If there were just one thing I could teach parents to do, it would be to separate the child from their
misbehavior.
Love the child, attack the behavior.
What is our default when we’re stressed or don’t know what else to do with our children’s misbehavior? For many parents, we attack or ignore the child. Often our only tool is “shame”.
Shame is poison to the human soul.
“You are such a naughty, bad, little boy!”
One of the many problems with this is, the approach freezes the child in a state called “bad” to where there is no way out. If this happens long enough over time, “bad” becomes part of the child’s identity. When this happens the child tends to seek or create situations in the physical world that are in alignment with their internal image of oneself… “bad”. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Scary right?
If you have been directly attacking your child instead of the misbehavior, don’t feel bad or shame yourself for it. It’s very common. It may even be our default response as humans with a lizard brain.
Here’s a video of me talking about this subject.
