach these difficult conversations. By recording their conversations with students and reviewing them with each other and the trainer, the teachers improved their skills through reflection and feedback.
Ross Greene and Central School’s educators discovered the power of the second pillar of the Apprenticeship Model: communication. We can mimic their success in changing adult behavior and breaking through communication barriers. Their conversations with children are a model of nonjudgmental listening. Although these strategies are most effective with children ages four and older, you can convey even to a toddler your sincere interest in his input and your support of his growing independence.
Just as the Central teachers learned to listen and draw out children, I began to prioritize communication over compliance. When I first started on this path, it shocked me to realize how often I was directing, reminding, and bossing my kids. That’s not communication. I had to learn to listen more than I talked. I had to stop jumping in with my solutions or lessons. It was amazing how many tantrums in the grade-school years ended when I simply reflected what the kids were saying and showed that I understood where they were coming from.
“MY CHILD DOESN’T LISTEN.”
“How can I get my kid to listen to me?”
“You weren’t listening when I told you to put on your shoes!”
When we parents make these comments, we aren’t really talking about listening. When we say “listen,” we really mean “obey.” We’re talking about compliance. It’s the Obedience Model at play.
But as we saw in Chapter 4, the days of blind obedience to parental commands are long gone. Instead, we must aim for mutual cooperation, which is more challenging to build but also more powerful. We need a communications overhaul.
It begins with a mind-set change: you must genuinely accept that your child may know something you don’t about the problem or situation. When a child misbehaves, instead of getting angry, get curious. The outburst or misbehavior is a puzzle, and your child holds the solution. The behavior is communicating something to you; it’s up to you to decode the message.
Our role as parents isn’t to preside over an always peaceful household; it’s to see disruptions as a chance to better understand our children and help them grow. The home is a learning lab where our children can experiment, fail, and eventually succeed, not a shrine to perfection.
Use focused and reflective listening to be sure you really understand what your kid is saying and feeling. Ask questions. Show faith in their ability to handle their own problems. Speak to children with the same respect you’d give a friend or coworker. For persistent problems, engage children in active communication and problem-solving. As you might expect, it can take time for your kids to contribute their ideas if they’ve experienced years of being told what to do.
To learn to truly listen, you may need the equivalent of a parenting detox, like Vicki Hoefle’s “do-nothing-say-nothing week.”
I visited Hoefle’s class, held in a classroom at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, the week parents returned to report on the detox. This was the second session in the six-week class that I’d listened to over Skype a week earlier. Energized by her no-nonsense delivery of her parenting principles, I came to see the magic in person. A mother of six grown children, Hoefle uses plain, sometimes salty language to make her points, her humor softening the hard messages. The parents are the problem, she believes, because we talk too much, use strategies that don’t work, and try to control our kids.
This night I saw her in person, standing at the front of the classroom, before a whiteboard mounted on a brick-red wall. With her shining silver bob tucked behind her left ear, Hoefle had dressed for comfort in a black waterfall cardigan over a maroon blouse and dark blue jeans. She welcomed the two dozen parents as they settled into seats, and then gave a brief overview of the evening’s material: a focus on relationships and fostering independence. Then she asked what the parents had learned about themselves and their kids in the past week and what they would do differently going forward.
“What I learned about myself was that I was quick to boss or deliver a threat to get him to do something,” said one mom. “I learned my child was more capable than I thought he was. What we’re going to do differently is try to stay on this path and keep it consistent, because we had a very successful week.”
“Boom!” Hoefle said. “How many of you figured out you’re too bossy?”
The majority of the hands in the room went up.
“How many of you relied on threats to get things done in your house?” Half the hands. “How many of you noticed your kids are more capable than you gave them credit for?” The majority of the hands shot up. Another mom confessed to being a cheerleader. A third discovered she was raising a praise junkie. With each revelation, at least half of the other parents said they’d had the same experience.
“We’re all in the same boat,” Hoefle said. “Everybody’s getting the same kinds of results. It does make us a community of people who are experiencing many of the same things. We just don’t know how to talk about it. We talk about what’s going wrong instead of trying new things and talking about the results we get so we create this momentum, this forward-looking momentum of possibility and developing the courage to try new things and seeing that they work, which inspires us to do more.”
