The 5 most common parenting mistakes
Power struggles
Power struggles are one of the most common parenting issues that come into my practice. Often parents are unaware that they are engaging in power struggles or how to stop the pattern. Power Struggles are situations in which a child has purposefully, possibly defiantly, refused to comply with a specific limit or direction. When the parental response is to double down they have created a stand-off and a power struggle is not far behind. I’m sure there are parents reading this who are firm believers that they do not ever engage in power struggles with their children. I am here to tell you they are probably wrong. Any parent who has forced their kid to eat vegetables through threat of consequence or tried to wait out an oppositional child (“you will sit there until you______”…) has engaged the child in a power struggle.
Parent: “You will eat that broccoli”
Child: “Oh no I won’t”
Parent: “then no TV”
Child: “I’m still not eating it”,
Parent: “then you’ll go to bed early”
Child: “fine”
Parent: “ well you’re going to sit there until you eat it……”
Sound familiar? If it does you are engaging in a classic parenting pitfall. This exercise can be exhausting. Sure, eating broccoli can be healthy. But this interaction is not. Broccoli, can be substituted with your preferred power struggle, but the outcome is the same. First and foremost I tell my clients that it is important to remember that you are the parent. There is no need to engage the child in a power struggle because they do not have authority or power in the situation. The perception of power only arises when their behavior effectively acts to control a given situation. Only you as the parent can grant them this power. In the example a child is able to control the situation with the simple act of refusing to eat a vegetable. While the consequences are piling up the child becomes less likely to comply rather than more likely to comply. They will begin to feel that there is no benefit to compliance since they have already lost “everything”. A better response assuming the behavior is not dangerous is to establish the limit and the potential consequence (you need to eat your broccoli or you will not be getting dessert/watching television after dinner etc…) and then let the child make their own choice (follow through is key here). This will not always result in compliance but it will teach the child that their behavior has contingent consequences. When used consistently the outcome will improve and compliance will increase across the board and not just for problem behaviors.
Why is everybody yelling?
One of the first things I work on with new clients is how to control the volume and tone of their voice when talking to their children. Kids, especially when they are being defiant and/or loud, will take cues from their parents on the tone of the conversation. Setting appropriate examples and limits on how to communicate will affect how your children will approach escalation and de-escalation in times of stress. If a parent responds to a yelling child by yelling back they have done two important disservices to their cause. First, they invalidate their message and second they show their children that yelling is an appropriate communication strategy when frustrated or upset. It is like giving your child a green light to both ignore you and yell back. Try speaking with your children in calm tones, even exaggerating them purposefully, so you are fully aware of your own vocal level. This is especially important during times of disagreement or bad behavior, when it is most difficult. The payoff is less opposition to redirection and reduced stress for both the child and the parent.
Bad Parent; Take a Time out!
Time outs are another area where many well meaning parents make serious mistakes. There are a few important ground rules for time outs that should always be followed. First: The time out should be used primarily for stimulus reduction. Second they should be given consistently and immediately for specific behaviors and third they should be timed but age appropriate in length. Time outs were intended as a way for children with poor self control to get a break from stimulus that was encouraging poor behavior. Yelling and screaming, hitting, biting etc…. are all appropriate behaviors for a time out. Here it serves to remove the child from the situation and stop the immediate behavior. Think of it as interrupting a bad behavior in progress, or an attempt to disrupt a thought process or pattern. It should not be used for a disagreement or in furtherance of a power struggle (see above). In those times situational consequences are more appropriate. Refusal to brush teeth for example should be followed by a related bed time consequence such asgoing to bed a few minutes early, or not getting a specific behavioral reward that would otherwise have been given at night. Another major time out mistake is not giving the child the time out fast enough. To be effective the child needs to be given the consequence as close as possible to the behavior. If a child is hitting another child giving a time out in that moment serves to establish the connection to the bad behavior (called contingency) necessary to make the time out effective. If you find out after the fact that the child hit a sibling than other consequences should be considered. Finally another major time out mistake involves the length of time and how a child gets off of time out. Time outs should, as their name implies, be a specific length of T-I-M-E. Not letting a child up until he apologizes or until he can tell you what he did will be counterproductive (see power struggle). The way to determine length of time is dependent on the child but keep in mind longer is not necessarily better. The initial goal is served by simply giving the time out the length is much less important than the immediacy of the time out to its behavioral antecedent. If you are dead set on a time use the child age as a guide and give 30 seconds to one minute for each year of age. If the child cannot sit still forlonger than a minute, a fifteen minute time out is going to create more problems than it solves.
What’s with all of the negativity?
Every parent has had the experience of having to discipline a child who has done something they were not supposed to do. However using only these opportunities to stop children from engaging in negative or maladaptive behavior can ultimately be a losing proposition. Consequences can be an effective tool in a parents repertoire but using this alone can only get you halfway there. Parents should try also to foster positive behaviors with rewards intended to encourage positive emotional and cognitive development.. This can be especially effective at disrupting negative behavior patterns. When the behavior you’re encouraging makes engaging in a negative behavior incompatible (A child can’t both be nice to their sister and hit them at the same time.) the negative behavior will decrease as the positive behavior increases. One way to do this is to create a behavior chart of the behaviors you want to see such as “plays nice with sister” or “cleans up toys after using them” give the child a sticker or check mark when the behavior is observed and create a goal with a reward for achievement such as five check marks is one extra bedtime story. Over time the goals can be changed as needed or desired to encourage growth and development.
This way… no that way… no this way!#$@%
A major mistake made by even the best parents is not effectively communicating limits and boundaries with their children. No parent is perfect (including me) and no behavior is going to change overnight. But if you want to encourage the best outcomes there can be no doubt on the part of your child about their expectations. This means that you have to know what you want for your child and you and your partner need to be on the same page when it comes to rules and consequences. Consistency is the hallmark of effective behavior management. A child should know (because they were told not because they were psychic) what parental expectations are and what the consequences/rewards for compliance or non-compliance will be. They should also be given age appropriate explanations for those rules and expectations. “Because I said so” is not an explanation, and makes children think the rules are arbitrary or capricious. Explain that we don’t eat wild berries so we don’t get sick and we don’t stick our fingers in the electrical socket so we don’t get hurt. When a child asks "why?" they are not being disrespectful, they are simply curious about their world. Answering them will help improve compliance and satisfaction. Children crave structure even if they don’t know it. Not having a clear understanding of their expectations or having too much freedom creates anxiety and sometimes depression or negative acting out. Having clearly established limits, boundaries, and rules will help a child feel loved and safe.
No matter what your parenting style, everyone makes mistakes and parents are only human. Remember that how you deal with these mistakes sets an example for your children about how to deal with similar situations. These parenting mistakes can always be remedied and making positive changes will encourage children to try and make positive changes themselves especially if it is handled with dignity and grace.
