Do You “Dance” With Your Kids? Parents Families.com

Do you dance with your kids? No, I’m not talking about dancing the hokey-pokey, I’m referring to the kind of dancing kids do to manipulate their parents. I had never heard of this until I read about it in, Try and Make Me! by Ray Levy and Bill O’Hanlon. According to the authors, there are eight types of dances that kids will try to do to get around your rules. They are:

(1) The Guilt Dance
In this dance the kid will lay a guilt trip on you in order to get you do something. For example, “You’ve been at work all day and I was lonely and bored. I want to rent a video game.” The parent feels guilty, gives in and rents the video.

(2) The Whining Dance
Y’all know what I’m talking about. Many parents will give in just to get some peace.

(3) The Bargaining Dance
This is when your child tries to negotiate to get his way. For instance, he might promise to do his homework after he finishes playing outside, or after one more game on the computer.

(4) The Abusive Dance
In this dance, the child will become verbally or physically abusive in order to get an angry response from the parent who then in turn feels guilty about their own behavior.

(5) The Unenforceable Dance
This is a case when a parent attempts to punish a child but can’t actually enforce the punishment. The authors say this is very common in the case of divorced parents. As an example, a father may tell his child they are grounded for some infraction but since they don’t live with the child they can’t enforce it (unless the other parent agrees).

(6) The Perry Mason Dance
In this dance the parents try to get the child to admit to some wrong doing by interrogating them. This often backfires and kids become more tightlipped when interrogated.

(7) The Therapist Dance
In this dance the parent believes they are Dr. Phil and starts talking like a therapist, some going so far as to take up the classic thinker pose. Don’t do this; it does not work.

(8) The Terrorist Dance
In this dance the child tries to manipulate the parent by threatening to harm themselves.

According to the authors when parents respond to these dances they are parenting out of fear and not out of love. Also, after dancing with you a few times your child will be able to predict what you will do. They then gain power over you and can control the situation and manipulate it to their advantage. Parents have to learn to recognize the dance and take the lead. This will return the power back to the parent and better control any situation..