That community is growing in Vermont. Hoefle has been teaching classes for twenty-five years and estimates that she’s taught more than 5,000 parents. When she starts a new session of her class, the teachers in the local elementary school know because the kids arrive late, without lunches, or with only partially completed homework, but they don’t complain. “They’re all for this because what we’re doing is raising a generation of kids who are responsible, who are capable,” she told her class. “Isn’t that what we want? Nobody wants another generation of kids who can’t take care of themselves. Enough with that, already. If you tell people, you’ll get a lot of support from your community.”
From the second row of the class, Lisa Rowley, age forty-eight, raised her hand to confe
ss the “guilt-driven parenting” she recognized using with her eight-year-old daughter, Ella, whom Rowley and her husband, Brian, had adopted from China at one year old. Rowley had followed Hoefle’s suggestion at the first class session that she apologize to her child for ordering her around. She reported to the class that she told Ella: “If Mommy’s getting too bossy, tell Mommy to go read a book.” To her horror, Ella responded: “But, Mommy, I know that’s how you love me. You don’t love me if you’re not bossing me around.”
“Yeah. Amazing. So what are you going to do different?” Hoefle asked.
“To show her other ways that Mommy loves her,” Rowley said, a rueful smile on her face.
“Your job is to redefine what a healthy, loving relationship is. It’s going to take a lot of work, because you were really committed to making sure this little kid, who had a terrible first year that she doesn’t remember—you were going to somehow make up for it, which is impossible. It’s going to take a lot of diligence on your part and a lot of open conversation about what does it really mean,” Hoefle said, moving across the room with sweeping arm movements to punctuate her words. “So, lovely! You’ve got this great thing to be working on for the next twenty-five years. I’d rather be working on that than table manners.”
She reached the board and circled the words “relationship blueprint.” Other parents chimed in that they were struggling to find alternatives to delivering commands or using their other favorite parenting crutches. Hoefle suggested taking five seconds before responding to their kid’s misbehavior. Or confessing, “My brain is really tired. I’m having a hard time not barking orders at you.” That models for a child how to take responsibility for your feelings and also how to regroup under stress.
One mom complained about her struggle to find creative ways to remind her child about the dog needing to be fed without giving an order. “I’m saying, ‘The dog looks so hungry, oh poor dog,’” she said.
“It takes a lot of work,” Hoefle agreed. “Here’s what I want you to remember. Do you know how hard kids work every damn day to get out of bed, make you happy, figure out what kind of mood you are in today, are they going to get away with the sweet cereal or are they going to have to eat the leftover Brussels sprouts because you threatened them the night before?… We’ve got to be in the trenches with them.”
WHEN WE’RE UNDER STRESS, WE tend to fall back on patterns of behavior and communication that we learned as children. If you grew up in a dictatorship, this is when you start yelling and bossing. If your parents desperately wanted to be your friends, this is when you open negotiations with your children. It’s time to learn a new communication style. You’re probably doing some of this already, by instinct. But some elements of the Apprenticeship Model may feel uncomfortable. Give it a chance.
In the second week of the PEP 1 class, Brian and I teach an exercise that brings home the difference in parenting styles. We play-act being the adult and tell the students to expect three different experiences. In each scenario, we hand a lump of clay to the parents in the class.
First, we tell them to be creative. We heap on the praise. We gush over everything they mold. Second, we sternly hand them each an equal chunk and demand that they create clay plates. We bark instructions, step by step. We order them and deal harshly with anyone who’s misbehaving, sometimes sending them to time-out. In the final scenario, we explain clearly that the class will be making doll house furniture for children at a local homeless shelter. We tell them how long they will have to work and give specific feedback on their creations—not over-the-top praise.
One of the great mistakes of the self-esteem movement was the idea that adults could instill self-esteem in children simply by saying they were unbelievable, amazing, the best, and showering them with trophies. Children see right through this nonsense. The only authentic way to build self-esteem is to face real challenges and overcome them. The good news is that these challenges can be the ordinary challenges of daily life.
Remembering Dweck’s growth mind-set research showing that specific praise and a focus on effort motivate children, I teach parents to use specific language to observe their children’s interests and accomplishments. For instance, when they show you a picture, you may be tempted to say, “That picture is so beautiful!” Instead, describe what you see. Ask questions about the child’s choices or intentions. This stimulates their own sense of judgment and evaluation of their work—rather than training them merely to seek your empty praise. You could say, “I see orange, yellow, and purple in the sky. What interesting choices! Tell me more about how you picked those colors.”
