by James Lehman, MSW
When you have a child who acts out, throws tantrums or is disrespectful, their embarrassing behavior can make you want to curl up into a little ball and hide. Here, James Lehman, MSW gives you some tips on how to cope—and how to teach your child the skills he needs.
Many parents struggle with embarrassment when their kids act out. Often, this feeling is an emotional reaction to some imagined condemnation or judgment, not something that is actually occurring. If your child is screaming in the mall and another parent looks at you, you may feel like they’re judging you or thinking that you’re a bad parent, and you might be embarrassed. But let’s be honest, the only way to really tell what they’re thinking is if they turn to you and say, “You are a terrible parent.” For all you know, they might be saying to themselves, “My gosh, I remember when my son did that”; or “Boy, I’m glad I’m not going through that anymore with my daughter.” This brings me to the first rule about feeling embarrassed by your child’s behavior:
Ask yourself, “What does my child need from me right now?” I think this is the most important question a parent can ask when their child is having a hard time.
1. You are Not a Mind-reader.
When your child is acting out and you’re feeling judged by others, I think you have to stop and say to yourself, “I can’t read other people’s minds.” The truth is that if you try to imagine what others are thinking, 95 percent of the time, you’re going to read something negative there. That’s because whenever we’re negative, we interpret other people’s perceptions of us as negative. Let me put it another way: in these situations we don’t read people’s minds in search of hope. We read them in search of condemnation—especially when something is going wrong. So when you feel yourself trying to guess what your neighbor, your mother-in-law, or your friends are thinking, just tell yourself, “I’m not a mind-reader, I don’t know what they’re thinking.” Stop the tape that’s playing in your head and move on. This is also part of the process of learning how to talk to yourself in a way that promotes calmness, rather than panic.
2. Focus on the behavior at hand: It’s Not All about You—It’s about Your Child.
Remember, if your child is having a hard time, as the popular saying goes, “It’s not all about you.” Whether you’re embarrassed, afraid, irritated or angry at something your child has done, you have to stay focused on what he needs from you in that moment. Not what somebody else thinks. So ask yourself, “What does my child need from me right now?” I think this is the most important question a parent can ask when their child is having a hard time.
Keep the focus on your child and try not to get distracted. When kids act out in any way, one of the things they’re telling you is that they need some help. As a parent, you know your child best, so don’t be afraid to give them what they need. Sometimes your child needs attention. At other times, your child needs to be taken away from a stimulating environment, or have limits set. And at other times, your child just needs reassurance. Whatever it may be, focus on what your child needs; do not focus on reading other people’s minds and trying to figure out what they’re thinking of you.
3. Don’t Justify Yourself or Make Excuses.
Try not to justify yourself and make excuses when your child acts out or behaves inappropriately. Instead, make directive statements. Let’s say you’re at a party, and your child gets angry and starts yelling when you ask him to go sit down. Don’t invite people to offer their opinions or criticism. I think you can cut them off at the pass by saying something like, “I’m sorry, my son needs me right now”; or “This is his way of letting me know that he needs me.” When you say it that way, you’re not defending yourself against anything; you’re really just making clear, positive statements.
4. Instead of Responding to the Feeling of Embarrassment, Have a Plan.
If you have a plan in place for when your child acts out, you’re going to feel less embarrassed and more in control. Let’s say your family is going to a neighborhood barbecue. Before you leave, take your child aside and say, “Remember, if you swear at me, yell or are rude, we’re going to go home and you’re going to get a consequence for that behavior.” Your child says he understands, but even with this procedure spelled out, he starts yelling and curses at you in front of the other guests when you ask him to wash up.
First of all, understand that this experience is still going to be embarrassing. You can’t take away your feelings; you can only teach your child how to act more appropriately by setting firm limits and following through on them. Look at it this way: you can learn judo and self-defense and carry mace, but when you go into that parking lot at night, you’re still going to feel afraid. So know that you can’t take away those feelings of embarrassment when your child acts inappropriately—but you can have a plan in place that teaches him how to behave better the next time it happens.
