A long day at work, you are exhausted and just want to come home and crash down in your bed! You think that after the day has passed you will have some quality time with your family over the supper. As you enter your home, you are in a different mindset already thinking about a ton of things. Your kids come around and start telling you things and if by mistake, you happen to miss a thing they said, they start complaining that, “you don’t care about us anymore!” Or “you are not interested in what we are saying”.
There must have been instances when you have done the best of your ability to provide something for your child and yet found them complaining and whining over minor things. Well, how should you deal with the situation? You definitely do not want to go haywire about it, do you? Don’t worry, here are some Powerful Ways to Respond When Your Child Complains that will help you both come out of the situation gracefully! Here are a few ways that you can use to deal with a bipolar family member.
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Powerful Ways to Respond When Your Child Complains
Explain, Express, Explore!
How do you expect the poor little soul to understand the situation if he does not feel or understands what he is doing is not good? Often kids never notice how they sound while complaining or whining! What you can do?
Explain – Explain to your kid what he is doing is not right. Take your phone, start recording to all of their whines, complains, and then make them listen to what and how they were speaking.
Express – Express what you feel about the situation and how your day was. Ask them whether they felt good if mommy or daddy had been saying stuff to them the same way they did?
Explore – Find out new ways to so that you both can communicate without complaining. Often children learn from their parents and if you are someone who complains about your kid’s activities and behavior all the time, it’s not right that you expect them to be understanding. Find out neutral ways of solving the situation.
Give Your Ear To What They Say
The last thing you would want to do or make your child feel is that his/ her parents are not interested in listening to what they want to say. This will create a negative feeling in them about you and the next time they want to tell you stuff, they would back off! It may ever create an impulsive behavior in your kid.
Just as you like to gripe to your partner about a bad day at work or a stressful exchange with another mom, {kids} need to express themselves too.
– Dr. Rene Hackney, developmental psychologist
What can you do? Well, just give your ears to what they say! Maybe, what they are complaining about is actually valid! Make eye contact with your kid when they are trying to complain about a thing and respond to it. Your attention is mostly the thing they want!
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Change The Voice To Wants and Wishes
The way we all speak plays an important role in how we look at life. Kids should be taught to garner their strengths and put them in strong words that to sit and complain or whine.
Parent coach sandy Blackard suggests you help your kid change the complaint into a “want” or “wish” style. For example,
If your Child says–
“You’re so mean!”
Tell them to say
“You wish I were nicer.” (Child who likes nice people).
If your Child says-
“I hate this toy!”
Tell them to say
“You want a different toy.” (Child who knows what s/he likes).
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Give Them Choices
As kids, their problems to them are like the end of the world for them, if you ignore them, or scold them when they are complaining, it feels to them as if there is no way out of it. This may lead a child to get into depression!
What you can do is help them by giving them a few choices about things that they are complaining! Teach them to have a problem-solving attitude instead of being a complaint box!
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Set Some Limits
Now, some kids find peace in complaining. Often this helps them splatter their frustration. What you can do is set a time limit and ask them to complain as much as they want in it. Much better, you can actually a time for the day where they could release their frustration by saying things aloud that are bothering them.
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Respond Sensitively, Positively and playfully!
When you know that your kid has big emotions brewing and really needs to get them out, laughter is a great tool. Responding playfully to minor upsets shows a child that you are there, you are listening, and that everything is safe.
– Dr. Yasmeen Almahdy
Often the things that your kid is complaining about are not a big deal. However, it is a larger than life thing for your kids! Instead of exaggerating things, respond to them with a sensitivity that you are there for them, positively- without losing your temper and playfully- finding solutions to their problems playfully!
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Help Them See The Greater Good
Teach your kids that there are always two sides of everything and that things happen because of a reason. So even if the whine and cry and complain about it, it is going to happen that way. However, they can always look at the brighter side of the picture and find out the good in a bad situation. This will help them to develop a positive attitude to deal with things further in life!
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We hope these points on Powerful Ways to Respond When Your Child Complains were useful for you. Kids do not have a wide spectrum of thinking and often get depressed if you say or do something that they find unpleasant. However, you have to teach them that not everything will be served to them in their plate and there is no use whining and complaining about it. Instead, teach them how to deal with it and move on in life. This way, you will raise a kid that will be a responsible and sensitive adult. Here are some do’s and don’ts of body language that you should follow in your office.
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