My husband and I recently attended a parenting workshop hosted by East Haddam Youth and Family Services. The speaker was published parent educator Bill Corbett. It was an interesting workshop as we discovered that Corbett’s method of parenting is different from any other methods we have experienced.
One key piece of advice Corbett had was that if your child is screaming or yelling at you because they are not getting their way, resist the urge to send them to their room to cool off. Instead, you should stand there and not only listen, but engage in the argument.
You’re to keep your cool, Corbett says, and give level headed responses. This philosophy, he says, gives the child the respect of being heard as well as an opportunity to express his or her feelings in a supportive environment. This will eventually develop into a mature ability to recognize their feelings and go with their gut instincts as adults. He says that you don’t have to go through this for hours on end with your child and that eventually, it will taper off.
You can offer to participate for a set amount of time if it drags on and the same points keep coming up.
The point, he says, is to remain calm and respectful, but also to stand your ground and not to cave in just to make it stop.
When you’ve had enough, just say so, but give the child the chance to express their feelings no matter how loud and ridiculous they become.
So, in a nutshell - or nuthouse – we’ll see how this new philosophy works.
I sit here now with my daughter screaming at me about how she hates her homework. She is screaming about ripping it up, needing help and hating herself because of having homework. So I have calmly answered her that she has not asked for help, reminding her that ripping it up will get her in trouble with her teacher and saying that hating herself because of homework is ridiculous.
I am repeatedly reminding her that I am offering to help, but that I am also doing my homework and she can sit with me at the desk for help.
She has stormed away, screaming that she will ask her father for help. I am calm, she is screaming still and now blames her sister because she dropped her homework all over the floor. So she is off to her room screaming and crying.
I wonder how long it will take for this behavior to develop into a mature and well- balanced, self confident person?