Dealing with difficult attitudes in our children is hard and we often prefer to ignore them. Learn how to prepare and persist to help your children, and avoid the inevitable explosions.
Timestamps:
00:00 The importance of noticing your child's bad moods and responding to them.
04:25 Parents tend to tune out bad behavior that they don't want to deal with.
05:44 Children don't often know why they are in a bad mood.
08:37 All the reasons don't really explain it and they can go on forever.
09:04 How to interrupt victimhood, moods, and complaining sooner and sooner.
10:00 Just listening to rants silently tells a child that you agree with her.
11:46 What you can do.
13:21 Consequences for a child who is falling behind.
15:05 What reluctance means.
15:57 Mother's response to child not doing her daily chores.
Transcript:
Dealing with a Moody Child
A mother writes:
My daughter Ada came home from school in a bad mood. Got worse after dinner.
(For everyone listening, this discussion will work for any kid, boy or girl, from about ages 8-18. And if yours is younger, it still works, because your child will get to be that age, if you don’t poison them first.)
Mother: Come to think of it, she has been more volatile the last couple of days.
**Good for you. You can see what’s been happening now that you “think of it,” in your words. And THIS is what we all must do as parents.
Rarely does a child just suddenly explode or display serious attitude. No, it’s been building for hours, days, years. They’ve given us dozens of clues, sometimes more than that. But we did not pay attention.
We prefer NOT to deal with difficult attitudes—understandable, who wants to teach a child who is being resistant, withdrawn, snotty? It’s hard. But if we really want to be parents, real ones, we have to do what this mother did: We have to “come to think of it.” We have to be more aware and not let things slide.
Mother: I have pointed out her mood to her a couple of times, but I think it wasn’t enough.
**Clearly not. Pay attention. When I say, “Clearly, you didn’t do enough,” I’m giving you INFORMATION here. I am NOT criticizing you.
You DID see her mood coming. You saw flashes of it. You pointed it out a couple of times, and that’s actually impressive. VERY good (information, not praise).
AND I’d bet ANYTHING that you COULD have pointed out little moments of attitude 20 other times. No criticism, just information.
So why do I point this out to you? So you can be more AWARE of her. Pay more attention to the “little” things, the “little” tones of voice, facial expressions, sharp remarks, all that stuff that flies around so prolifically in most homes that we just tune it out as background noise. (Me and friend in driveway. He couldn’t hear because of the katydids—not cicadas—while I couldn’t even hear them. Tuned them out)
We do that as parents, tune out the background noise of fear, anger, resentment, victimhood. We don’t WANT to hear it, but we MUST pay attention to the background noise, and put it in the forefront so that we can discuss it, learn about our kids, see them, accept them, love them, teach them.
Meeting Personally with a Moody Child
Mom: So in addition to the family meeting, I had a personal meeting with Ada. I asked her what put her in this mood.
**I’m going to give you more information: RARELY does any child know the answer to questions about WHY they did something. (Think about it. They shrug, and say, “I don’t know.”)
Why is that the case, that they don’t know? (Because almost invariably, they really don’t know) Because most of their behaviors that we would point out are just REACTIONS to pain. They’re just reflexes, and the child doesn’t really know the cause of the underlying, baseline, always-present pain that REALLY leads to the reflex.
They only see the event that happened right in front of them that SEEMED to be the cause, and even to them that single event doesn’t usually seem to explain their unpleasant mood for days.
We’ve illustrated that principle many times. (You are Sunburned and I touch you. Naturally you say I hurt you, but I didn’t. I only BUMPED you. Same with all emotional upset, real cause lifetime of pain).
But just because the child doesn’t know the answer to a question doesn’t mean that the question won’t be USEFUL. Their answer can then give us an opportunity to teach them something they’ll use for LIFE.
Mom: I pressed the “why” question a little more, and it turns out that the coach of the volleyball team put her on the practice team that stinks, so the play was sloppy, and she didn’t get a chance to hone her skills as a setter or spiker (now hitter or attacker).
Then the coach didn’t put her on the traveling team for a game with another school this weekend. She went on about that for a while, that she had worked hard and didn’t understand why he did that, and that she was angry.
Also—issue #2—there’s another girl at school who never does her work in math class—never listens in class, never does homework—so she’s always leaning over and asking Ada to explain things, or even to get answers during a test. Constant pest and demanding
Issue #3: Ada is behind in writing an essay for English.
Issue #4: Her sister used her hairspray that morning.
Issue #5. Then at dinner tonight somebody took a bite out of a piece of toast she’d made.
She was just spewing victimhood all over the place.
