Ignore them Because You Love Them
As parents, we often feel we have to “do something” when a war is raging over a video game or a baby doll. We feel we can’t just sit there and let them fight for an hour over the remote. We can feel our blood pressure rise as things get heated and ugly. It feels like something must be done to “stop” the insanity. But what?
If your usual tactics (nagging, lecturing, yelling and punishing) aren’t working, feel free to leave them behind. They never really fix the fighting- they only delay the next blowout event.
You could, on the other hand, proactively tune it out. Walk away. Actually NOT CARE about the nonsense happening in front of you. When you decide to ignore, the game changes because they don’t know how to get you involved!
Of course, at first, a child will escalate the antics, hoping to get the usual response. The child is thinking “Hey! You! Parent! Look at me! Do something! (Don’t fall into it, it’ll eventually go away). When you STILL don’t react, the push back is even harder. Finally, once the child is convinced that mom or dad isn’t going back to useless tactics, they are required to “think” and respond differently. Through this new dynamic, the fighting has lost its audience, stage and lighting. The show can’t go on.
The secret to ignoring a child is this: ignoring is active NOT passive. You are not ignoring them because you don’t care how they behave. You are using every ounce of patience and theatrical ability to convince your children that you have something much more interesting to do with your time than get into their spats and tiffs. Once they realize you’ll be happy to do something else with them, the fighting, like a fire, loses its source of oxygen.
This is only the beginning.
The Parenting On Track™ program is designed to help parents discover what isn’t working and to replace that with strategies that focus on enhancing both the relationship parents have with their kids and their child’s ability to grow into an independent and confident person. It takes practice but you can do it. Thousands already have.
