AboutLeslie Truex Expertise I am a parent of two, but also I'm a social worker with over 15 year experience working with children and families. I can provide many tips and techniques to help with child behavior, interventions for specific behavioral issues, ideas to help children through difficult times such as divorce or grief, hints on keeping the family running smoothly, and tips for developing confident, happy children.
Experience I have a master's in social work and over 15 years experience working with children and families. I have worked in schools, public health, mental health and adoption agencies providing parent education courses and children's groups.
Question My wife picked up our daughter from kindergarten today. Her teacher told my wife she was silently rebelling. She simply does not respond to us or her teacher. She does what she wants and doesn't listen to her teacher or tells her things that aren't true. She is not acting up or disturbing the class, she just wants to do her own thing. She does the opposite of what she is told. We ask her to get ready for bed or school and she does everything but get ready. The teacher asks her to stop talking and she talks more. We have tried taking away toys she likes when she won't listen but that isn't working. What can we do to get her to stop rebelling and enjoy school and do what we ask her to do.
Answer Hi Mark,
Is this new behavior or something she has been prone to doing all her life? If its a new behavior, you want to look at what may be going on in her life that has her feeling insecure. It could be starting school even.
The key is to find the "thing" that will sufficiently motivate her to behave. Losing toy privileges obviously isn't working. One technique I teach in my parenting courses is "stop the world". In this technique, every thing in the world stops for her until she does what she's told such as "get ready for school". This requires you to be active in that you will need to stop anything else she may try to do. Take the toy she goes to play with. Turn off the television, etc. Also, you can let her know that if she isn't ready, she'll go to school in her jammies (do let the school know and send her with clothes). If its bedtime and she doesn't comply, she'll go to bed earlier the next day. She needs consequences for her actions that make an impact. And you MUST follow through.
To really make an impact, the best thing is to make her world really small. It sounds like she has been allowed to get dressed or ready for bed on her own, which is fine if she does it. But if she doesn't, someone needs to get her dressed. Don't just take away a toy, take away all play, television ... anything she can do, until she's compliant. She'll fight it, but the world gets pretty boring just sitting there.
Also, you can have consequences for misbehavior at school such as she can't watch television or even something like she has to do an extra chore.
Before implementing this, sit down with her in a calm moment and explain to her what you expect and what will happen if she doesn't listen. That way if she misbehaves, she knows what will happen.
There are some good books that may help as well such as 1-2-3 Magic and How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and How to Listen so Your Kids will Talk.
