Checkers taught me so many lessons. I believe that many of these simple games that we learned when we were children were the cornerstone to our learning. Chutes and Ladders, Old Maid, Go Fish, LIFE, Monopoly. We learned the simple lessons of following directions, accepting the answers we were given and the rules of fairness. The added benefit was, of course, the time I got to spend with my parents.
When’s the last time you sat down and played a game with your child. Do you have a child begging to spend time with you, having difficult following directions or accepting the answer given? Do they have trouble interacting with their peers; are they getting in trouble so much that you feel like you spend a good portion of your time trying to deal with them? Do you play games with them? Or has Nintendo become the game that you can play with them, or the game you can use as either a reward or the way to get them out of your hair for a while?
You know what I am going to say. Start with the basics. Start over, pull out the game board or the cards and sit them down. Play by the rules and teach them the rules. Better yet, teach them to be a better player, you see a move or know they have a card that would be better to play – stop the game and show them their options, help them to see why one choice is better than the other. Allow them to play on their own and develop some independence, but don’t be afraid to jump in with a suggestion every now and then. Spend time with them, not worrying about the winning and the losing, but the better way the play the game. These games are such a simple place to start. You have a child who won’t listen, who won’t follow directions; this is the place to start.
When I start working 1:1 with a child who has trouble with impulse control or following directions, the first thing we do is start playing bit of UNO. It’s a good game to start with – follow the rules in this one and help them with playing the better hand. Depending on the age – I don’t necessarily play to the 500 points, but instead will play best out of 11 or something along those lines. So many children know this game that it serves as a good one to start to develop a rapport. You may not need to start in that area.
The next thing I do is teach them a new game, teach them checkers, mancala, or trouble. That way I get to start fresh, the rules are still there to follow – it’s something new for them, so my focus isn’t on teaching them to win, but teaching them how to stop and think and look ahead at what the best move would be. You may argue that many of these computer games can be considered to teach them the same thing. I disagree – they are missing the parental guidance, the human touch and someone to teach them what might be their next move.
Try it, over the next month, spend 15-30 minutes a day playing a game with your children and see if there is a difference in their behaviors, their response to you and their control of their impulses. It works.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Monday, October 03, 2005
RESPECT
Remember, I am not a parent, I am not with the children I work with for hours upon hours a day, but I do know how easy it is to be pulled into an argument, feel the need to explain yourself and just plan want to be fair. I think some of our children’s arguing comes from that double-edged sword of what we have learned as we become parents, learn from our parents and other family and friends. We teach our children to be strong, assertive and stand up for us and haven’t figured out the magic formula to teach them to ‘stand up for yourself’ except with me, with me you follow my directions.
How many of us have comment, ‘if I would have talked to my dad or mom like that, I might not have been able to talk for a week.’ Some of us, unfortunately, meant that literally but others of us meant it more along the lines of being respectful and knowing how to talk with an adult. My parents raised us to say ‘yes, ma’am, yes sir’ and while they didn’t always enforce those exact words we were taught who was in charge and when they made a decision, it stood.
How did it become acceptable for children to argue so much with their parents? To have the parents bribe children for behaving in public? Although that one I believe has always been there in one form or another – not with all of us but with some of us. Who doesn’t want to show the world that they have learned to be the ‘near’ perfect parent and their children are completely respectful with them, and someone to be shown off.
Well, you and I know, it’s not okay. There is something missing in the respect factor and it is time we re-gain a little control. Teach your children to say, ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, ma’am’. Challenge how they are talking to other adults, if you do not agree with what the teacher is saying or doing with your child, challenge them when the child is not present. A child comes home and ‘tells’ on the teacher – remind them, they are the adult and you need to do what they say. Obviously, we teach them ‘good touch and bad touch,’ but are we teaching them that these are about the only time they should be allowed to challenge and argue with an adult. There are exceptions and I really hope you don’t get stuck on those when you read this, focus on the basic concept of respect. Pretend they are not your children for a minute and listen to how they are talking to adults? Is it acceptable and if not, how are you going to change it?
How many of us have comment, ‘if I would have talked to my dad or mom like that, I might not have been able to talk for a week.’ Some of us, unfortunately, meant that literally but others of us meant it more along the lines of being respectful and knowing how to talk with an adult. My parents raised us to say ‘yes, ma’am, yes sir’ and while they didn’t always enforce those exact words we were taught who was in charge and when they made a decision, it stood.
