One of the responsibilities of parenting is setting limits. Unfortunately, setting limits won’t necessarily endear us to our kids. In fact, in most cases it causes a lot of resentment.
Dr. Haim Ginott offers parents a way to set limits and lessen the amount of resentment that may follow. If you follow these steps, you should end up with a child who, although unhappy about the limitations you have set, will cooperate.
First, recognize the child’s wish and rephrase this wish in simple words. For instance, if you have a “no dating before the age of 16” rule in your house and your 14-year-old wants to
date you could say, “You wish you could date now.”
Next, you want to state clearly the rule, “But you know in our house the rule is no dating until you are 16.”
The parent then offers a way to partially fulfill the request, “If you like, I can take you and Bobby to a movie.” (Make sure they realize that you are staying for the movie and sitting with them!).
Next, the parents help the child express some of his resentment offering sympathy for not being able to bend the rule, “I know you wish your father and I hadn’t made this rule.”
I used this technique with Tyler this morning. He wanted snack money for school but we had a bedtime battle last night. He knows that if this happens he has no chance of getting snack money. This morning he comes up to me and asks, “I was wondering, can I take snack money to school?”
I reminded him that the rule was no snack money if he misbehaves at bedtime. He then said, “Man, I really want snack money. I want to buy some fruit roll-ups.”
“I wish I could give you snack money but you know the rule,” I answered.
However, as a compromise, I reminded him that he had some new fruit roll-ups- some Yo-go’s fruit and yogurt roll-ups. This was in addition to whatever other snack he wanted to take along with his juice box.
And that was that. He was happy, and so was I. Most importantly, a battle was averted.
See also:
How Good Are You At Setting Limits?
Setting Limits for Special Needs Children