"Issues" Don't Explain the Real Cause of a Moody Child
**Look at all those things leading up to a “bad mood.” But all those things still don’t explain the real problem. And you can’t let these victim rants go on for too long.
In beginning, they can go forever. Some people can complain without taking in a breath for hours. She needs your help. You need to begin interrupting her victimhood and moods sooner and sooner, and within a short period of time—within a week or so, usually, of beginning to teach her this principle—you need to be interrupting her within 30 seconds of her complaining.
Why the necessary interruption? Some would argue that interrupting isn’t listening to her. But you see, when she’s complaining, you’re not listening to HER. You’re listening to her describe her reflex to her PAIN. That’s not listening to who she really is at all.
Silence = Consent
Every second that she complains, and you just listen, she does NOT feel understood, seen, and loved. NO. She feels like your silence is you AGREEING with her. In the law, it’s a principle expressed in Latin, Qui tacet consentire videtur: (Kwee Tackit cone-sen-Teer-uh wee-Day-tur). He who is silent is seen as giving consent.
If you say nothing while somebody is plotting to break the law, for example, the case is often made that you agreed and can be indicted as a co-conspirator. (It applies to agreement with what is being said by another—whether crime, or contract, other things).
Your daughter sees your silence as agreement, and this enables her victimhood. It rewards her manipulation with victimhood, and such listening can’t feel like unconditional love, because anything you give her will feel like a result of her manipulation. (Not unconditional love) So, being rewarded for her manipulation, she manipulates even more, with more victimhood. Nasty cycle.
What to Focus On
You can remind her that it is SO easy to fall into victimhood. Injustices are EVERYWHERE. People are in pain EVERYWHERE, and their protective choices will naturally be selfish AND affect US.
Their selfish and protective choices will inconvenience and devalue us. There are SO many opportunities for us to feel like people are doing something TO US.
But they're NOT. They're just focused on THEMSELVES. When they’re in pain, they’re the center of the universe, and they don’t even notice you unless you somehow inconvenience that tiny world they’ve created in their head.
The ONLY thing any of us can do—you and your children—that makes any sense at all is to focus on how WE can choose wisely, how we can feel loved and loving, NEVER focusing on the behavior of other people—which never helps.
Enforcing Consequences with a Moody Child
Mom: Since she is not going to the volleyball game this weekend, she asked if she could go to a friend's birthday party on Sunday. I said no. Several months ago I had told her no, no more parties (we even cancelled her OWN birthday party) until she is caught up with her life—things like her English essay, practicing volleyball so she gets better instead of complaining, participating more in family meetings and losing her nearly constant attitude. I even asked her if she was caught up with every assignment at school. Reluctantly she said no.
**Good for you that you ASKED her this, so she had to say it herself. AND notice that she RELUCTANTLY agreed she was behind in school.
You have to stop her EVERY time she is moody and has attitude: testy, angry, snarky, RELUCTANT. That last one especially important, because reluctance means she’s not learning LIFE. She’s fighting the truth, and nobody learns while they’re fighting.
And then the day will come when she’s gone from home, and it’s too late to teach her. The world will teach her, but the world is merciless, more cruel than she can possibly imagine. WAY harsher than her missing a friend’s party. Teach her NOW, younger the better.
Mom: She had not done her daily house chore (dishes) before the family meeting. She said, "I took myself out of the picture, because I was getting upset with people."
**So creative. She actually tried to look magnanimous, like she was caring for other people, as she ran away from doing the dishes. Absurd, but clever.
Mom: I told her that she would need to make breakfast tomorrow for the family as a consequence of not doing her chore on time today and for making the excuse about leaving her chore because she was upset.
She asked if she should have stayed and done the dishes, even though she was in a bad mood. I said Yes, she needs to learn to deal with her mood and finish the job without being snappy at people. I said that is how life works. As an adult, she can’t fail to show up for work because she doesn’t get along with a co-worker, or because she’s feeling snippy. — Was that right?
**YES. You taught her how her behavior NOW will cripple her later in life. You taught the School of Life. Congratulations.
You taught her that you can’t just walk out when things are hard.
You can’t walk out of work.
You can't walk out of the house because you have a crying child who needs you.
Sometimes you have to simply buck up and be responsible. Sometimes that is difficult, to be sure, and THAT is when we become stronger.
And now you’re going to teach her—as we talked about above—that she is NOT a victim in life, and that other people don’t cause her moods.
**Way to go, kid. THIS is being a mother.
(Everyone) And, as usual, as this mother learns important lessons in being a parent, so do we all.