By the way, in this situation, again don’t justify yourself or your actions—just leave. Tell the host, “Listen, I’ll call you later,” and go home. Don’t start making excuses and blaming yourself. As I said before, I don’t want you on the defensive, explaining your decisions to people. It’s none of their business unless your child did something to them. Show the host that you’re dealing with it, and tell them that you’ll be in touch later. Instead of asking other people for forgiveness for your child’s inappropriate behavior—because that’s what we want to do when we’re embarrassed—give your child what he needs and don’t over-explain your actions. You might have an urge to apologize for your child’s behavior problems, but don’t do it. It’s not healthy for you. Instead, you can call the host of the party later and say, “You know, I’m really sorry my son did that, but we’re dealing with it.”
Keep the focus of the interaction between you and your child, and on what he needs from you, not on what the other adults around you need. What your child requires in this case is some direct, immediate attention. The more you’re able to respond in these situations and follow through consistently, the more you’ll strengthen the parts of you that can defend your psyche against criticism.
After your child has acted out, when you’re driving home from the party, the mall, or the school function, you should not be replaying what you imagine everyone thought about your child’s behavior in your head. Parents will often drive home saying, “Oh man, they looked at me like I was an idiot. They’re going to talk about me at school; he knows my cousin.” But I think you need to forget about that; you can’t replay those feelings because it will only make them worse. I think that we have to be careful of these negative thoughts because they block us from being able to focus on our kids. A helpful thing to say to yourself is, “I can’t change the past, but I’m doing what I can about the problem now.” Say that to yourself a few times and hopefully it will help you focus on the task at hand.
5. Use “Avoid” and “Escape” as Short-term Strategies
When planning ahead for situations or outings where your child has acted out in the past, the strategies known as “Avoid” and “Escape” can be very helpful. This means you should “Avoid” people, stimulation and situations for which your child has not yet developed coping skills, and “Escape” situations in which your child’s coping skills break down.
As parents of kids with behavior problems, we should have two primary goals: the first is to get to bed tonight without a crisis. The second is to help our child learn long–term coping and problem-solving sills. The “Avoid” and “Escape” strategies deal with the first goal. We avoid situations our child is not ready for; we escape situations in which his skills get overwhelmed. Don’t confuse this with teaching your child coping skills. If your child can’t cope with the stimulation of a supermarket, you should avoid it for the time being, but you will have to come up with a way to teach him how to deal with the stimulation of shopping eventually. The same goes for Escape. If you’re at the mall, escaping that situation is a great short term response to a tantrum or screaming match, but over the long term, your child will need to learn coping skills to deal with that environment and how to deal in an appropriate way in those situations.
The Avoid and Escape strategies can help you in the following way. Imagine that you and your child are going to a party and you’re not sure if you should avoid it. Now imagine that you have an escape plan concerning how to handle the situation in case things start to break down. This will help considerably with any feelings of embarrassment you may have, because you’ll be in control of the situation. Remember, the main thing is to give your child what he needs in that moment and to be in control. Once you have that tool in your belt, you’ll spend less time reading other people’s minds and more time focusing on helping your child.
If you are in this situation with your child, I want you to realize that you can’t avoid your feelings, but you can manage situations in a way where those feelings won’t control you anymore. To put it succinctly, it’s not about controlling your feelings—it’s about managing the situation effectively.
Are You Embarrassed by Your Child’s Behavior? 5 Ways to Cope reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com
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James Lehman is a behavioral therapist and the creator of The |
Being a parent of 5 adopted children, I’m constantly struggling with child behavior problems, and how to deal with them. It just goes with the territory. But last week, it came to a head, and I came to a few realizations that I don’t think I had before. Here’s what happened:
My oldest son has a new “friend” that’s a girl (we don’t want them to be boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but it looks like they’re moving down that road pretty fast. More on our feelings about that in another post). Anyway, Sarah came over after school to watch a movie with Bobby. That’s it – pretty benign, right? Well, not as far as my kid’s are concerned!
You’d think the sky was falling, or we were going to Disneyland or something. They all just became out-of-control kids: loud, no manners, saying inappropriate things, and on and on. This type of child behavior problems went on all night – long after Sarah had gone home for the evening. It was crazy! I was totally embarrassed, enough so that I canceled a fun family weekend we had planned.
