Sit down together in a quiet moment and ask your child whether there’s anything they’d like to learn to do for themselves. Be enthusiastic and positive, to capture their interest. Look for ways to make household tasks fun or even a game. When we were trying to get our kids to sit still at dinner and use good manners, we brought home a PEP suggestion that we pretend to be in a fancy restaurant. The kids ran with it, creating the “Lewis Family Restaurant” game, complete with kid-created menus and a host stand where guests could check in. Dinner took longer, but was both more orderly and more fun.
Make a plan for teaching your child the agreed-upon skill. Always begin a training session by asking what the child already knows—from logic or from watching you—and build on that. Talk through the steps before handing over the knife for slicing vegetables or the sheets for placing on the bed.
If you have toddlers, this is a prime age for getting them involved. I bet you’ve already heard “I do it myself!” more times than you can count. The willingness is there, just not the skill. That’s okay: your goal is to encourage your child to contribute and to get in the habit of helping, not to have chores performed perfectly. Make sure to leave extra time so you can go at your child’s pace. Guarantee that the first attempt will be a success by picking a realistic goal—tidying up a few stuffed animals, for instance, rather than the entire collection of Playmobil toys. You can make it even more fun with silly songs, sing-along music, or funny voices. Even with young school-age children, the appeal of doing things with Mom or Dad usually overcomes any reluctance to get off the couch and help. Let them pick the job they want to master.
Roping tweens and teens into household tasks may be more challenging. The key is to stay one step ahead of them in level of difficulty. Teach them something at the edge of their comfort zone: cooking with an open flame and a pan that sizzles, or measuring pressure on all the bike tires and pumping them up. Use real-life needs rather than invented tasks so they see the impact of their work.
Maddie always loved cooking. As early as eight, she regularly made herself and her sister fried eggs and pancakes on the stove. So naturally, Ava hung back from meal preparation. Why compete? I kept at it, gently urging her to help whenever I could without nagging. One week she even helped me make simple ham quesadillas, though grudgingly.
A few days later, I was driving home late from work, stomach grumbling, with only a few minutes to change my clothes before I needed to leave for an evening meeting. I called the house, and ten-year-old Ava picked up.
“Honey, I have an emergency. I’m running very short of time and I’m hungry. Would you be willing to pull together some dinner that I can grab when I stop in the house in about twenty minutes? You can make some extra for yourself and Maddie.”
“Okay,” Ava responded instantly, to my surprise. “What do you want me to make?”
“Could you make me some turkey quesadillas like the ham ones we made earlier? Just grab some tortillas from the fridge, put turkey on them, put cheese on top, and then—”
“Wait a minute,” Ava said. “Let me get a piece of paper and a pen. Can you tell me the steps, one by one?”
Delighted, I waited. Then I listed each step in making quesadillas. I arrived home to find two warm quesadillas on a paper plate for me to consume in the car en route to my next commitment. Next to the plate was a neatly printed recipe in her round handwriting:
1. Get ham/turkey
2. Get gouda
3. Get tortilla
4. Slice gouda
5. 1 tortilla 3–5 peices gouda
6. 5 slices ham
7. Microwave 40 sec (Make 4–6)
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to household jobs, take a look at the age-appropriate chores for children at the end of this book. Pick a few, or even show your kids the list and ask them if they see a task they’d like to master. (Are you surprised by what’s on these lists? Perhaps your children are older and you’re not sure they can handle such challenging jobs. You will never know until you try.)
If they’re willing, you’re in luck. Teach them the task, step by step. Be sure to appreciate all that they do, and resist correcting them at first. As they practice, they’ll get better. After a few tries on their own, ask if they’d like feedback on how they’re performing the task. If they say no, keep your mouth shut. Be patient as you look for progress, not perfection. New chores represent an opportunity for them to learn a skill and spend time with a parent, rather than something to be dreaded.
What if your child is resistant to the idea of chores? Bring it up another day. Introduce humor. Ask them to give it a try for a week. Tell them you honestly need help. If all else fails, start very small and look for the tiny contributions they do make—like just picking up a coat—while inviting them to learn more. Even shifting 5 percent in the direction you want to head is an improvement. Focusing on the positive contributions they do make will work better than lamenting all that they don’t do.
Remember to have appropriate expectations, based on your child’s age, abilities, and temperament. A three-year-old isn’t going to be as responsible with belongings, or as considerate of others, as a ten-year-old.
As children grow, they should increasingly take over responsibility for self-care: brushing their teeth, bathing, feeding and dressing themselves—and caring for their belongings. We went through a terrible power struggle with Ava over brushing her teeth and taking her asthma medicine, until I thought of inviting her to join me in brushing teeth. She’s much more cooperative when we’re doing something together, as opposed to me tapping my toes waiting for her to finish washing up. My rule of thumb is that by age eleven children should be able to completely care for and feed themselves. You may do more of the cooking while they do easier chores, but they should be capable in a pinch. And anytime you do something for children that they can do for themselves, you’re stealing the opportunity for them to feel more capable.
