Recently, I’ve been doing a little experiment. But only I
knew about it.
Here is the scenario. My kids, in particular my two boys (an
almost 4 year old and a 2 year old), don’t always listen when you ask them to
do things. Not only is that frustrating, but human nature says, “if that didn’t
work, try saying it again, only louder.” I have done that many times and the
volume I end up using sometimes is probably kin to shouting. (Let’s be
perfectly clear, I never swear or use degrading language.) I start in a
conversational tone, “Please pick up your toys.” Then I say it again with a
little more volume and a little more body language. “Please PICK UP YOUR TOYS.”
Finally, somewhere between a yell and scream while picking them up and putting
them in front of their pile of toys on the floor, I exclaim, “PICK UP YOUR TOYS!”
The rest of the night goes about like this: I feel
frustrated because I had to raise my voice, while also feeling justifies
because the kids still aren’t listening. The kids are noticeably annoyed with
me and are less than amiable with any further requests. In general the mood in
the house becomes gloomy and testy and we all can’t wait for bed – well, I can’t
wait for them to go to bed, and they don’t want to go to bed, but aren’t as
interested in staying up since dad has a burr in his saddle.
So that’s how things would go some nights. It isn’t always
that way, and sometimes we don’t always get to dinner before that episode would
start, but I didn’t like it and I wanted to change what was going on. I thought
long and hard about what I could say to motivate my kids to change their
behavior. (Who needed to change, Ryan?) I hadn’t come up with a good answer and
that only added to my frustration, but I noticed I needed to do something different.
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous
words stir up anger.
So, back to my experiment. I was recently reminded of how a
woman got the attention of a room full of rowdy kids, and it wasn’t by yelling,
threatening or spanking. I was astonished the first time I saw it – actually, every
time I saw it.
She quietly whispered.
I couldn’t hear her, at first, but very soon, all the kids
quieted down because they wanted to hear what she was saying. So when I was
reminded of this through a talk I heard last Sunday, I decided to try it.
One morning,
my 3 year old was in the blinds. I don’t know how many times we have said not
to play in the blinds, but there he was doing it again. It did cross my mind to
firmly remind him what we expected, but instead I tried saying as quietly and
gently as possible, “Son, please get out of the blinds.” He did it right away!
I almost gave him a high five and jumped in the air. (It’s the simple pleasures
in life. J)
Another night, my daughter got up out of bed and had a few
excuses for why she was out of bed. I didn’t change my position, but everything
I said was soft and gentle. She didn’t get up anymore, and wasn’t upset with me
when she went back in her room.
This actually works with grown-ups too. This blog
talks about the “speak softly” technique. Think about it though, who likes
to be yelled at or scolded for mistakes? When you think about how the Savior talked to those that came to him. He was clear direct, but respectful and kind.
Unfortunately, our kids have picked up on this habit of getting louder to make your point. It may take some time to unlearn the bad habit I was teaching my
kids.
I think the main take away is obvious: speak unto others as
you would have them speak unto you. That usually comes from changing your
attitude about the situation. Initially I thought I needed to change their behavior,
but I learned that as I changed my behavior, they followed suit.
Next week: Finding answers with God
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