What I came to realize is that my kids need to have a pretty structured schedule. They feel very out-of-control when anything is out of the ordinary at all. I believe this goes back to the very first months of their lives, when they weren’t cared for in a healthy way. So we are trying to keep it orderly and under control – therefore avoiding this type of children behavior issues.
I just happened to be browsing the Empowering Parents website, and I found an article by James Lehman called Are You Embarrassed By Your Child’s Behavior? 5 Ways To Cope that helped me out concerning my embarrassment. It gave me a few tips, and I’ll share a little bit from the article.
- Don’t guess what people around you are thinking. Unless they say flat out “You’re a horrible parent”, you don’t really know what they’re thinking. They could be thinking “I remember when my kid did that”, or “I’m glad I’m not going through that phase with my son anymore”. Don’t be a mind reader.
- Focus on the behavior at hand: It’s not about you, it’s about the child. When your child misbehaves in public, they need something from you – focus on their needs, not your feelings.
- Use “avoid” and “escape” as short-term strategies. If you know the type of situations that cause your kids behavior problems, try to avoid those situations. Also, give you and your child an “escape” plan – a way to get out of the situation if things start to break down.
These are just a few strategies I learned from this article. To read the whole article, click here.
For many more tips and techniques to deal with child behavior problem’s, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!
A great article by Megan Devine about holding a child accountable.
How to Create a Culture of Accountability in Your Home
by Megan Devine, Parental Support Line Advisor
The father’s voice on the other end of the Parental Support Line sounded exhausted and overwhelmed when he said, “I know you told me that I have to hold my child accountable, but what exactly does that mean?”
It’s an excellent question, and one that we receive often on the Support Line. You’ve probably noticed that we talk a lot about “accountability” in Empowering Parents, as well. But have you ever wondered what it really means to hold your child accountable?
It’s never too early—and it’s never too late—to start a Culture of Accountability in your home.
I think it’s often helpful for parents to break big concepts down into bite-sized pieces in order to fully understand them. The word “accountable” itself means responsible, or taking responsibility for one’s actions. So when we’re talking about our kids, the question becomes, how will you make sure your child accounts for his or her actions? In other words, how will your child take responsibility for their behavior after the fact? And how can we help them think about that responsibility before they behave inappropriately?
Remember, we want to promote a system of responsibility and accountability for actions in our home. James Lehman calls it a “Culture of Accountability,” and it means that each member of the family is responsible for their own actions and behaviors, each person is responsible for following rules and expectations, and each is responsible for how they respond to stressful or frustrating situations. The simple truth is that most kids, and even some grown-ups, don’t take responsibility for their actions. Without accountability in place, kids blame others for their actions, refuse to follow rules they find unfair, and find ways to justify their behavior. For example, if your child breaks the house rules by calling his siblings rude names or being physically aggressive with them, he may be in the habit of blaming his brother or sister for his verbal abuse. You’ll hear things like “She wouldn’t get off the computer and I wanted to use it!” or “He wouldn’t move, so I pushed him.”
Understand this: when you have created a Culture of Accountability in your home, your child will know that no matter who started it or what happened first, everyone is responsible for their own behavior, and everyone has to follow the rules. Just because he was using the computer doesn’t mean he can call his sister foul names because blaming someone else doesn’t change the rules. As James says, “there is no excuse for abuse, period.”
Giving consequences and sticking to them is another important piece of the accountability puzzle: your child should know that if he chooses to break the rules, there will be a consequence for that choice. The bottom line is that no one in the family should get away with changing the rules to fit their needs or feelings.
Let me use an example from the work world. Let’s say it’s your job to make sure that a shipment of light bulbs arrives safely at their destination, but you were preoccupied and did not check the shipping boxes, and many of the light bulbs arrived damaged and broken. Your boss will likely hold you accountable for the breakage. You may not like it, but it is your job to meet those expectations—and if you don’t meet them, you won’t get paid. You can’t blame it on someone else, as it was your responsibility to check the boxes. Since your job’s Culture of Accountability says that you’re in charge of the light bulbs, you understand that you need to take responsibility for what happened. You may have to discuss what went wrong, and explain how you will make sure to do it differently next time—and you will probably have to work a little longer that day to fix the problem. That’s the heart of what it means to be responsible.
