I was talking with a parent of one of my students from our Kids Karate program the other day. This parent is a child behavior analyst. She was telling me about how stubborn her child can be. Can you relate? I think any parent will tell you that their child has stubborn tendencies.
Here is a tip for stubborn children that she shared with me.
She called it exploiting the “energy drain.” Any parent who has been in the trenches knows how tiring it is when a child acts up — but did you know that this fatigue can be used to your advantage? She calls this the “energy drain” principle.
For instance, you might defuse a sibling confrontation by saying, “Wow, you need to take that fight with your brother somewhere else, because listening to that could cause me a big energy drain, and I don’t think I’ll have the energy to take you to the park after dinner.”
-Or-
“Johnny, if you keep making messes and not cleaning them up, I will have to clean them up which means I will just be too tired to take you to the park.”
Basically letting children understand that if they don’t keep up their end of the bargain on expected behavior, you as the parent will have to expend your energy which will, in turn, keep you from having the energy to do something fun with them.
Pretty clever right? I thought so! Find our more at one of our nationwide Premier Martial Arts locations!