Children also need dominion over some portion of the house. In my family, that means that the kids can decide how messy their room gets. When the floor beside Ava’s bed gets too crowded with stacks of books, I may just stand at the door of her room and blow her a kiss good-night—since I don’t want to risk tripping. The next day she may be more receptive to my offer to help her organize her library so that we can resume our bedtime cuddles.
In your home, their area of control may be a basement playroom. If your kids have trouble keeping their clothes and toys tidy, they probably have too many. We regularly sort through both for donations to charity or for a garage sale—which my kids enjoy because they keep half the proceeds. When new toys, books, or clothes enter the house, we aim to shed the same amount through donations or garage sales.
It’s a little puzzling to me that my kids need so much training and support when I don’t recall my parents ever spending so much time on chores. But then I realize that we’re so much busier and more isolated than in previous generations. For a time, my grandmother lived with us and helped us learn to cook and clean. My friends and I spent a fair amount of time underfoot in the kitchen, watching our moms run the household; today kids are often out of the house at activities and only reunite with their parents just before dinnertime and bed. Whatever the reason for these changes from one generation to the next, you can start your children on household tasks today.
The arena of life skills and contributions to the household is just one of two ways in which adults build children’s capability. Even more important is working on their social and emotional skills. I saw this vividly at a public school in Ohio.
BRANDY DAVIES’S HEELS TAPPED QUICKLY down the halls of Ohio Avenue Elementary School in Columbus. I followed, a bit breathless. For a short woman, she was fast. The school was well maintained and full of windows. Nestled in a rough neighborhood—I passed a pawn shop and discount grocery stores as well as boarded-up buildings—the Ohio Ave ES building itself feels safe, orderly, and joyous.
Davies reached
the door of the gym before I did and huddled to talk with the physical education teacher, a tall man standing in the doorway. A handful of children squeezed around his body. A girl with a neat bun of hair on top of her head and a piteous look on her face held out her arm for Davies to inspect.
Something had gone down in PE class.
Davies had warned me that might be the case. A majority of the twenty-four third-graders in her class had experienced trauma in their short lives—a parent incarcerated, a parent’s death, or exposure to violence, alcoholism, or drug abuse. And those were just the incidents she knew about. They had also endured the stress that comes with poverty: a majority of children in the Columbus school district qualify for free and reduced meals. The need is so overwhelming that the school system simply provides breakfast and lunch to the entire student body. In schools like Ohio Ave, children struggle with the most basic social emotional skills: impulse control, emotion management, empathy, and decision-making.
As a result of these children’s experience with trauma, a fight could break out at a moment’s notice. A sideways glance or an accidental nudge could easily provoke something bigger. The girls in particular this year seemed like a tinderbox. At Ohio Ave, adults building kids’ capabilities focus on these missing social emotional skills—a parallel to how the parents in Hoefle’s classes work on their children’s life skills.
The girl who held out her hand, Jayliana, had moved to Ohio Ave from another school, one where the norm was defiance and fights. She arrived full of rage. It didn’t help that her mom and dad were splitting up and her dad had recently moved out, Davies told me earlier.
“You have to watch your girls. All of them want to fight together,” the PE teacher told Davies. A boy grabbed Davies around the waist and leaned in for a hug. Accusations flew through the air.
“They was throwing beanbags,” one boy said.
“It was your beanbag,” one girl accused. The girl she looked at denied being involved.
“You was too, dude,” the boy said.
“Why are you all out in the hall? I’m not talking to you, so this is not your concern,” Davies said.
“People trying to smack me. And I’m not having it,” Jayliana declared, her round face fierce.
“You always talking about people’s families!” the boy said, voice rising in outrage.
That prompted a burst of angry comments.
“Stop right now,” Davies said. “I didn’t ask you. I didn’t ask you, and I haven’t asked you yet.” A stern glance at each complaining child punctuated each “you.”
“Okay. Now explain something to me.” She leaned close to Brianna, a tall girl with short dreads and a light blue polo shirt. They were almost the same height, even accounting for Davies’s high heels.
“They’re trying to hit me a lot, and I’m trying to move, but I can’t if they keep hitting me and hitting me,” Brianna said.
“That’s a lie,” commented a boy in a dark blue polo shirt named Brayden.
“Why are they trying to hit you?” Davies asked.
“That’s a lie. That’s a lie,” Brayden repeated.
“Do you want to be honest about that?” Davies asked Brianna.
“I know why they trying to hit her,” Brayden offered.
“So then I’m going to ask them as well,” Davies told him. “We’ll give them their turn. Go to the entrance please.”
She stepped back. Jayliana, Brianna, a girl in a pink Aero T-shirt, and a few boys lingered. The children who had been in the gym piled out, forming a rough line against the far wall. More accusations flew.
“They hit me first.”
“You hit me.”
“She touched me, dude.”
Girls hugged Davies as they passed by on the way to the line. Every time I visited Ohio Ave, I noticed how the students connected to their teachers, gravitating toward them and often wanting a hug or other physical reassurance.
