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Contents Preface
Introduction Chapter 1
Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter
8 Chapter 9 Chapter
10 Chapter
11 Chapter
12 Chapter
13 Chapter
14 Appendix |
Page 4 7 9 13 19 21 25 28 37 44 47 51 55 58 61 64 66 69 |
Take
your time and read everything A book
for parents, not a parenting book Scene one Scene
two Scene
three Why is
there so much ineffective talk? Mercury’s
Child Leave Primary
Mode child behaviour behind They
talk like us Give
them what they want but under your terms. Mutual
agreement Don’t
expect them to want to do it Compliance
before Agreement Agree
that I am right The
need for consequences Democracy
misunderstood Still
making up your mind Mercury’s
Child Predictable
and interactional behaviour Difference
between toddlers and babies Common
characteristics Just
bad behaviour What is
non-negotiable? No grey
areas “Right,
I have had enough” Cheeky
chappy Your categorical circle
Health
- safety - education - politeness Five
Rules for parents - Strive
for compliance, NOT agreement - Never
respond to the point being made when the child is being rude or whining - Provide
concrete consequences, don’t get angry - Demonstrate
the emotion you want, don’t copy the child’s emotion - Don’t
arbitrate - Support
each other in front of the children Effective
sanctions Effective
sanctions are incremental “Oh,
yes,” she says, “he loves swimming” Don’t
run out of or use up your sanction Always
give the child a chance to back down before you sanction Have a
clear bottom limit and whatever the child does never allow yourself to go lower than the limit, i.e., never
take all of the reward away. (Of
course you do not let your child know about this rule.) How
Children control their own consequences Saying “I don’t care” Saying “if you punish me I’ll punish you” Trying
to tire you out/wear you down Attempting
to make you feel guilty Questioning
what you said the rule really was Lying—saying
they didn’t do it
Saying
they will behave well now (if you don’t impose the sanction)
Trying
to charm or joke to undermine your seriousness Expecting
warmth from you too soon and under their terms The
real world as a template Rewarding
bad behaviour Times
when you must not try to make your child feel better: - whenever
we try to make our children feel better when the reason for their feeling bad
is their own “bad” behaviour - whenever
we try to make our children feel better when their way of showing us they are
not feeling good is itself “bad” or
unwanted behaviour (i.e. whining) - whenever
we “reset” the relationship
("make up") too soon (i.e. when the child is still being rude or sulking,
or is glib or manipulative) Bedtime Temper
tantrums - during
the tantrum - sympathetic
tone - life
goes on - no concessions - try NOT to hold restrain, force or carry your child - never
be intimidated into NOT sanctioning your child’s behaviour The
seven C’s positive sanction method - Catch - Calm
& Clear - Caution - Cut-off
Point - Choice - Consequence - Cut
all (non-7 C’s) talk on behaviour Let the
sanction do the work Rewards Stay
completely away from dedicated rewards A
reward-rich home A crazy-sounding
mantra The
worse the child behaviour and the more frequently it occurs the smaller (the more
repeatable/sustainable) the sanction (the withdrawal of reward) needs to be. Have no
limits—a child can express anything Predicted
future—the child’s area of choice must clearly exist Bedtime
/ mealtimes Your start
day Apply
your new regime to ALL your children Theoretical
basis of this work Position
on child behaviour disorders Typical
problems = letters |
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Take Your Time and Read Everything |
The
behaviour change system described in this book WORKS. I have never had a
failure with my fee-paying clients who stuck to it—and nearly all did.
But
my clients had daily monitoring from me. You will not.
If
you start using the technical strategies in this book without carefully taking
in the principles behind them you will not get the changes that you want and
will become disillusioned. This system works. It appears simple, but don’t
throw it all away because you assume that you know what it is getting at
without really reading it all. It will make wonderful changes to your family
and your life, so don’t throw these away by impatiently starting to make these
changes as you are reading it. If you have a partner both of you
need to read it, make your own notes, and fully agree what you are going to do.
Only
then set a day to begin your new regime.
I
have tried to make it accessible to all parents whatever their educational
background but I have not avoided any topic that needed covering, so if through
my deficiencies or yours you do not understand what I am getting at, keep
reading. Later chapters may well
explain what you did not understand or agree with earlier. Take your time—read
it a second time before you start, just to be sure.
Countless
children are trapped in a cycle of bad behaviour. They gain a power in the home
that is totally irresistible to them, but which makes them miserable. Parents are completely mystified by what is
going on and are equally trapped. All
this suffering is quickly and completely reversible. All this is described here
with the detail that you need.
