"Because" Instead of "So That"

“Reward the behaviour you want repeated.”
- Larry Winget

One area where a tiny shift in thinking can produce a world of difference is in the area of how to get a child to stop bad behaviour in the moment.

Take whining, for example. When a child whines, many parents will do something for the child or give something to the child to get him or her to stop. The child then stops whining. Mission accomplished, right? Well, no. Actually, the opposite has been achieved.

What’s been reinforced is the idea that to get what he or she wants, a child only needs to whine. By giving in to encourage them to stop whining, you’ve set things up for there to be more whining in the future. Your child will learn that whining is an effective tool in their toolbox to get what they want. Put simply, you’ve put them in control of the situation.

Sometimes, it won’t be all that bad. A little bit of whining to get you to pick them up, or crying to get you to feed them something. No big deal. But when you’re out and about, trying to get some shopping done and you don’t want to buy the candy your child sees at their eye level in the checkout line, this is when you might wish that you hadn’t put the reins in your child’s hands.

The change needed here is subtle. It’s usually really small and easy to implement. And, it works for babies, teenagers, and even dogs.

The key to changing behaviour is understanding the difference between giving in to a child so that they stop a behaviour vs. giving something to a child because of the fact they’ve stopped a behaviour. Parent using “because” instead of “so that.”

Even with babies, this can work. When your baby is crying in the crib and wants to be picked up, waiting until they take a big breath and stop crying is more effective long-term than picking them up when the volume or intensity of their crying increases. When they’re crying, you can talk to them gently and rub them so they know you’re there and that you love them. Just wait until they stop (even briefly for a breath) before you respond to their desire to be picked up. And, if they start crying after they’ve been picked up, putting them back down a couple of times can help reinforce the correct behaviour too. Easy does it with babies, though.

If a young child is whining to be picked up, pick them up when they stop. “I’m not picking you up until you stop whining and ask me nicely,” is how that teaching moment might sound. In the ideal scenario, they stop whining and you pick them up. In a scenario where a child may not want to do it your way (maybe you’ve always given in before), the situation may escalate. For this reason, the home is the best environment to teach this new behaviour. Being out in public brings extra factors into play.

Regardless of whether or not a child escalates, stick to your guns by rewarding the correct behaviour. The message you want to communicate in this scenario is that you will respond when the child behaves correctly. Keep trying different strategies until their escalation is met with calm action on your part that doesn’t award wrong conduct.

A note on escalation. At most ages, when a child escalates a situation, it’s to increase their control of the moment by making it more uncomfortable for you. It’s a subconscious negotiation. So, one effective way to negotiate properly is to move the child to an area where the escalation doesn’t affect you. Relocate the child to their room so that you don’t have to listen to them whine or throw a fit. “If you need to whine, cry, or express your emotions, you can do that in your room. When you’re done and you want to ask nicely, you can come back and I’ll pick you up.” It moves the inconvenience, the noise, and the drama away from you and disempowers the main reason he or she is exhibiting that behaviour in the first place. It also lets the child self-soothe, calm themselves down, and choose positive behaviour on their own. These are all important skills for children in learning how to be well-behaved.

Even teenagers respond to this mentality shift. “If you want something from me, you’re going to have to treat me nicer than that,” is one sentence that can work. But, understand that teenagers are more difficult to change than small children, so it’s usually best to have these principles instilled at a young age. It doesn’t mean that things cannot change with teenagers too. It’s just that you’ll usually have to take long looks at yourself and make your own changes to see teenagers want to make changes on their end.

Questions? Comments? Let us know.