How Parents Can Use the Simple Checklist Framework for Hard Moments
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Imagine this….you’re walking the aisles of Target, and your daughter sees a toy she wants. She whines for it. You say, “No.” She whines louder and louder and louder.
Or you just served a gourmet meal that you cooked for hours. Ten seconds into sitting down, your son proclaims that he isn’t eating it. He shoves his food away and demands for something else. He starts to cry.
Whew! The screams and cries pierce your ears. You get hot. You’re very triggered.
Now — go. How do you handle this?
When your child is having a hard time — in public, melting down, not eating, fighting with a sibling- do you sometimes have a hard time knowing what to do? 🙋♀️
So you resort to
🗣️yelling,
❌punishing,
🙅♀️threatening
🙏bribing
to make it stop?
Even though you know those things don’t have long term results?
But they sometimes have immediate benefits and that’s all that matters to you right now because you feel helpless!
When we resort to yelling, punishing, threatening, and bribing, we might temporarily stop the problem, which, to be honest, is quite a relief when we have a child melting down or causing a scene.
It takes us out of the situation.
But here’s the problem, those solutions are only temporary and don’t ever actually teach your child a skill to replace the unwanted behavior.
So because your children haven’t learned ways on how to handle frustration, rejection, and disappointment, they’ll turn to what works — yelling, whining, screaming for long periods of time until you give in.
The cycle repeats itself.
Okay, but I’ve been learning positive strategies that have long term benefits, but they are so hard to remember to do in the…
