By Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D.
What helps children as they approach the preteen and teen years make good choices about their lives?
- Understanding another’s feelings and point of view
- Understanding motives
- Finding alternative solutions
- Considering consequences
- Sequenced planning
2. Four styles of parenting
-The power approach
-The suggesting approach
-The explaining approach
-The problem-solving approach
Talking about Feeling Words
Begin with the word happy. What makes you happy? What might make other people happy?
Worried and Relieved
Sympathy (understanding another’s pain) and Empathy(feeling another’s pain) Feeling empathy with others is an important part of social and emotional competence.
Impatient and Disappointed
Other feeling words: lonely, jealous, embarrassed
Different People Can Feel Different Ways about the Same Thing
Summing up
-Ask your children to tell you how they think their brother or a friend might feel about sth.
-To help your children cope with the frustrations and disappointments if life, guide them to think about how they feel now, and how they might feel later
5. Are things always what they seem to be?
Momentary Exchange
“Why did he do that?”
If your child is upset about what someone did or said, ask if she can remember everything the other person (t) did, and whether there is any other possible reason for the action
Ask your child to tell you what she noticed about t’s facial expression, tone of voice, or any body movements that might help give clues about the intent of that person.
Habitual Behavior over time
“Why is he like that?”
Ask your child how t might feel when he does that.
6. What else could I do to solve this problem?
Learning alternative solutions
-Conflicts are normal. Through conflict, children learn to negotiate their interpersonal world. View them as an opportunity from which to learn, not annoyances to be dealt with quickly and forgotten.
-After your child offers his first solution, validate it, no matter what the content. It’s important to keep the flow of ideas coming, unimpeded. “That’s one way.”
-Remember, it’s the process of thinking of more than one idea that will help solve problems. For now, what our child thinks is less important than “that” he thinks. If you want to praise her for a particular solution, say, “Good thinking,” not “That’s a good idea.” A good idea may work one time but not the next time.
-After your child is comfortable brainstorming different solutions, ask him to think about how each solution might make other feel.
7. What might happen next?
Instead of us telling kids what and what not to do, and why—kids can learn to think about what and what not to do, and why.
