Intentional Parents

Our oldest daughter is learning to drive. This is our first time trying to convey the intricacies of defensive driving, navigating, targeting, and signaling along with the principles of momentum, speed, friction, and velocity all at the same time!

Because we want our daughter to learn how to operate a vehicle safely and with confidence, we are taking a two-pronged approach: teaching the concepts at home and practicing the concepts on the road. Imagine how ineffective our educating would be if we used only one of those two strategies. Just reading about and discussing the techniques of driving would not give her the training and experience she needs to make all those necessary actions and reactions automatically. But just sticking her behind the wheel and correcting every single thing she did wrong would only result in frustration and insecurity. She needs both — teaching and training — to understand what is best and to form the habit of doing it.

This two-pronged approach of teaching and training is needed in all phases of parenting, not just for driver education. We need to teach our children what we expect of them — based on what God expects of them, of course. Then we need to give them plenty of safe opportunities to practice doing what we taught until it becomes a habit.

When we started the driving lessons, we began in the driveway, then moved to an empty parking lot, and when she was ready, graduated to a quiet neighborhood. It’s the same for training our children in the habits of, say, immediate obedience or not interrupting. Start the training and practicing in a controlled environment and move up gradually. Don’t wait until you’re “in the middle of traffic.”

For example, let’s look at the habit of not interrupting. How would we take the two-pronged approach — teaching and training — with it? First, we would teach the child what we expect. So at a neutral time (not in the heat of an infraction or when the child is tired or hungry) we would kindly explain that we’ve noticed the child sometimes starts talking to Mommy when Mommy is already talking to or listening to someone else. “That’s called ‘interrupting.’ I want you to learn to wait your turn. So from now on I’m going to help you remember not to interrupt. When you want to tell me something, first use your eyes and ears to see if I’m already talking to or listening to someone else. If I am, gently lay your hand on my arm. That will be our little signal that you want to tell me something. I’ll put my finger up like this and hold it where you can see it so you’ll know that I felt your hand and I’ll get to you just as soon as I can. When it’s your turn to talk, I’ll turn my head and look at you. Now let’s practice.” (Thus, the transition into training.) Begin by role-playing that you’re talking to another person and have the child come up and gently lay his hand on your arm. Hold up your finger, say a couple of sentences more to your pretend partner, then turn and smile. “Yes, dear? Thank you for not interrupting. What did you want to tell me?”

Next practice the not-interrupting technique with a live partner, like your spouse, still in a planned situation within the “safety” of your home setting. Then expand the training to include spontaneous situations, like not interrupting when you’re talking to a sibling or when you’re talking on the phone. The training can then be extended to outside the home: at church or at Grandma’s house.

An additional way to make the training gradual is to keep the waiting time short at first by excusing yourself from the conversation for “just a moment.” As the child develops the habit, you can increase the wait time, but be careful not to frustrate. That’s one reason I keep my finger in the air as part of our signal: so I’ll remember that she’s waiting on me! (And trust me, this technique can be done with two children at once by using a finger on each hand!)

Do you see how both teaching and training worked together in our little example? If the child had the little instruction talk but no practice, he probably wouldn’t remember what to do next time he wanted to talk to Mom, let alone make the technique a habit. On the other hand, if the parent never gently taught the child that interrupting needed to be replaced with waiting his turn, both the child and the parent would get frustrated by frequent interruptions and continual verbal reprimands to wait “just a minute.”

If you are consistent to help your child practice this technique, he will soon develop the habit of not interrupting. Once this habit is firmly established you can move on to another one. And as Charlotte Mason said, “The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.”

Teaching a child about good character traits is not the same as training him to make good character a habit. Teaching and training — learn how to do both. They will serve you well during the years to come, and you’ll need them sooner than you think for driver education!

Q & A

Q: My oldest daughter is getting pretty bossy with her siblings and friends when they play. How do I handle her telling everybody what to do?

A: First-born children are often born leaders and will naturally direct the playing of a group of friends. Her leadership, creative ideas, and sharing of those ideas are not the problem. You do not want to squelch those qualities. The problem is in her interpersonal communication skills. Help her develop those now.

Use this opportunity to teach her to ask nicely instead of dictate or demand, just like you’ve taught her to “ask nicely” when she wants you to do something or give her something. Teach her to ask her playmate in a kind voice, “Do you want to play in here?” or “Do you want me to comb your hair?” Teach her siblings and other playmates to answer yes or no “thank you.” Guide her to respect that decision graciously by modeling a bright, happy “OK, we can play something else” and redirecting to an alternate activity.

If her playmate is not verbal yet, you have a great chance to teach her how to read body language!

Use this situation as an opportunity to teach and train interpersonal skills.

Q: My child was potty-trained but has started soiling his underwear again. What do we do?

A: In my opinion, you have three options.

Option One: Make his using the toilet a battleground and spank him every time he refuses to use the toilet. Since you know he is capable of putting his potty in the toilet, you could make this an obedience issue.

However, it appears that he is trying to turn this situation into a power struggle. Don’t play that game. You cannot force him to put his potty in the toilet. He is using his compliance as a leverage to manipulate you. Take away his leverage by using Option Two.

Option Two: Make his using the toilet a non-issue. Put him back in diapers and clean him up like you did when he was a baby. Tell him matter-of-factly that it appears he’s not ready to use the toilet like a big boy, so he can wear diapers like a baby. Don’t make it sound like a punishment; it is simply a change based on his apparent state of readiness. When he is ready, he will start using the toilet again on his own. If he sees that it doesn’t matter to you whether he uses the toilet or not, it will cease to be a leverage for him.

Or, if you don’t want to make this issue a battleground and you don’t want to deal with diapers again, you could use incentives.

Option Three: Make a chart, get some stickers, and find a prize that will motivate him. Explain during a neutral time (not in the heat of a potty debate) that he will receive one sticker every time he puts his potty in the toilet. When he gets the required number of stickers, he will win the prize. Put the prize in a place that is visible yet out of reach, as a reminder. Set the number of stickers to require several days of compliance before the prize can be obtained; probably three or four days’ worth. However, be prepared; some kids catch on to the “game” and learn great control over their bladder so they can make smaller but more frequent deposits, thus earning more stickers! You’ll also need to have enough prizes to keep him motivated for several weeks until using the toilet becomes a habit.

If the incentive doesn’t motivate him, add a penalty. Explain that every time he puts his potty anywhere other than the toilet, you will take away a toy. Don’t be afraid to start with his favorites! Put the toy up out of reach but within sight. Tell him that once he puts his potty into the toilet, he will get the toy back.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Intentional Parents, The Five Gifts of Intentional Parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.