Treating Children Like People Rather than Their Challenging Behavior

Over the last two decades, I’ve worked to understand challenging behavior in children. And more often than not, I find that the problem is me, not them.

 

When I look back on my day and feel it was largely spent dealing with uncooperative children, I’ve learned to look at myself.

 

When I feel that I’m “losing control,” I’ve learned to look at myself.

 

And when I resort to threats, scolding, or other authoritarian tactics, I’ve learned that the problem is definitely me.

We’ve all been there. I know this because my inbox is full of messages from educators and parents desperate for help.

 

It used to frustrate me, for instance, when children refused to participate in group activities like clean-up or circle time. I now know that they weren’t reacting to the activity as much as to the way I was speaking to them about it. Psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists agree: the language we use creates reality. And so often, the way we speak with children leaves them with little choice but to ignore us, resist, or otherwise behave in ways that we label as challenging.

Eventually, through much trial and error, I discovered how so many of us inadvertently create environments in which the children in our lives are actively discouraged from thinking for themselves. No wonder they rebel! Over the years, I’ve developed a comprehensive approach to communicating with young children in a way that frees them up to rely upon their own better angels instead of the constant direction of adults. The result is a 6-week course I call The Technology of Speaking With Children So They Can Think. It delivers a whole new paradigm, built upon thoughtfully changing how we actually speak with children . . . and with everyone else, for that matter. 

It’s a way of creating a new reality through language in which so-called “challenging behaviors” in children are greatly reduced and in many cases eliminated; where children are enabled to make their own decisions; and where adults are freed from the need to behave like authoritarian task-masters.

It’s an approach that frees children to think for themselves, while enabling educators and parents to create a world in which children listen and cooperate, not because they said so, but because they've chosen to do so.

The best part of all of this is that when you adopt this "technology," you will find yourself being the kind of teacher or parent you always imagined yourself being -- one who is the calm, confident, authoritative (not authoritarian) presence young children need in their lives.

I'll be sharing more details about the course in the coming days, so stay tuned. If this sounds like something you want to know more about, click here to get on the waitlist for the 2024 cohort.

In the meantime, in the coming days, when confronted with challenging behavior, pause for a moment to ask yourself, "Is it me?" And if it is, ask yourself how you would want to be spoken to if the shoe were on the other foot. Because at the end of the day, the "technology" I'm talking about is the one of treating children, even very young children, like people rather than their challenging behavior.

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The language we use creates reality. In this course we will explore how the way we speak with children creates an environment in which cooperation and peacefulness are the norm, where children take the initiative, solve their own problems, and, most importantly, think for themselves. Click here to get on the waitlist for the 2024 cohort.

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