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A Book for Parents, Not a Parenting Book |
Every
parent needs to know the techniques explained here and what is happening when
behaviour breaks down, but these pages do not provide a model for good
parenting. If your parenting isn't broken, don’t fix it. This book is
intended to help you understand and speedily change a spectrum of bad behaviour
varying from mild to very serious and then maintain that change.
When
I use the inclusive term “we” in the text I do not mean “we parents,” but
"We,
the parents of children with serious child behaviour problems.”
I
have already had parents who have only seen the documentaries on UK television—and
who have little real information—say that they are using my methods, and I have
had a national paper retract an article in which I was quoted as saying that I
blame the parents of ADHD children. I have already resigned myself to this book
being described as a “back-to-basics” book. Well, it is not. Let me
state categorically that the main purpose of this book is to encourage parents
to analyse and avoid all polarised views of parenting.
Yes,
this is essentially a technical book that will tell you what to do, but
if you continue to think about your child’s child behaviour in the same way, it will
not change. This book does not tell you to just be more consistent, impose
punishments, be stricter. If, when you have finished it, you do not understand
the difference between a sanction (punishment) and an “interpersonal sanction,”
then your child’s child behaviour will not change.
Once
you and your partner have both read this book carefully, sit down and agree on
a “Start Day”—a day when you will begin to reclaim your child.
The
whole aim of this book is to set out for parents of seriously badly behaved
children the precise strategies and responses that will quickly transform their
child’s behaviour. After reading it carefully you will need to decide upon a
day to begin your new regime. You can use this book to guide you through the
changes as they occur. Start on a particular day by sitting down with all your
children, not just the targeted child, and explaining the way things will now
be for all of you. Parents may well have tried and discarded much advice
and many strategies in the past. Much of what was discarded may well have been
necessary for any change to occur, but not sufficient by itself to produce the
change. This is why I urge you to understand why each of the strategies given
here is needed. Each one of them is so important that if you misunderstand or
misapply any one of them the house of cards will fall.
There
is not a parent anywhere in the world who believes it is a good idea to punish
good child behaviour and reward bad, but I can tell you this happens all the time.
Scene one
A
father and mother, new clients of mine, never agreed about the handling of
their son. Their twelve-year-old boy would produce home-wrecking tantrums when
he did not get his own way. One evening, after refusing to eat his dinner, he goes
out, arguing about the time (8 p.m.) that his mother has insisted he should
come back. At 2 a.m. he returns home and rings the bell. The parents already
have a sanction (punishment) in place when he arrives home late so the father
reminds his wife just to open the door and come back to bed. The mother opens the door but then prepares
something for the boy to eat and chats with him in his room before coming back
to bed. The next night the boy refuses to
turn the T.V. in his room off even though he has school the next day. His mother tells him that he will lose a portion
of his computer time for the time the television stays on, and she leaves his
room. He calls her back with, “You have not given me my goodnight kiss.” His
mother tells him that she has not given him his kiss because the T.V. is still
on. He says that she does not really love him, and that all he wants is a kiss.
He continues to persuade, and the mother eventually gives him his kiss with the
T.V. blaring in the corner of his room.
Scene two
I
am standing with a friend in the garden of her house watching her children play
when her four-year-old pushes off the top of a slide and deliberately slams
into the back or his 18-month-old sister who is yet to clear the bottom. His
mother is angry; she takes him aside. “Why did you do that?” she asks.
This response is so common and we have heard it used so often that we have
probably never thought what a very strange question it is. How is the child
supposed to respond? Both of us had seen the deliberation on her son’s face
when he pushed off with sole intention of hurting his sister. It is not
difficult to work out that jealousy was the motive for this behaviour. There is
only one honest answer possible: “Because I wanted to,” but my friend did not
really want to hear the truth; in fact, if the child had said this, my friend
would have been horrified.
Scene three
A
client of mine, also a child behaviour professional, had a 13-year-old daughter with
whom he was having serious problems. His daughter’s problems were compounded by
her refusal to go to sleep at a reasonable time. Today she is getting herself
ready to go to social event at her old primary school and is self-conscious
about her appearance as she will be meeting her old primary school friends. She
comes to her mother for a dab of make-up to cover a spot on her forehead. Her
father chooses this moment to point out that she also has very large dark rings
under her eyes.
Many
of us only think we understand the
principles of punishments (sanctions) and rewards.
