Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [67]
If you ask your child to do something, you should ask only once. Otherwise you are being disrespectful to that child. You’re saying, “I think you’re so stupid that I have to remind you several times to do that.”
The next time you want your child to do something, say it once.
“Kenny, I want you to clean out the garage today.”
All day you watch Kenny laze around in the hammock, playing on his Game Boy. By nighttime, the garage still hasn’t been cleaned. You don’t remind your child.
The next morning at 9 a.m. is Little League tryouts. Your son comes out, dressed and excited, in his baseball gear, tossing his baseball. “Come on, Mom! It’s time to go!” he says happily.
“Honey, we’re not going to tryouts today.”
He looks stunned. “Not going to tryouts? Why?”
Here’s the teachable moment.
“Your dad wanted you to clean out the garage and I asked you to do it, and I see it’s still not done.”
At that point, your child will promise you anything—including 30 days of hard labor—if you take him to Little League. But he doesn’t get to go to Little League that day. If he misses the tryouts, so be it.
When the garage is clean to his dad’s satisfaction, he gets to go to Little League. And chances are, the next time he’s asked to clean the garage, he’ll do it in record time.
All this was done with no bribing, no cajoling, no reminding.
If this sounds harsh to you, let me ask you, “Do you want your child to be responsible or not?”
If you set the precedent of always reminding and coaxing children, then you’ll always be reminding and coaxing. But what happens when they’re in college, in an apartment of their own, and with a job in the real world, and you’re not there to remind them?
Take the long view. What do you want your child to look like at 18, 20, and 30 years old?
If you want your child to be responsible, give him responsibility. Don’t bail him out when he fails to follow through. Don’t snowplow his roads in life. Failure and the resulting consequences are good training.
Remember, B doesn’t happen until A is completed.
Lying
Kids lie for two basic reasons.
One is for wish fulfillment. Some kids will come home and tell you they scored three goals in soccer . . . and then you find out they didn’t play at all.
The second is out of fear. “Did you break that vase?” you demand. “No! I didn’t do it! The cat did it!” your 6-year-old claims. Most children lie out of fear. But lying is a mountain, because in order for there to be a relationship between two human beings,it must be based on trust. Otherwise, you’ll feel violated.
So if your child lies to you, he needs to be caught in that lie and told that lying is not acceptable. There also needs to be a second consequence for lying. Let’s say that, a couple days later, your child says something innocuous, such as, “Can I go next door and play with Ronnie?”
Your answer needs to be a matter-of-fact “No.”
“But why?” your child asks. “You always let me go.”
Now’s the teachable moment, even more than being caught in the lie.
“Honey, I don’t have any assurance that you’re going to be where you said you’ll be. Remember Wednesday night, when you told me you were going to be at Susan’s—and you weren’t?”
Do you beat the kid over the head? No. And you don’t do it long term. But saying something like that two or three times makes a memorable impression on a child that lying isn’t what you do. It doesn’t gain you anything, and it breaks down trust between the two of you. Children need to see and feel that immediate result.
There’s an age-old admonition: “You won’t get in trouble if you tell me the truth.” That needs to be true in your family too. If your child does break that vase and comes to you with the truth, she can know that you’re unhappy, but she should not be punished for telling you the truth. In those situations, you’ll need to think