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Talk - is at the heart of every one of these problems
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The big deal is that in a seriously high percentage of families communication turns into a constant verbal battle that parents lose. The child constantly refuses to conceed what is being asked. The verbal battle then often develops into a physical battle.
In the accounts above each of the parents is completely mystified. How did I get into this? How can I change my child's behaviour and get out? For many of us there must be a serious flaw in the way we handle interactions with our children. It is vital that we identify this flaw and put it right.
The biggest indictment of many behaviour professionals is that they are all too often prepared to believe that it is possible for the child to have a behaviour problem on its own.
'Bad' behaviour and how to change it is always a problem concerning the interactions between the child and the parent. It is aways an interactive problem. An interactive
"battle" being fought that the parents are losing.
This insight is so glaringly obvious that it is only possible for a professional not to have it if they are working too far away from the interactions. Contact with a family once a fortnight just will not do.
Too few professionals put themselves on the line and allow themselves to suffer constant feedback from the results of their advice. At the very best they speak to parents once a week - but this is relatively rare. Very few will speak to parents on a daily basis and so often don't find out the practical effects of the advice they give.
Perhaps they do not feel they need to. None of the four main behaviour theories see cronic bad behaviour as an interactive problem. There should be no surprise when the assumption is made continuously that the child needs to change.
The advice given here is based on exposure each and every day to parents relating - sometimes in no uncertain terms - the results of their attempts to do what was suggested. In close work with parents I have found what works and used this to generate some theoretical assumptions about why it works. For me, starting with theoretical assumptions and assuming these will generate strategies too often produces advice that does not work and professionals who cannot explain why.
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