The
parent in the first scene, because of misguided parental instincts and fear of
her son’s tantrums condones and rewards her son when he breaks her rules. The parent in the second
scene thinks an angry question that her child cannot answer honestly is a
sanction. In this third scene the father takes the opportunity to score a
discipline point and sanction his daughter at a time when she is not behaving
badly and when he is most liable to hurt her self-esteem.
Each
of these accounts describes responses that will, if not changed, only make the
behaviour worse. Each of these parents desperately needs to understand what is
wanted so as to appropriately respond to their children in ways that stop bad
behaviour without harming the child’s self esteem.
If
we are not clear what to do in response to our children, then bad child behaviour can
become entrenched and chronic within the family. Our children will suffer
because of our lack of clarity, while at the same time they will milk it for
all it is worth.
I
had been encouraging a client to use small sanctions rather than angry
shouting. He told his eight-year-old daughter that she must stop being so rude,
saying, “I don’t want to take some of your computer time away.” She said, “Well
if you don’t want to take it away, don’t do it.” Of course, she had not really
misunderstood what he meant. She must have understood very well to deliberately
misinterpret in this way. Our children are quite capable of understanding our
reasons and our rules, but they are also capable of using them against us.
Why
is it that they continually search for counter-arguments? Why are they so
defiant so much of the time? Why are they so strong-willed that they never seem
to tire in their attempts to wear us down? In particular, why do they get so indignant?
Where on earth does all their anger come from?
Look
at this list of child behaviour problems that parents have told me about in just the
last few months. The first comment is about a child of two, and the last is
about a child of fifteen—with all the ages in between. (See a
larger extract of what they said in Appendix 1)
“He
nags for hours over anything. He hits me and always says No!”
“She
flatly refuses to do anything I say. She just refuses to stay in
her bed at
night.”
“My
four-year-old is being very rude
and sarcastic towards us…lashes out.”
“When
asked to do a task, he will only do it if he wants to…screams,
throws
things.”
“My
daughter, six, refuses when told…had to leave play centre for
hitting the
teacher.”
“My
daughter, seven, interrupts the teacher when told
to stop…screams and
hits.”
“He
is rude and cheeky, says hurtful things, punches me in passing.”
“He
does nothing asked of him. He steals whatever I will not provide
for
him.”
“My
nine-year-old is constantly defiant, compares everything I do with
her to
her
sister."
“He
back-talks at me all the time. He screams and throws things.”
“Parenting
my 11-year-old is like working with a politician. He punches holes
in walls.”
“She
throws really nasty tantrums, then (when asked) cannot remember
why”
“He
is 13, smokes, continues to ignore rules and requests. He has low
self-esteem.”
“My
14-year-old is verbally abusive and at times physically
aggressive.”
“We have stayed off his back like he has asked, but at 15 do we
allow him to
ruin his life?”
Now look at the highlighted
words and you will begin to see that the real problem for parents is not
with their children’s behaviour—i.e., what they do— but rather with the
negotiations about what they do—in other words, the
nagging
refusing
sarcasm
asking
telling
interrupting
rudeness
comparing
back-talking
ignoring
verbal
abuse
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Why Is There So Much Ineffective Talk? |
Talk is at the heart of every one of these problems. These parents have tried
asking their children, reasoning with them, nagging them, telling them,
shouting at them, only to be met with ignoring, interrupting, rudeness,
back-talking, and even louder shouting. Parents have tried distracting them;
putting them in “time out” in their rooms; grounding them; taking away toys, privileges,
pocket money, food-treats, computer time; and anything else they can think of;
even spanking them. Only to be met with even more anger and determination not
to change. Nothing works. Why? Well, the answer is a simple one. Many parents just
do not realise that when behaviour.has deteriorated badly what the child thinks
is happening in these interactions is completely different from what the
parents think. Interacting with badly behaved children is effectively like
dealing with a different species from a different world. The children have
become alien beings in an adult world.
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Mercury’s Child |
Of
course all parents know from the beginning that their child is from an alien
world. Nothing is as alien as a new
baby to new parents. The difference is so clear that it often causes no
problems and the parents usually fall hopelessly in love with the tiny new
life-form. Without ever seeing their new child they set off on the nine-month
return journey to bring the child from Mercury to Earth. The journey involves
great hardship and discomfort, but the growing need to save and protect the
tiny Mercurian creature drives them both. The life-form is collected and landed
safely back on Earth with much joy. The couple are not disappointed but rather amazed
by the life-form’s strangeness and by how much work and how much tiredness the
tiny creature creates.