This is similar to what James is talking about when he says you need to hold your children accountable. You have rules and expectations for your child, and they are responsible for following those rules. If they don’t follow them, they do not get “paid” with the privileges and rewards they value. Again, blaming others or acting inappropriately does not relieve them of their responsibility to meet the expectations of the family.
You might be thinking “I know my child is responsible for meeting our expectations and following our rules, but how do I hold him accountable when he doesn’t want to be?” Remember, as James often says, you can’t get your child to want to do something he doesn’t want to do. You can, however, use effective parenting strategies in combination with rewards and consequences to get hold child accountable.
How to Be Clear about Expectations and Set Clear Limits
If you have a rule in your home of no name calling, here’s how you can set clear expectations and limits around it. Let your child know the following: “In this house, we don’t call people names. It doesn’t matter if someone makes you really angry, or if they started it. Each person is responsible for following the rules. If you call someone else names—remember, it doesn’t matter who started it—you will lose some of your game time today.”
Kids will often try to shift the focus to someone else. If this happens, you can say, “It sounds like you’re blaming your brother for the fact that you called him names.” Be sure all members of the family know that putting the blame on someone else will no longer be acceptable. In a Culture of Accountability, each person is responsible for their own actions, and for following the rules, no matter what someone else does. Be clear about the rules, and what each person can expect to see happen if they choose not to follow those rules.
Talk to Your Child and Help Them Figure out How They Will Follow the Rules
It isn’t enough to simply say “don’t do that;” kids often need to know what they can do, not just what they can’t do. Help them problem solve. Ask your acting-out child, “What can you do to help meet our rules and expectations?” Remember, it doesn’t matter if they think the expectations are fair or not; they simply need to take responsibility for meeting them. Remind your child: “It’s your responsibility to control your temper. Just because your brother is bothering you does not mean you can push him. If your brother is annoying you, and you’re tempted to call him names, what can you do instead?” You might have your child write down a list of the things they can do to help themselves follow the rules when they are tempted to break them.
Use Cueing
Once your children have come up with ways they will help themselves follow the rules, you can use what James calls “cueing” – giving a reminder of what is expected. When you hear your child start to get annoyed, you might say, “Remember what we’ve been talking about. You are responsible for following the rules. Why don’t you go check your list of things that you’re going to do when you’re having trouble following the rules?” To help create that Culture of Accountability for everyone, you might also consider posting the family rules in a public area in your home, like the refrigerator door.
Use Consequences to Hold Your Child Accountable
Once you have clarified the rules and helped your child come up with some ideas on how he might behave, let him know what he can expect to see happen if he still chooses to break the rules. Remember, tie the consequences to your child’s behavior, and keep them short-term. For example, let your child know, “If you choose to call your brother names, you will lose access to your electronics until you can speak appropriately for two hours.” Be sure to follow through with the consequences you set; remember, without clear consequences, there is no real incentive for your child to become accountable.
The good news is that creating a Culture of Accountability is a very reachable goal for parents. In fact, effective parenting helps your child learn to be accountable—to both accept responsibility for meeting the expectations of your family, and to develop the skills they need to meet those expectations. And when all the members of your family start becoming accountable to each other, your kids will have a clear understanding of the rules and will be much more motivated to uphold them. You will even see your kids trying to follow the rules when they don’t want to do so, because they will know that they will be held responsible for their choices, no matter how they feel or what excuses they give you.
Realize that when you first try to put the Culture of Accountability into place in your home, your kids may fail to meet their responsibilities, even with clear limits and good problem solving techniques. It will take practice to help them understand that they will be held accountable for their actions. But as James says, “parents are the solution, not the problem.” You can teach your children the skills they need to take responsibility in their lives now, and for their future. With consistency and practice, your kids will learn that they are responsible for their actions and behaviors. It’s never too early—and it’s never too late—to start a Culture of Accountability in your home.
How to Create a Culture of Accountability in Your Home reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com
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Megan Devine is a Parental Support Line Specialist and writer. |
Filed under Accountability, Empowering Parents Articles, Parenting, Total Transformation 
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