Staying Calm

When trying to discipline our children it is important to remain as calm as possible - a task often difficult in the face of day to day living. But if we have a reason to remain calm it just might help. Acting out of anger is the worst thing we can do for both our child and our relationship with them. Click here for an article relating to this topic.

When we act out of anger we rarely use respect, fairness or kindness. Before we respond to inappropriate behaviour we need to give ourselves time (time to cool down or to think a bit straighter). Our children are the masters at pressing the wrong (right) buttons but if we fail to react immediately we have a chance to respond purposefully.

By responding, I mean a calm thought-out procedure that means we are in control of our thoughts and so, far more likely to positively influence the outcomes.

By remaining calm we:

• decrease the likelihood of our children getting their backs up
• model rational, appropriate communication skills
• give ownership of the ensuing behaviour to the child and
• give the child a chance to back down, stop, change directions - without losing face.

By contrast, when we react out of our feelings we are in danger of antagonizing, embarrassing, humiliating and belittling, all of which have the potential to show that the loudest and rudest is the one who wins in life.
Next time you feel the blood pressure rising, give yourself a chance to:

STOP
Try to RELAX yourself
And then RESPOND CALMLY
In another article I wrote for Shorncliffe State School Website, I mentioned that it is important to try not to act out of anger, but to respond calmly, in a thought out way.

Often after we have asked (told) our children to do something they will follow this up with a particularly annoying behaviour, like eye-rolling, shoulder shrugging, back chat, giggling to name just a few.

These behaviours are known as secondary behaviours and they are really effective at actually distracting us from what we originally wanted. We ask them to clear their place at the table and they say that their brother/sister didn’t, so why should they. We respond by telling them not to argue. They say that it’s not fair, that you always pick on them and before you know it they have been sent away and their place at the table is being cleared by you.

Why do they do it? How should we respond?

Try ignoring the secondary behaviour (for the time being). The angrier you become, the more you lose focus on what you actually wanted. If you calmly repeat the instruction and get them to focus on what they need to do (not their brother or their sister) there is a good chance they will do it (I find that this may take several calm repetitions at first and then less as they know you know what’s going on). A little later on when you are not feeling as annoyed, they have done the job and are also calm, you can talk to them about the secondary behaviour.

John Madden