MEET THE NEED

Quite frankly, our children have a lot of issues they face daily. And they bring a lot of issues to the family. When we are trying to find the root cause of their pain, which is expressed through their behaviors, we can come at it in any number of ways. I have found that one of the best ways is to frame it as a curious question, “What do you need?” 

When I coach parents, I usually ask them to pick one or two issues they are particularly troubled by that they want support in. And, in essence, this is me asking, ‘What do you need?’

A big part of my coaching approach is to teach parents to see into their children’s actual needs by seeing beyond the behavior. Meeting their needs builds trust and enhances attachment. This is especially true if we can be proactive and meet their needs before they express the need. But even in the midst of behavior, asking “What do you need” is far more productive than “why are you acting this way?”

This hasn’t always been easy for me, I’ll admit. One of my stumbling blocks was that I thought I already knew the answer to the question. I’ll TELL you what you need:

You need to stop acting up. You need to get over it. You need to do what I say.

I was able to let go of those beliefs when I became truly curious about what was underneath their behavior that in the past I just wanted to be STOPPED. When I understood the importance of honoring who they are, where they’ve come from, and Who is in charge of their healing, I changed. I knew their voice mattered, so I knew the question had to be “what do you need?”

REDUCE FEAR-BASED DISCIPLINE

Old habits are hard to break – this is true for our children and true for us. Maybe this is the time to tackle some of your parenting habits that are not working long term. I say long-term, because sometimes parents only look at the immediate benefits of a particular parenting practice. And believe me, I can relate, especially when it comes to discipline practices. I mean, I raised 7 children, with an age span of 10 years, and let me tell you, crowd control was big on my list.

If a method of discipline offered immediate results – namely, stopping a behavior I wanted to be stopped, then I used that method without thought for any long-term ill-effects. I often lived in TODAY’s moments, because I was often overwhelmed TODAY. Can you relate?

There’s a dark side to fear-based discipline. This is true for all children. By inadvertently triggering the stress response in our children by our discipline method, we disconnect from them and become their adversary, not their ally. Children who are in fight, flight, or freeze mode are stuck, and can not process that we are trying to do right by them. Instead, what they experience in their bodies is that the very one who is supposed to help is actually hurting and scaring them. Of course, we don’t want that for our children when it’s put like that!

I have been able to identify some wrong beliefs I used to have, which fueled my own fear-based parenting, back in the earlier days of raising my children.  Each of these ‘myths’ could have a blog post all their own, and I might try to do that in the future. Some of these for me were religious beliefs that I had just accepted, but never examined on my own. I am content knowing that I seek to forsake man-made doctrines of all kinds which don’t really reflect reality.

My Myths:

*Power grabs: the child tries to take power from parents and the parent's job is to prevent that from happening at all costs.

*A child’s will is rebellious and must be broken by parents.

*Spanking removes rebellion and increases obedience.

*Not spanking leads to more rebellion and bad behavior.

*Instant obedience to parents leads to instant obedience to God.

The good news is that there are corrective methods you can employ to guide your child’s behaviors, which do not lead to disconnection with your child. Watch this short video as Karyn Purvis of Trust-Based Relational Intervention describes one such technique, called the I.D.E.A.L. response to your child’s behaviors. 

I welcome your thoughts and comments!