How did it become acceptable for children to argue so much with their parents? To have the parents bribe children for behaving in public? Although that one I believe has always been there in one form or another – not with all of us but with some of us. Who doesn’t want to show the world that they have learned to be the ‘near’ perfect parent and their children are completely respectful with them, and someone to be shown off.
Well, you and I know, it’s not okay. There is something missing in the respect factor and it is time we re-gain a little control. Teach your children to say, ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, ma’am’. Challenge how they are talking to other adults, if you do not agree with what the teacher is saying or doing with your child, challenge them when the child is not present. A child comes home and ‘tells’ on the teacher – remind them, they are the adult and you need to do what they say. Obviously, we teach them ‘good touch and bad touch,’ but are we teaching them that these are about the only time they should be allowed to challenge and argue with an adult. There are exceptions and I really hope you don’t get stuck on those when you read this, focus on the basic concept of respect. Pretend they are not your children for a minute and listen to how they are talking to adults? Is it acceptable and if not, how are you going to change it?
A Little Bit About Me
A little bit about me. I have been working with children most of my life. I am the oldest of nine have around 21 nieces and nephews. Right out of high school I started working a lot of religious retreats with children of different ages. My best experiences have been working on a hospital children/adolescent unit of a psychiatric hospital. I then worked on a Residential Unit and for the past 3 years have been working as a case manager for children with mental health or behavioral concerns. I do not have my own children, but the hospital and Residential unit gave me the experience to know what it is like to work with some children who have behavioral concerns. I am not licensed nor do I speak with all authority. I do talk about what I know to work – what has worked for me, what I see as making improvements. The main difference you can make in your child’s life to improve his/her quality of life (that is if there are concerns) would be to improve consistency. Feel free to share your comments, concerns and questions. It’s a blog, my notes, you like it let me know, you don’t – you don’t have to read it?
The Steps to Following Directions
The steps to following directions, easy for most of us, right? Just do it. An adult tells you to do something and you simply do it, at least that’s the way it was when we were kids. I couldn’t imagine flat out refusing to follow a direction that my mom or dad gave. Now did I have ways around it, ways to sneak and refuse to do what they were saying, uh, yeah? No secret there, even though I tell people I was the perfect child, I know that I wasn’t. I had more trouble with accepting the answer given, I would usually sneak and do it anyway, but I was also the kind of child – I got caught at everything.
When I was at the hospital, we taught the steps to following directions in four simple steps: 1. Look and Listen to the person, 2. Say ‘okay’ and sometimes repeat the direction, 3. Go and complete the task, and finally, 4. After completing the task, come back and say, “I did it.” Simple, isn’t it. We would practice this over and over with the children, we would teach the parents, we would have them write and draw a little picture diagram. It was all good; I still use this mode when I am working with some of the children I work with individually. I make sure their parents have a copy of the steps and we role play practicing this. While I think this is one of the ways to go, it can work, but it calls for the parent to be consistent.
We live in different times. It doesn’t always work this easy. We worked so hard at not being our own parents that we have done some things wrong. Our parents did some things wrong, their parents did some things wrong, and our children will do something wrong when they themselves become parents. Ideally we are all learning from each other, and are not so stuck on ‘I’ll never be my mother/father,’ that we can take the things that worked, recognized the things that made us better people, and implement some of that into our own parenting styles.
I guess my main challenge at this time to many parents would be to re-claim their parenting rights, re-establish who is the parent. Recognize and lay claim to ‘because I said, so.’ I have no problem talking things through and rationalizing why I gave a direction to a child, I don’t care how old they are, I will talk them through and explain the directions, if they feel it is necessary…after they have complied with the directions. My thoughts are ‘do what I say, when I say it, and later, if you still have a question about it come and talk to me then.’ I won’t sit there and discuss it until the direction is completed. I start with stating the directions, repeating the direction once if necessary, making a simple statement of ‘that was a direction,’ if they still have not complied and then starting to count, ‘one, two, three’ and usually by two they have complied. I usually count to five if necessary; you can see my reasoning for that on another post, titled, what happens when I reach 5?
Simply, there are a couple of things you can do to re-teach or initially teach children to follow directions. Teach them to say, ‘yes, ma’am, yes, sir.’ I do have to add that I have never really done this, it is the point that I am trying to make. Teach them to acknowledge that they have been given a directions – it can be as simply as ‘okay.’ When I worked at the hospital, I would give a direction, or an answer and the children would respond in a variety of ways: arguing, bargaining, pouting, yelling, etc. – you get the picture. I would simply say, “You mean ‘okay, Bill.’” And I would repeat this until I was given the same response. For awhile it was funny because as I was teaching this, when I would take over for other staff, they would tell me, ‘I got 3 ‘okay, Bill’s’ today and we would laugh. But I would teach them the same thing; challenge the child to recognize they have been given a direction.
