Q&A with christina dalton
Q: What can I do when nothing works for my 6-year-old son? When he gets in trouble, I can take toys away, make him go to his room, time outs, and nothing works. He acts like he doesn’t care at all. Help?
A. Over the years I have had several parents ask this same question. They will try all of the suggestions that I offer them in class and they come back and say nothing worked. It is very puzzling to me time and time again. I have had parents say they bagged up all the toys and put them in the garage and the child had little or no reaction. One of the first things I would suggest to you is consider what the child was doing to get in trouble. Did it have something to do with getting your attention? Were you on the phone, making dinner or distracted by something else? Often times I think the worst punishment for a child is to be sent to their room or somewhere else where their behavior cannot be put on display. Sometimes children act out in order to get your attention. I tell parents to really think about what their child loves because there is always something, you may just may not have thought enough about it yet. I think over half the time the answer is being with you. Children love being with their parents…that is… up to a certain age! LOL. So if taking away toys isn’t working, time outs are not working, you say to them, “Please go to your room. No one wants to be around you when you act like this. Let me know when you’re ready to come out and be with me.” I am not saying that this will work on every child 100% of the time, but I do think that for a great number of children being with their parents is the only thing they really want.
Q. My 10-year-old daughter has no interest whatsoever in school. Her grades are good and she doesn’t get in trouble, but there is no spark when it comes to learning. Is there anything I can be doing to help her?
A. I do trainings for the afterschool staff for Daviess County Public Schools. One technique I teach them is to engage children during the homework process. Of course the last thing children want to do when school is out is do homework. Nonetheless it is part of afterschool. When they are doing homework, I encourage them to ask the children how they came up with an answer. Let’s say they are working on math. You would ask the child, “Can you show me how you came up with that answer?” Not only does it help the child with the learning process, it also makes them use their brains in order to show you. Sometimes we have to look dumb, so that our children can learn to be really smart. I think sometimes we are all so busy with life that we say to our children, hey you did a great job and we move on. Giving out generalized compliments is great and it builds self-esteem but being specific puts their brains into thinking mode. Instead of saying, “you’re so pretty,” and “great job.” Say things like, “I love your outfit and how did you put it all together?” When you are doing homework with your child or just talking about it, seize those moments when you can ask them questions about how something was done. If they said they learned about Harriet Tubman today that is the perfect opportunity to ask, “What did you learn about her? Who is that? “ Let them teach you and I think you might see where the spark is and what field of study it lies in. It sounds like you are already doing a great job, you just might want to dig a little deeper.
Q. I’m a stay at home mom to my 3 ½ year old son and during the day he’s not too bad but when my husband comes home, he acts crazy and doesn’t do anything I tell him. My husband just wants to play, gets him wound up and I’m left to do all the “not fun” stuff. Do you have any suggestions?
A. This is such a tough question and a touchy one too. There’s no way around the fact that this puts you in a terrible position. It sounds like you are the caretaker and the disciplinarian and that doesn’t leave much time for you to be “the fun” one. I know this is an issue for so many married couples, as well as divorced people too. Someone has to be the caretaker and someone has to be the disciplinarian and they are both hard jobs. My advice to you is to talk to your husband about this issue. Let him know that you can’t be the one that makes the fun stop all the time. He sounds like he might be in the “friends” zone with his child. And while we all want to be friends with our children, in my opinion, it’s not ultimately what you want to be to them. You have to be a parent first and foremost. But that doesn’t mean there’s no time for lots of fun because there’s always time for fun. There just needs to be an equal balance. I think he should step in and be the disciplinarian and the caretaker from time to time. It should be a shared role. I think in this day and age those roles are not defined by any means and a united front is always going to be better than a separated one.