Wednesday, December 20, 2006

THE STRESS CONNECTION

I read this quote the other day "When your kids are misbehaving, they are stressed out." I thought about this statement and all the times when my kids were misbehaving.

For the most part, I think it's right. I think about my kindergartener and she's misbehaving because she's either tired or hungry or angry - yes, she's stressed out.

I think about my middle school son and he has his intense moments when he's stressed out.

And when I'm most stressed out is when they misbehave the most.

With this new perspective, I find myself responding more and reacting less to their misbehaving. These episodes seem to have less fire when I start trying to understand what they are stressing about and come to a quicker resolution.

Have you found this connection or a similar connection between misbehaving and being stressed out? And how have you addressed it?

HAVE AN AWESOME HOLIDAY SEASON!!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

STRUGGLES AND POSITIVE THINKING

My son is having a challenging this year with Math. In the past, he’s naturally excelled at math; this year his experience is different. Without going into too much detail, part of the issue is he’s now in Middle School and expectations are higher, part is the teaching style of the teacher not matching how he learns and part is his own attitude.

His grades have an up and down pattern that is associated with how easily or difficult it is for him to grasp a concept. Because there are times he does well, I don’t want to teach him the easy way out by changing to a teacher he as had before. This is not going to be the first teacher or boss that he’s going to be in conflict with their styles. The sooner he learns that he can come through this struggle and be okay; the next time it comes he hopefully won’t be fighting it so hard.

We’ve had a couple meetings with the teacher to try to understand the gap between her expectations and his productivity. After the last one, it seems that our heated “discussions” over his math have diminished; it’s almost as if he realizes that we are really on his side.

He often says “I hate math.” And I immediately remind him that he should bring this down a notch to “I am really frustrated with math” or “I strongly dislike math.” If you think about it, when you change your words from something as strong as “hate” to “strongly dislike” or “really frustrated”, it softens the strong negative feelings.

It seems to be making a difference when I remind him to lower the negativity; he seems to get through the negative feelings faster and thus getting his work done sooner.

What kind of struggles is your child having? How are you helping your child get through it? I’d love to hear about it.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

SPEAK RESPECTIVELY

Well, my son has been showing signs of becoming a teen in his pre-teen years. The latest sign has been one of talking disrespectfully; specifically to his sister.

I know it’s time for him to try new things and to start finding his own identity. However, when I heard him patronizing and bossing his sister around; I didn’t like it. So when this began, I would call him on it, telling him that this was rude and not acceptable behavior. I would tell him that he needs to talk to his sister with respect and make him repeat his demand as a request with respect.

This process was repeated over and over the following 4-6 weeks. I have noticed that this behavior has its ebbs and flows. A couple of weeks will go where I’m not reminding him to speak to his sister respectfully; then I need to remind him.

I suspect this will be the norm or some variation until it’s either drilled into his head or otherwise.

How have you dealt with your child being disrespectful? I’d love to hear about it.