Second of all, have them complete the task. And then acknowledge that they completed it, they might not need to come and report they did it, go ahead and praise them. Allow them to see and immediate reward for following your directions. And sometimes if there was a lot of arguing/balking about the initial direction, offer the opportunity to discuss it and why they didn’t want to do it or felt it unfair. ‘Thank you for following my directions, you seemed to have some trouble with it, did you want to talk about it?’ Often they won’t, I think the fun has been taken out of the fight; they’ve already completed what you asked so there is no getting out of it, no argument. Sometimes, there is a valid discussion that you may not have been able to say or see and can have the foresight to consider the next time you give a direction.
Too simple or too difficult – what do you think. I have parents tell me, it can’t be that easy, I’ve tried, why do I have to be the one to change? Hello, somehow they learned these behaviors, let’s start over, it really is never too late. Give it a try.
When I was at the hospital, we taught the steps to following directions in four simple steps: 1. Look and Listen to the person, 2. Say ‘okay’ and sometimes repeat the direction, 3. Go and complete the task, and finally, 4. After completing the task, come back and say, “I did it.” Simple, isn’t it. We would practice this over and over with the children, we would teach the parents, we would have them write and draw a little picture diagram. It was all good; I still use this mode when I am working with some of the children I work with individually. I make sure their parents have a copy of the steps and we role play practicing this. While I think this is one of the ways to go, it can work, but it calls for the parent to be consistent.
We live in different times. It doesn’t always work this easy. We worked so hard at not being our own parents that we have done some things wrong. Our parents did some things wrong, their parents did some things wrong, and our children will do something wrong when they themselves become parents. Ideally we are all learning from each other, and are not so stuck on ‘I’ll never be my mother/father,’ that we can take the things that worked, recognized the things that made us better people, and implement some of that into our own parenting styles.
I guess my main challenge at this time to many parents would be to re-claim their parenting rights, re-establish who is the parent. Recognize and lay claim to ‘because I said, so.’ I have no problem talking things through and rationalizing why I gave a direction to a child, I don’t care how old they are, I will talk them through and explain the directions, if they feel it is necessary…after they have complied with the directions. My thoughts are ‘do what I say, when I say it, and later, if you still have a question about it come and talk to me then.’ I won’t sit there and discuss it until the direction is completed. I start with stating the directions, repeating the direction once if necessary, making a simple statement of ‘that was a direction,’ if they still have not complied and then starting to count, ‘one, two, three’ and usually by two they have complied. I usually count to five if necessary; you can see my reasoning for that on another post, titled, what happens when I reach 5?
Simply, there are a couple of things you can do to re-teach or initially teach children to follow directions. Teach them to say, ‘yes, ma’am, yes, sir.’ I do have to add that I have never really done this, it is the point that I am trying to make. Teach them to acknowledge that they have been given a directions – it can be as simply as ‘okay.’ When I worked at the hospital, I would give a direction, or an answer and the children would respond in a variety of ways: arguing, bargaining, pouting, yelling, etc. – you get the picture. I would simply say, “You mean ‘okay, Bill.’” And I would repeat this until I was given the same response. For awhile it was funny because as I was teaching this, when I would take over for other staff, they would tell me, ‘I got 3 ‘okay, Bill’s’ today and we would laugh. But I would teach them the same thing; challenge the child to recognize they have been given a direction.
Second of all, have them complete the task. And then acknowledge that they completed it, they might not need to come and report they did it, go ahead and praise them. Allow them to see and immediate reward for following your directions. And sometimes if there was a lot of arguing/balking about the initial direction, offer the opportunity to discuss it and why they didn’t want to do it or felt it unfair. ‘Thank you for following my directions, you seemed to have some trouble with it, did you want to talk about it?’ Often they won’t, I think the fun has been taken out of the fight; they’ve already completed what you asked so there is no getting out of it, no argument. Sometimes, there is a valid discussion that you may not have been able to say or see and can have the foresight to consider the next time you give a direction.
Too simple or too difficult – what do you think. I have parents tell me, it can’t be that easy, I’ve tried, why do I have to be the one to change? Hello, somehow they learned these behaviors, let’s start over, it really is never too late. Give it a try.
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