Jayliana was still proffering her scratched arm, comforted by Keelin, the girl in the pink T-shirt. The PE teacher shut down the kids’ begging to go to the nurse’s office. Keelin started walking toward the line of children, which was beginning to move down the hall. Jayliana, tears on her face, stood immobile.
“Just go. Go, Jayliana,” Keelin urged her.
Davies started the children taking turns at the water fountain. She walked up to Jayliana and cupped her face in both hands. Jayliana was full-on crying by now.
“Look at me. If you talk like that, it gets you into trouble and I have to write you up,” she said. I hadn’t heard what Jayliana said to the PE teacher, but it must’ve been bad.
“You can’t say things like that. Get in my line for me,” Davies said kindly.
Jayliana hung her head. Dragged one leg after the other as she slumped down the hallway.
As intense as the scene seemed to me, Davies explained later that a few years earlier it probably would’ve escalated into throwing things and physical fighting. At least one child would’ve been sent to an in-school suspension or possibly sent home. As in many urban schools, even five-year-olds would curse or talk back to adults without blinking an eye. Slapping or punching a classmate came easily to them. Their trauma history made them prone to misinterpreting someone else’s actions as aggressive, known in the psychology literature as hostile attribution bias.
All that changed after Davies started playing the “PAX Good Behavior Game,” which research has shown to cut disruptive classroom behavior by 70 percent or more.
Here’s how the game works. Before any given activity or transition, the teacher and children discuss and agree on the behavior that leads to PAX—which stands for peace, productivity, health, and happiness—as well as behavior that is unwanted, which PAX gives the made-up name “spleem.” For instance, during independent work, PAX behavior might include keeping your hands on the task, resting your eyes on your papers, and not speaking in a voice that can be heard more than three inches from your mouth. Spleems might include fiddling with water bottles, taking lip gloss out of the desk, or getting into off-task conversation. The classroom is divided into teams of five or six kids each.
Each game begins with a gentle blow on Davies’s harmonica. At the end of the game, any team with fewer than four spleems gets to participate in a celebration drawn from “Granny’s Wacky Prize Box” or from a choice that Davies gives them. These prizes are silly activities that last only a minute or two, but the kids love them. The prizes that Davies’s students like include dancing to a GoNoodle video, playing Mrs. Davies Says, and doing calisthenics, like high knees or stretches.
Because PAX relies on key principles of child development and motivation, the game avoids the pitfalls of reward schemes. Teachers aren’t demanding that kids meet unilateral standards—the children agree as a classroom on desired and undesired behaviors. The rewards aren’t tangible bribes, but rather physical experiences that celebrate the group’s successful cooperation. The movement alone contributes to self-regulation by releasing stress. Even the name “spleem” avoids the baggage that might come with labels like “misbehavior” or “bad choice.” Saying “spleem” curves your face into a slight smile, which helps avert negative feelings. PAX is the Apprenticeship Model in a nutshell.
The kids loved the game. They got excited when they thought it was coming. Jayliana and Keelin in particular became really invested in it. During the game, they’d encourage their team to behave so they could win the prize.
As the children built their ability to control themselves in the game, this skill extended to other parts of the day. Before the game, Davies had to move students out of the classroom for dangerous behavior as often as ten times a day. Now days could pass without one of her students losing control—whether throwing objects or fighting—to the point where she needed a second adult to help her restore order.
This is how adults teach behavior control and emotion regulation. This is how they build children’s interpersonal capability.
K
ids usually act up because they’re feeling useless—not able to contribute to the family or the classroom—or because they lack emotional awareness and skills. Chores and social and emotional training help solve the problem. In your home, look for opportunities to work on these skills, whether managing anger or navigating social situations.
You could start with something as simple as playing pretend with a preschooler before meeting relatives or attending a grown-up event. Talk through the scenario and ask what behavior your child thinks is appropriate. It’s especially fun if you play-act the inappropriate behavior, giving your child a chance to correct you. One trick you can teach children who feel shy about looking into adults’ eyes when greeting them is to look in the middle of their forehead. The adult can’t tell the difference, and the experience becomes less intense for the child.
It may also help to come up with code words when you’re training kids in social skills. PEP’s Jessup taught us one technique that we use to this day. Since good manners are the keys to success in life, when our children forget to say “please” or “thank you,” we might whisper “keys” to remind them. That way we don’t have to nag them publicly: “What do you say to that nice compliment from Grandma?”
DENNIS EMBRY FOUNDED THE TUCSON-BASED PAXIS Institute to create and distribute the PAX game and other science-based programming that fights mental illness, often in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for Prevention and Early Intervention, where Embry is co-investigator on several studies.
“We have an epidemic of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. It makes the polio epidemic look like nothing,” he told me. In today’s numbers, the polio epidemic—which mobilized every state in the union—would have caused 6,000 deaths and 120,000 cases. That’s dwarfed by the 44,000 annual suicide deaths and half a million self-inflicted injuries seen in emergency rooms today.
The Good News About Bad Behavior Page 18