Testing Boundaries
No, no, no, no and NO!
Firstly, it's totally normal. Here are five things we'd recommend to try:
The behavioural stuff
1. Values
Decide what’s important. What are your rules (or we like "values") for your family to live by? Get together and write them down - no more than five though.
If you have older kids, write these up headed: "In our family we…" and once finished, pin them up in a place where you can regularly see them.
2. Positivity
Frame everything positively. If your kids are bouncing on your couch and that’s a no-no in your house; rather than "Don’t jump on the furniture!" say: "Feet on the floor, please".
3. Give praise
Notice when they’re doing what you want (even if that’s sitting on the couch while watching TV!) praise them for this: "I love the way you’re sitting nicely on the couch."
4. Keep praising
Have a think about your comms – up your praise ratio, it’s recommended 10 praise statements to one correction!
5. Be understanding
Basically, everyone tests boundaries (even as adults) – it’s always tempting to put a foot on the grass when a sign says: "Don’t walk on the grass".
Sometimes what we "say" influences how people react – compliant or defiant.
Running Off
Normally kids will run off because they have legs. But they’ll run off more depending on our initial reactions to them running off – if there was a surprise, fear or lots of attention (even anger,) it’s likely to happen again.
1. Rules
Outline the rule, that they must stick with you e.g. hold your hand, or the supermarket trolley
2. Practice
Practice with them (letting them know that’s what you’re doing) and make these practice times brief!
3. Praise
Praise this all the way! This then swaps the attention from running off, to sticking with you. And, they’d rather be around to hear the praise.
4. Keep them engaged
When we’ve previously worked with parents, we’ve emphasised making it more fun to be holding your hand on the pavement, than running off onto the road.
This will mean skipping, singing, looking for interesting things along the way – keep them engaged and tell them how much you love being with them like this.
5. Keep practising
If this behaviour is quite uncontrolled (we get it!), practice on your lawn if needed. The more engaging and fun you are to be around, the more they’ll want to stick with you.
Hurting animals and others
A tricky one for sure, but normal.
Being mean to pets often stems from our first experiences of this – we hurt the cat, the cat scratches, we get loads of care from our parent and the cat gets thrown outside (even though the cat scratch is a natural consequence).
Hurting others will likely be caused by jealousy, frustration or embarrassment, all of which pre-schoolers don’t really have the capacity to be able to say, let alone explain! We say:
1. Talk about it
It's awesome to talk about emotions – how are we feeling right now? How they might be feeling? How the characters in books might be feeling?
Let your preschooler know that emotions are normal (all of them), but we’ve just got to work out the best ways to react when we feel some of these ways.
2. Take the time
Spend time with your kids (and the pets) and praise them when they are being gentle, kind, caring, sharing, turn-taking – all the social skills we LOVE to see!
3. Give attention
If you see your child hit out, take a lot of care to spend time with the child or pet who was hit – give them loads of care and attention.
4. It's time to calm down
If it’s a bit wild and out of control, remove the child who is hitting – do this calmly by saying: "You need to take some time to calm down."
There may be a meltdown, but that’s okay – ride it out.
5. Don't lecture
Once calm, avoid lecturing – instead, re-engage and give them other opportunities to join in and be a great friend, sibling or pet-owner. Praise this.
6. Values
Talk with your kids about your family values of being kind to each other, as well as your pets. Let them know that it's important to be gentle, especially with pets, babies and little ones.