Examples of Negotiating with your Kids

[LovePrevails]

Hi, I run The Progressive Parent youtube channel at www.youtube.com/theprogressiveparent

 

in response to one of my podcasts (

)

 

someone said it was great but they'd like some good examples of negotiating with kids so they can see what it was like in practice

 

I would like to do a podcast on this subject, so if you have any great anecdotes you don't mind me using to illustrate my points please load this thread up with them! I can anoymise them or shout out credit to you or whatever you prefer - this is to do some good work in the world so please participate!

[MysterionMuffles]

Yeah I have a good anecdote in which I successfully negotiated my neice into a better behaviour.

 

One afternoon I was babysitting my neice and she decides to go play with the DVD shelf we had in my living room. She started pulling and tossing all the DVD's off the shelf very carelessly, causing a ton of noise and possible internal disc destruction due to how aggressively she was throwing them on the floor.

 

I already knew that I shouldn't spank her or slap her hand for doing this, but I did feel the need to yell at her. I was really tired, just wanted some peace and quiet, but those are just excuses. Thankfully I didn't yell at her, and instead decided to take a different approach:

 

When she was just about to toss another DVD behind her, I held her hand for a moment and said, "I know you want to have fun with the DVD's, but you have to be careful with them if you want to keep playing. Why don't you be gentle with them and place them neatly like this?" 

 

She let me take the DVD out of her hand and I placed it very carefully on the floor. Then I took the other DVD's surrounding us and started placing them on a neat towering stack over each other. She stared at me for a moment and I had a moment of doubt thinking that she would ignore me and resume throwing the DVD's around. I underestimated her ability to listen because she doesn't know how to speak yet, but to my surprise when she turned back around to get another DVD, she placed it as gently and as neatly as she could ontop of the stack.

 

Each time she took one DVD at a time and quietly and gently placed them on the stack, I would express my enthusiasm, meanwhile times she took too many which would cause them to slip out of her hands, I just sat there quietly until she figured out on her own how to be more careful with them.

 

You can totally use at least my FDR user name if you decide to use my example and if it really counts as a "negotiation."

[Zimobog]

Too easy to come up with examples. If hitting your kids is off the table completely, you will always be negotiating.

 

Just tonight, the "other half" asked our 6 year old could he get out of the tub (where playing with squirt guns indoors is allowed ... another negotiation result) so his sister could use it. "Not yet", he says. "Ok, we are going to have dessert in two minutes".

 

1.75 minutes later.... kid at table in his PJs, hair a little wet but did it all on his own. No screaming, no crying, nothing.

 

Raising kids with the NAP is funny sometimes:

My son when he was 3 ran into the room where the adults were sitting and tattled, "Dad, she initiated violins against me!" lol Of course we then had to resolve the dispute by determining who's property was in question and even though this comes up from time to time between the siblings and not everyone is always happy with having to return the property, it works.

 

Another time, I heard my daughter yell at her brother it was "Her room, her property, and her rules." He wasn't properly playing her dolls. I thought I'd better stick my head in the door and both of them were pretty upset with each other. I asked him if he wanted to play with me in the other room and when faced with having to play with the dolls alone, sister decided to make a generous concession to get him to stay.

 

I, and I'm sure all of us parents here, could proudly go on for days on this.