Dear Father:

Good for you for looking for alternatives to taking things away and grounding your son. As you have seen, these are very weak incentives to behave well, and only work a time or two. They build resentment and a feeling of not being liked or understood in a child, and that resentment then causes even more trouble as time goes on.

What really helps a child is feeling close to his/her parents! A sense of closeness and warmth, parent toward child, and some play together can ease a child's sense of separateness in the family, allowing him to make better choices about how to use his time.

Any child who has a couple of siblings and busy parents is bound to feel separate, not fully understood, and to have those feelings get in his way of making good decisions. You can't reason feelings away, just like you can't tell the clouds to stop raining, or the wind to stop blowing. One person's emotional weather system is not controllable by another person, but it can be influenced.

A good first step is to institute "Special Time" in your family, for each of your children. You pick a time when you're not rushed or worried. You have your wife take two of the children, and you take the third. You say, "I have a half hour. I'll do whatever you want to do! What do you want to do?" and off you go. With an older child, you need to say also whether they can spend money, and whether you can use the car. I would say, at least at first, that you're not going to spend money, but a quick car ride so there's time to play catch at the park would be OK, if that's what you want to do!

Then, pay attention, offer touch, eye contact, and a generous heart toward your son and whatever he picks. Work to connect. When the half hour is up, give a warm hug, and promise another Special Time soon.

Kids really enjoy having a parent's undivided attention. It fills their "connection tank" with a good feeling. But often, after Special Time, they will have a meltdown over something small, maybe even the end of Special Time. Be prepared for this--it's not being ungrateful! It's your child's emotional mind, trying to unload really sad or mad feelings that have been sitting there fermenting for a long time, and causing everyone trouble. When your child becomes upset, they're not bad, they're trying to have a good cry or tantrum to clear emotions away, so they can think, cooperate, and feel your love again. Sneezes eject germs and gunk in the nose, poop ejects undigested food, and crying and tantrums eject negative feelings. So listen, offer your understanding that life feels awful because there's not more time for play right now, hold your ground, "No, we can't do more Special Time today, but we can next Saturday," and give your son time, lots of time, to be fully upset and mad at you. Stay there. This is when kindness and love really, really make a difference--right when a child is feeling his worst.

There's more about this way of parenting--you set the limit, but you stay and listen to the feelings about the limit, until the child can do reasonable things again--on our website, and in our booklets. And I'll add an anecdote, so you can get a feel for how this works in action.

Hope this helps. He's a lucky boy to have such a proactive Dad, trying hard to understand what really works with a fine, sweet son.

Yours,

Patty Wipfler