Focus on your child’s progress rather than the end results. When debriefing a soccer game, instead of praising them for scoring a goal, notice that they’ve improved their passing accuracy or have become more vocal in telling teammates that they’re open for the ball. Being specific is harder work, but it shows true interest and evaluation, not blind praise. Eliminate phrases from your vocabulary that center on your own parental judgment rather than your kid’s, such as: “I’m so proud of you,” or, “I like how neatly you’re stacking the dishes. Good job!” Instead, you could say, “I notice you’re stacking the dishes neatly so nothing will break. Thank you.” You could always ask a question rather than saying, “Good job,” such as, “What did you think about your performance?”
The dramatic experience of using clay to illustrate three different parenting styles often gives parents taking PEP 1 an epiphany about how it feels to be a child on the other side of permissive, authoritarian, or authoritative parenting. In one class, the authoritarian scenario showed a mom of two named Leanne that she probably came across as a tyrant to her children.
“I felt totally uncomfortable. I could hear my own voice in what you were saying. It was very uncomfortable. It was stressful,” she said.
“This was an epiphany exercise for me when I took PEP 1,” I told her. “When you’re saying: ‘Hurry up, hurry up, put your shoes on, it’s time to go,’ to the kid it’s like: ‘What happened?’ Because you know your schedule in your head as the adult, you know what the next thing is. They’re coming from a different perspective. They may not realize we have fifteen minutes, we have to leave now to get to where we’re going.”
“When you said, ‘Have you done it yet?’ that’s when I really got it. We are rushing all the time,” Leanne said.
For me, Leanne, and many parents, better advance communication with our children solves a lot of the family tussles. Instead of barking at them that we have fifteen minutes to get ready, we review the day’s schedule—often the night before—and ask them how long they think they need to prepare and what they need to bring to school. Then we calmly let the day unfold. Expect that the first few times kids will underestimate the time they need or get something wrong. Use that as a learning opportunity.
By planning ahead, we manage the daily bumps more easily.
When my children were younger, whenever they wanted my attention, they wanted it instantly. Somehow this always seemed to happen as soon as I picked up the telephone—even if they’d been playing quietly by themselves a moment earlier. So we agreed on a nonverbal signal for them to use when they wanted me to pay attention. They’d put a gentle hand on my forearm (meaning “I want to tell you something”), and I would cover it with my other hand (meaning “I’ll be with you in a moment”). That physical contact was reassuring.
Even better, I was able to turn around this interruption signal and use it when I needed their attention. So instead of yelling from the kitchen, “Dinner time!” while they were playing, I would walk over to where they were, put a hand on each forearm, and wait until they looked up. This may seem like more work, but it was actually faster than yelling from the kitchen, being ignored, blowing up, everyone crying, and finally eating dinner twenty minutes later.
Another cue we used was the sign language for “wait,” which is both hands held palms up and curved, and fingers wiggling. I could use this sign at
the store, when I was in conversation with another adult, or even when I was finishing a bite and couldn’t speak. Not only did they love the intrigue of a secret sign, but being able to communicate with me when I was busy with something else strengthened their ability to wait.
As you begin implementing these new parenting tools, you probably will notice when you’re about to do the “wrong” thing, like yelling or ordering your child. But you may not know what to say instead, or perhaps you’re too angry to respond calmly. This is a perfect time for the “mumble and walk away” technique. Rather than engaging with a misbehaving child, act as though you’ve just remembered a pot on the stove, or heard a knock at the door, and dash out of the room. This buys you time to think over the response you want to use, or even just to take ten deep breaths and become centered before responding. After all, your children’s annoying behavior is bound to repeat itself over and over until you figure out how to extinguish it; if you take the time to think up the right response, you will surely have another opportunity to use it.
Parents are primed to act. When a child misbehaves, we want to know what to do in that instant. But often the best response is to wait and observe. To say nothing. To see how it unfolds, and when the crisis is past, to think through how to handle it next time. As discussed in Chapter 3, adults and children alike lose access to the learning and problem-solving parts of the brain when they’re emotionally ramped up. Get brain science on your side by saving your thinking and planning for a calmer moment.
There is one time when it’s okay to jump into action: when it helps you talk less. It’s often more powerful to act than to speak. If your child is watching TV when hot food is sitting on the dinner table, don’t stand there yelling at them to turn off the set. After you’ve stated the family limit once (“TV off during dinner time”), walk over and turn it off yourself. Place a firm and friendly arm around your child’s shoulder and gently move toward the dinner table.
The Good News About Bad Behavior Page 15