Obedience in Children
When someone in the family communicates negatively we have four typical response patterns 1) blame ourselves 2) blame others 3) sense our own feeling and needs 4) sense the feelings and needs in the other person
We create emotional liberation in the family when we accept full responsibility for our own feelings but not the feelings of others, but we acknowledge the needs of other members of the family.
Judgements, criticisms, diagnoses and interpretations are all alienated expressions of our needs and values. In practicing healthier, more effective communication we invest more energy in observing, listening and connecting than on self defense and counter attacking.
Use positive language
Express what you want, not what you don’t want. Word requests in the form of actions other family members can take. This avoids ambiguity and wards off disappointing one another. Be clear about what you would like other people to do. Understand that asking for a need to be met doesn’t mean the need will be met. When we only express feelings, the other person remains unclear on what action to take to change your experience. The clearer we are about what we want, the more likely it is that we will get it.
Be clear on the difference between demands and requests.
They are not the same thing. When another person in our family hears a demand from us, we give them two choices. They can either submit to the demand or rebel against it. The more we interpret noncompliance as rejection, the more likely our requests will be heard as demands. Your response to the other person’s “compliance” is pivotal in future requests. Remove the language “should”, “could” and “would” from your narrative. A request has both a feeling and a need attached to it. Familiarize yourself with your basic needs so you can be effective at making requests. Needs contain no reference to anybody taking any particular action. Learn to paraphrase without criticism or sarcasm. Remove declarations. We don’t tell the people in our family what is going on inside of them; we ask them to answer this for us.
Practice hearing “no” so your children can hear “no” effectively.
If your children cannot practice setting boundaries with you, how will they ever learn? This will also help them to learn how to make decisions and gain confidence in their own ability to discern - a critical element to emotional and social maturity.
Discussion of the past and what you want for the future are not helpful in a current conflict.
Resolution happens in the present so discussion must be focused there. Children's memory works differently than yours. What happened yesterday is old news. If you keep bringing up events from weeks or years previous, your children will tune you out. In fact, they may not remember those events at all. And they will feel hopeless that they can get out from under your judgement and their past decisions. Learning is getting to try again.
ANSWER THIS:
What do I want my child to do differently than what they are currently doing? And what do I want their reasons to be for doing what I’m asking?
What are the long term gains of raising a child motivated by obedience, avoidance and rejection? Am I making meaning out of my child's response that isn't really there?
Parents who take their children's behavior and decisions personally, suffer a great deal more than parents who can separate feelings from actions.