How To "Mean Business"

Recently I was visiting a client and their big dog kept wanting to slobber on me. Now I do like dogs, but not the slobber. The owner told the hound "no" several times and the dog ignored her, sat at my feet and looked me in the eye. Frustrated, the owner said "Go to your bed" and he got half-way there before he decided he didn't want to comply. Back he trotted to the fascination of my presence. I looked him in the eye and repeated the owner's command to go to his bed. Off he went. The owner was impressed (so was I). I told her I was a dog whisperer.

It was all in the tone. The dog owner was soft-spoken and seemed to be asking the dog a question, not issuing a command. I've met parents who plead with their kids to listen to them. Their sentences end with a high note as if asking a question. "Time to put our shoes on?" "We have to go now?" It sounds as if they are asking permission to be in authority.

Don't approach your kids with the attitude of "you don't want to listen to me do you?" They will smell that aura before you even enter the room. Use a confident, firm voice and have a serious look in your eyes. Your expression should show you mean business without looking like a stern old crab. Even if you are not calm and confident, you can act like it. I found that the more I acted like it, the more confident I became.

Make statements as if they are a universal truth without variables. Invite no debate. "Feet stay on the floor." "Throwing is for outside." "Painting is at the table." "We use our inside voices." "We pick up the game before dinner." "There is one snack for each of you."

The kinds of questions to ask are the ones you offer two choices for and let the kid decide because either way, you get what you needed them to do taken care of.

Examples: "Tommy do you want to put your shoes on before or after you take your medicine?" "Do you want to buckle your seatbelt or do you want me to?" "Do you want to have a book or music for your nap?" "Do you want to eat your vegetables between your bites of chicken or all at once?"You get the idea. Once you get going, you won't be able to stop. Just don't be offering a six year old his choice of cup colors. This is mostly for the two to five set. It will also work with Special Needs kids.

Not only does "meaning business" involve confidence and tone, it involves consisentency. If you do this for two days and slip back into nagging and retorting, don't expect your child to give you leeway. They need you to be consistent with your approach as much as your rules. Their secuirty comes from the safe parameters you establish and keep. Picture coming home to your house every day with windows, doors, siding or the fence missing. You want the whole house there but you don't know what to expect because sometimes something is gone. That's what it is like for children when parents fail to behave consistently.

And when we aren't consistent, kids invent their own way to cope and it usually involves pushing limits. If you keep things as usual as possible without being a drill sergeant, you will save yourself many futile argeuments and repeated answers.

Speaking of repetition, do that when your child keeps asking you the same thing. Say they had their snack and they want another one and you don't want them to have one (although I would personally give them another apple). You say "There was one snack for each of you." Your child whines that they are still hungry. Your repeat "There was one snack for each of you." Keep saying this. You can end with "Dinner is at six." Whatever you do, do not start a lecture or get into a dialog. If you say things like "That was a large enough snack and you don't finish snacks when I give you two anyway" or "I don't want you to fill up before dinner and you didn't eat all of your lunch and you are wasting food" or anything like that, you are losing your leverage. The more I think about it, I would handle snacks differently. You can keep apples and carrots and sliced carrots in your fridge and let them have it. If they get full, look at what healthy stuff it was.

When you start to barter and over-explain, you have lost your position in their eyes. So the things you want to barter about had better be worth it. Snacks really aren't. I don't think pajamas or showers are either. Holding personal responsibility? You bet. Showing courtesy and respect? Of course. Behaing honestly and ethically all the time? Absolutely.

Remember in all your blood, sweat and tears of child-raising to remember to authentically catch them doing something right as often as you can. Praise and affirmation go a long way in building solid-citizen character and establishing you as a loving, trusting authority. It's a perfect counterpart to meaning business.