- 3 Parenting Strategies that Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 1
- 3 Parenting Strategies That Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 2
- 3 Parenting Strategies that Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 3
As parents, we are continually seeking strategies that will bring peace and calm to our busy home.
In Part 1 of this post, we looked at an effective strategy for easing transition times and creating more smooth situations. Part 2 was about helping kids learn boundaries, how to be quiet, and how to focus.
Let’s talk about a huge obedience issue in today’s culture. Today’s post addresses how to teach children to respond to adults with respect. This is another area where Mike and I thought we were strict with our kids, but have come to realize that in the past we did not set a high enough standard for our children.
3 Parenting Strategies That Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 3
3. Responding Respectfully to Adults
Now, when we ask our children to do something, there are only 3 appropriate responses:
“Yes, Mom,” or “Yes, Dad.” (or Mr. or Mrs. _______)
“Okay, Mom,” or “Okay, Dad.” (or Mr. or Mrs. ______)
“Yes, Ma’am,” or “Yes, Sir.”
Those are the only acceptable choices, and they must be spoken with the proper eye contact and with a respectful attitude.
No sighing, no eye rolling, no “Fine!” No foot stomping as they go off with a pout to do something.
We used to put up with so much of that, thinking, “Well, at least they are complying.” I had always read that we have to pick our battles in parenting, and I didn’t want to battle with my kids over little stuff.
Yet what we have learned is that as Proverbs 13:3 says, “Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” We have a responsibility to teach our children self-control in this important area.
If our children cannot learn to respect and obey us, how will they learn to respect and obey God?
The next obvious question is, “What do we do when our kids do not speak to us properly?” The answer to this is several more articles (watch for future posts), but in the meantime, our child does not move forward with life until he or she gives us a respectful response. We are the adults, and we control our child’s world.
Some parents may be thinking, “But I have stuff to do!” I can totally relate. Kids will play every power struggle trick in the book to see if we are serious about following through. If we start yelling and arguing with them, we’ve defeated the purpose of teaching about respect and self-control, right?
The trick is to take the pressure off. Instead of starting on a tirade of, “You will treat your mother with respect, young man!”
Try, “Okay, no problem. You just sit here and rest awhile until you gather up enough strength to speak to me respectfully.” Then I’ll take the other kids and go do something fun with them. My goal is always to make family life fun and interesting, and the child who is sitting out wants to be a part of what we are doing.
I do not set out the rewards for good behavior ahead of time. (“If you do this, then you will get a piece of candy.”) Instead, they just never know when they might randomly get rewarded for good behavior out of the blue. I love doing this type of reward when another child is resting until they are strong enough to show proper respect to an adult.
How do you teach your children to speak to adults with respect?
These are some of the resources we are using for our parenting techniques:
Nancy Thomas, When Love is Not Enough
Nancy Thomas, Healing Trust: Rebuilding the Broken Bond
Bruce Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories From a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook
- 3 Parenting Strategies that Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 1
- 3 Parenting Strategies That Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 2
- 3 Parenting Strategies that Will Bring Peace to Your Home Within Days: Part 3
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Hi Sarah, It sounds like you are doing many of the right things! You are being consistent, you have a good bedtime routine established. That is all really good. I did a short video of what has helped us with better bedtime routines. Maybe these will give you some ideas: https://youtu.be/IN-k6v8pD-I
I’ve started doing this with my 5 1/2 year old. She’s an only child, so I can’t go and do something fun with siblings. I often get either back talk (reasons why she can’t do it) or whining. The “yes mom” response helps, but not all of the time. How can I help her understand, especially at bedtime when she is tired, that she still needs to respect and obey me.
I say “go put your jammies on please” and her first response is “I’m not tired” said in a whiney voice. Time outs don’t work for my child and having her sit out would just delay bedtime more. I tell her to put her jammies on 45 minutes before bedtime. Each step of the routine is the same every night and her response is the same every night. Ugh!
Thank you for your encouragement.
Sarah
Ooh, Campbell, that’s really tough when you are coming in to a situation where you are not the parent! I have learned that children will adapt to different people and situations. For example, kids at church know that when I’m supervising them, I expect them to obey me and show me respect. I won’t tolerate much. On the other hand, you are trying to establish a relationship and so you don’t want to come across as a drill sergeant so it’s finding a balance. Too much strictness does not promote bonding. A couple things I’ve found have helped. One is I continually point out how old the kids are and how old they are acting. When my son throws a fit, I ask him, “How old are you?” (He’s 11.) I’ll ask him, “How old are you acting right now? (He’ll say 2 years old.) Then I ask, “How are you going to change that?” Put the responsibility back on THEM to change their behavior. 16 year olds get a lot of freedom in our home, but with that is required certain behavior as well. Second, our therapist taught us something called a “grounding statement.” We do something fun together with the kids where we all have fun together, maybe a game time, a movie, etc. and then we always come back together, look the kids in the eye and say, “We had fun here, but just a reminder I am the parent and I expect obedience. What I say goes.” This is said in love but it’s said seriously.
this was very helpful to me as I am engaged to the mamma of a 16 (almost 17) year old set of triplets. there is lots of “fine” stomping off and slamming of doors after a request or a chore reminder. I was brought up very strictly and my mamma would have fainted dead away had I spoken to her in a snarky manner. I am in a precarious position, to say the least
Hi Sara!
I totally agree with you! I often give my kids scripts of what they need to say, in order to help them, so for instance, if I ask them to do something, and they are fussing (3 year old), I will say: “Say yes Mom”, and then expect them to say that, and do the thing I have asked.
Something else actually really stood out to me from this post, and really hit me in the heart, which is that you really purpose to make life fun for your family, and that instead of going into a big rant, you just do something fun with the others, and the one not obeying just works it out for themselves.
This is something that I really needed to hear, as I am really purposing to find ways to stay calm, yet teach the kids at the same time.
Thanks so much for writing this post! I really enjoy reading your writing!
Thanks, Lisa! It’s definitely a challenge to find the “fun” in the moment when what I really want to do is lose my cool. Sometimes I have to get REALLY creative to come up with something. 🙂 It works, though. I’m getting much better at it with practice!