At
first it is easy for them to remember that the tiny being is not at all like
them and came from a completely different planet. The creature is so clearly
different. It does not talk, but makes noise to communicate its basic needs. Its
parents realise their job, if the life-form is to survive, is to provide for
these needs. Mercury’s baby is a natural dictator—its survival depends on it—and
its new parents become its willing slaves.
The
life-form’s child behaviour is seen to be natural. It is clear that this new being
has no conception of the adult earth-world and how things function. It cannot
speak so cannot ask politely. If it wants something, and at this age it is
overwhelmed by the strength of its needs, it has only one method—to demand. This is the first,
the primary, state of the relationship between the Mercurian baby and its
parents. It is quite natural and quite healthy and, like a light-switch, has
only two positions:
“I feel good,”
and,
“I do not feel good—I demand—notice me—make me
feel better!”
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Leave Primary Mode Child Behaviour Behind |
Primary Mode child behaviour is perfectly healthy and
natural for the Mercurian baby, but parents need to gradually train Mercury’s
child to leave it behind and become an Earth being. Primary Mode child behaviour in
an older child is very unpleasant to live with, but if we are honest it is not
really “bad behaviour”; it is merely immature and misplaced.
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They Talk Like Us |
Gradually
all memory of the child coming from another planet is lost and the problems
start. The parents begin to mistakenly assume that the Mercury’s child has, or
should have, the same way of looking at the world as they do. Earth parents
understand that the child has to learn to become an Earth adult, but think this
knowledge is gained along with the Earth language. They do not realise that the
creature from Mercury still retains his original Primary Mercurian view of the
world and that view has to be trained away. Parents need to remember that
Mercurian
behaviour for a baby is instinctive survival behaviour, which works because
it has to work. Toddlers have no mechanism for knowing when demanding is no
longer needed. They will only leave it behind when it stops working, and if it
continues to work they continue the behaviour. Mercury’s child has no power to
control whether this child behaviour is effective; only parents can stop Primary Mode
behaviour from working.
The
confusion begins when the Mercury’s child starts to learn to speak Earth
language. The Mercurian way is to demand, and the child needs to be shown by
continuous example that asking works but demanding does not. The often-heard
entreaty to the toddler, “Say please” is no mere sweet old-fashioned
tradition. The parent puts something in
between the demand and its supply, the request and its gratification. Here
should begin the mantra that parents should hold onto well into the child’s
teens.
Give
them what they want but under your terms.
This
is crucial if the child is to leave behind its Primary Mode “demand” behaviour.
“Please” and “thank you” mean that a calm non-aggressive action has to be performed
before the need is met.
Mercury’s
child continually asks his or her parents for reasons but does not really set
much store by them; they are merely words. The child is only really influenced
by what actually ends up happening—in other words, consequences. Mercury’s child may become old enough to be
capable of reasoning but will never let words or reason stop him or her from
fighting for what he/she wants.
Life-forms everywhere survive by controlling consequences. Mercury’s
children are no different; for them there is only one priority: to get the
outcome they want. Coming to Earth and learning how to talk does not change
this. If they discover that a particular action brings them what they want they
repeat it. The Mercurian child is
never changed through the use of reason but only by the very careful control
of outcomes, by giving them predictable consequences.
It
is not possible to persuade Mercury’s child of anything. They will never
be persuaded that what they want to do at this minute is not in their long-term
best interest. They will never accept that they should not want to do
it. Earth parents often mistakenly think they can persuade their children by just
using words, and without any other consequence, of the greater maturity
of the adult Earth view. This is just not possible. Mercury’s child only appears
to be persuaded by this argument. In reality all he or she can accept is the inevitability
of the outcome.
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Mutual Agreement |
Men and women may be from Mars and Venus but children are very definitely from
Mercury. They are mercurial, developmentally designed to be interested in now—this
precise moment. As parents we love our child so much we are sure that they know
it. We are sure that they will understand why we have to disappoint
them. When we have to tell them…
·
now is the time to go to bed
·
no, you can't have
the cake two minutes before dinner
·
you have to stop what
you are enjoying and come in now
·
your homework needs to
be done now
·
what you just said was
rude and must not be repeated
We
are sure they will trust us enough to accept disappointment. But Mercury’s
children are inexperienced and egocentric. They are never going to be convinced
that our bedtime for them on a school night is reasonable. It is
dishonest to hint that we will ever accept their time since—unless it accords
with our own—we will not. Functioning families only appear to get mutual
agreement in these areas. Mutual agreement in these areas would mean that
a child’s view had a chance of being accepted even though it was unhealthy or
unsafe.
