tactics Archives » Nurture for the Future

Aristotle is going through a phase. At least I’d like to think it’s just a phase and not because I’m failing at my role of being a parent. To put it simply, he’s been obnoxious. It’s tough swallowing that when I know he can behave so beautifully sometimes that it just blows me away and I think to myself, “Wow, I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful son”. And then he has to go and ruin it all with his obnoxious behaviour that makes me want to connect my foot with his annoying behind and send him flying into the next neighbourhood. Okay, I’m kidding – really! There is no need to send the child protection services here. I’m just allowing the petty me some measure of satisfaction of picturing that thought.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking really hard about his behaviour and wondering if he’s behaving this way because I suck at being Mum and he’s taking me for a ride – meaning I really need to crack down harder on him – or, maybe, just maybe, it’s a phase that all kids go through and all that is required are some firm boundaries and broken-record repetitions until the right behaviour sticks. I’m leaning towards the latter – probably because I can’t bear the thought that I might be a crappy Mum especially when I’m already trying so hard. It probably helped that a conversation with a friend who has four kids and has been through it all also said the same thing when I lamented over my son’s behaviour. I believe she said something along the lines of, “Oh, he’s only five years old.” So that’s supposed to mean that this behaviour is normal? Well, she’s the one with four kids so I guess she ought to know better.

Regardless, I tried the harsher way – just to see if it would work. And no, it did not. It just got worse until I found myself being angry everyday. I was angry, Aristotle was angry and we were both miserable. And when something isn’t working, it is just sheer stupidity to keep doing it. So I’ve been trying hard to break the negative cycle that has sucked us into this maelstrom and is threatening to drown us unless we do something different.

The bucket analogy

Remember when I said that it is important to have a good relationship with your child’s teacher at school? Well, here’s another reason why – some teachers have really great ideas for managing difficult kids because they’ve had the experience of managing many children with different personalities. At least, this is so if you have good teachers at your child’s school who can recognise when something is not working and are willing to implement other methods until they find one that works with your child. Thankfully, for the second year running, we have been blessed with another good teacher.

One thing Aristotle’s teacher was quick to observe was that punishment by removing privileges doesn’t work very well with Aristotle. The reason is because he doesn’t care. And when there is no feeling of loss, the punishment has no effect. What she did notice was that he thrived on recognition. When he did something good, he liked being recognised for it. And when no one notices anything, he behaves poorly to get the attention. I appreciated the fact that she noticed these effects on him and was quick to act on it because handling a class full of children can be exhausting and sometimes we just react to the situation rather than take control of it. I know I’ve been guilty of that and I only have two kids to deal with!

It’s a common problem – child is bored and wants attention, child would rather misbehave and receive negative attention than to get nothing and continue feeling bored. They did this experiment on rats and found the same thing. The solution would seem simple – just give him more attention. Which works, if you can fulfill his idea of having “sufficient” attention. Unfortunately, as I have begun to discover, my definition and his definition of sufficient is rarely ever the same. And when you have another child and a household beckoning you, time is not something you have in abundance. Additionally, I have begun to notice the interference of my own emotions that I struggle to deal with. So we need to address it. There is also the question on boredom but we’ll address that in a later post.

Aristotle’s teacher told me about an analogy she used in school to help the children understand the effects of their behaviour. She refers to an imaginary bucket that everyone has. If you do something nice for someone, you are filling their bucket. If you fill someone’s bucket, you make them feel happy and good. When you do something mean, it empties their bucket and it makes them feel sad and unhappy. Why does it matter whether you fill someone’s bucket or empty it? Because it affects your own bucket. If you fill someone’s bucket, you are also filling your own bucket because it feels nice to do something good for someone else. If you empty someone’s bucket, you empty your own bucket and that doesn’t help you feel better.

I thought it was a great way to explain things to kids in a way that helps them understand something as abstract as emotions and feelings. Recently, I used it to explain how he made me feel whenever he did things to rile his brother up. This is the gist of what I said:

“When you do things to upset didi, it empties my bucket. When you empty my bucket, I have nothing to fill your bucket with. So let’s work on filling each other’s buckets everyday.”

I gave him lots of examples of the things he could do that helps to fill my bucket – for example, putting his dirty laundry into the laundry basket rather than leaving it lying on the floor; playing nicely with his brother; taking his dirty dishes to the sink; etc.

Whenever I see him doing something that fills my bucket, I make it a point to do something to fill his bucket. It ends up a little like a tennis game of hitting the ball back and forth so no one ends up feeling neglected despite all the bucket filling they’ve been doing.

Is it working?

Well, we still have our dips but at least I feel happier about where we’re going and I feel a little less angry. Whenever Aristotle forgets to fill my bucket, all I have to say is that what he just did was empty my bucket and he gets it immediately. Previously, I would get angry and respond in anger and he would get angry because I’m angry and all the negative emotions just keep feeding each other. Once you’re angry, reason and logic is beyond your comprehension. This is so for adults, and it is especially so for children. Yelling at a child doesn’t help him “get it” because his emotions end up clouding his understanding.

I also know that when I’m angry, even if I am capable of making the right decision, my anger makes it hard to back down and do the right thing. When someone responds to me in kindness, I feel a desire to return the kindness especially when I’m wrong. Children are the same and they deserve no less, even when they are wrong.

At the end of the day, it is important to remember that we are trying to correct behaviours not overpower wills. Getting angry at a child for misbehaviour turns it into a power struggle for dominance and the lesson of what is the right behaviour is lost along the way. You want your child to accept that what he did was wrong, not feel that he was forced into submission which only leads to resentment after which, it is highly quesitonable whether any lessons were learned at all.

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When I was studying dentistry, we had a subject where we were taught how to manage children in the dental surgery. It is ironic that I’m only remembering these tips now, but I’ve found them to be pretty useful not just for managing a child in a dental surgery but a child who is about to be made to do something he doesn’t want to do.

What we learned:

Most people don’t like having dental injections and children are no exception. So when we have to give on to a child, this is the general monologue that takes place:

“I’m going to give your tooth some sleepy juice to make it fall asleep.”

Sleepy juice, in case you haven’t figured out, is really the injection. To further distract the child from the sensation of injection, we ask them to do something like this:

“Sleepy juice runs down to your feet so I need you to lift your feet up so it stays in your mouth.”

When the child is busy thinking about keeping his feet up, he doesn’t notice what you’re doing inside his mouth and usually doesn’t feel the sensation of the needle.

It was interesting to note that this also works with adults – in a slightly different way, of course. Here is an example of what happened with one of my patients one day:

I had to take a mould of his mouth so I could make him a new denture. To make a mould, we mix up some impression material, put it into a tray shaped to fit the arch of the teeth and press the tray up around the teeth. Sometimes the sensation of impression material at the back of the throat can make sensitive patients gag. Up until then, I had never had that experience until I saw this man.

If you know anything about impression material, you will realise that you cannot remove it from the mouth until it has set. The setting time usually depends on the material that you use. The particular material I was using that day takes about 7 minutes to set. My patient started gagging about two minutes into the setting time and it quickly became evident that he would not be able to hold until the entire 7 minutes was up.

I don’t know what prompted me to say it, but I quickly told him to lift up his right foot. For a moment he stared at me incredulously not knowing what to make of it, but he obeyed. As soon as his right foot was up, I told him to lift his left foot. Amazingly, he stopped gagging and we were able to keep the tray in his mouth until the impression material had set.

Conclusion: Distraction is a very powerful tool if you know how to use it right.

Despite knowing this for the last ten years, it only recently clicked in my head how the distraction tactic works with my son. Duh…

Here’s one example:

Gavin doesn’t like getting his hair dried. He fusses whenever we try to towel-dry his hair and starts screaming if we keep at it when he’s already told us to stop. Previously, when we kept his hair short, it was simply a matter of a quick swipe of his head and it was done. Now that he has longer hair, towel-drying takes a little more work.

I’ve noticed that whenever I talk to him or give him something absorbing to do, he never fusses when I dry his hair. But if I try to tackle his head in silence and when he hasn’t something to distract him, all hell breaks loose. But here’s the trick, you have to begin the distraction before touching his head, and not after you’ve started drying his head.

What works as a distraction?