Don’t expect them to want
to do it.
Our
children are reluctant to accept our long-term reasons and we often cannot
accept their now reasons, but when the Mercurian view of the world does
not coincide with ours, it is quite possible to get our children to agree to
do it.
What
is not fair or realistic (in fact it is cruel and unnecessary) is to expect
them to agree, against all their Mercurian instincts, that they should want
to do it.
|
Compliance Before Agreement |
It is natural for Earth
parents to use reason with their children and to want agreement in areas of
dispute. It is right that they explain their reasons to their children, but
only up to a point. This desire becomes counter-productive when Earth parents
think the child’s agreement is more important than his or her
compliance. The uncomfortable truth is worth repeating that often when Mercury’s
child appears to accept our argument and appears to agree, he or she has
just accepted that they cannot change the outcome, that the outcome is
inevitable.
Look
at the difficulties this parent gets into by attempting to get agreement:
My son will be eleven this year. He is not badly behaved at school and
doesn't cause his teachers any problems. The problem we have is at home with
his defiance! For example, he doesn't think it is fair that he has to do
homework, as he works for six hours at school and doesn't see why he has to do
more work in his free time (his words!). He finds it difficult to do his
homework, and his concentration span is approximately five minutes. If we try
to force him to do it we are looking at least an hour or two of battling and
then he gets himself in a state and doesn't do it properly anyway.
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Agree That I Am Right |
After two hours of verbal battling with this Mercurian child, the parent is no
nearer to getting this problem resolved. It is clear, since he quotes his son’s
reasons, that this father wants his son’s agreement. This is the wrong
target, because the words insist and agree are not compatible.
The father cannot insist on something that he wants his son to agree to. He
certainly cannot punish his child for not agreeing. If agreement is the
target, this obstinate child becomes invincible, and the father is stripped of
the moral right to provide consequences.
The
real target is not agreement but his son’s compliance. This father has
completely failed to make clear what the consequence will be if his son
does not complete his homework. He
can’t even mention consequences while he is seeking agreement.
Children
in dispute are interested only in outcomes. The outcome for this child is that
he has not done his homework properly, which is what he wanted in the first
place. So he has got what he wanted without any consequence being
applied. His father’s angry attention is not punishing, because
attention, even negative attention, is rewarding. Doing or not doing homework
should be a non-negotiable area,
but it is the father, not the son, who continues to negotiate and
who has not accepted that homework is non-negotiable, and this is the reason
the father is frustrated. He cannot work out if the fault lies with his
ability to explain or his son’s willingness to understand.
Truth
is, there is no fault—at least not here. If you look you will see that the
father states exactly his son’s position, although he does not accept that his
son is entitled to believe this.
This is why the interactions are never-ending. The son is perfectly entitled to
believe he should not have to do homework and the father should respect his
view. His son is not entitled not to do it and only really needs one
piece of information from his father—what the consequences will be.
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The Need for Consequences |
Mercury’s
child needs consequences. Not only as a means for parents to make sure the
adult view of child behaviour prevails but because when children are trained to accept small
consequences for their own inappropriate child behaviour they are being trained to
accept—not dwell on—the natural disappointments that life brings without
getting angry or blaming others. Without the positive loving application of
consequences children will firstly behave badly towards others and secondly
will blame others for any disappointment, including those stemming from their
own bad behaviour. Without training to accept consequences children revert to—or
fail to leave—their Primary Mode behaviour. They continue to say right on into their
teenage years and beyond, “I do not
feel good—I demand—make me feel
better.”
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Will We Ever Convince Them? |
Do this father and all parents of defiant children really think that we can
persuade those children? When I talk to audiences of parents of seriously
misbehaving children I often ask them if they continue with their verbal battles
because this is what they want their child to eventually say:
"Oh, yes I see, Dad or Mum, what you are trying to tell me. You want
me to do my homework now…. I'm so sorry I did not understand you before, but I
now see what you mean! Of course I will do it now and every evening from now
on. “
I say this and the response
is for all the parents to laugh. It is laughable. There is no way that our
children are ever going to say this. Children never ever say this in years of
these interactions and the laughter shows that the parents know it. We all know
deep down that this is never going to happen. So, why do we keep trying? Do
we really think the reason our child does not accept what we are saying is that
they need us to explain just that little bit better? Do we really think that,
miraculously, the hundredth time it will sink in? Do we really think the
problem is in our ability to explain?
We must know it is not. The problem is that we are trying to do something
completely impossible. We are trying to resolve these disputes democratically.