This month, I’ll be sharing multiple ways to quickly and effectively address common behavior issues with your kids through heart-based strategies that work.
While my wife and I got plenty of things wrong when our kids were young, these were some of the things we got right in balancing rules and relationship. I believe implementing these proven strategies will benefit any parent.
Today’s Strategy – The Repeat Re-do
- Problem: Ever gotten an incorrect, inappropriate, or even disrespectful response from your child?
- Solution: What if you could correct your child’s inappropriate responses on the fly? The Repeat Re-do strategy helps you to do just that.
For example, your child is ‘hangry’ and wants a snack, and naturally comes to you demanding, “Give me a snack!”
Rather than getting upset or sarcastically saying something back, you instead calmly respond with the RR strategy by looking them in the eyes and saying something like, “Let’s try that again.”
You might briefly explain what a respectful Christ-like response should look like and then allow them to respond correctly… “Please may I have a snack?”, etc., before getting what they want.
This scenario can take on many forms with a child, including things they might say or request. However, the strategy is the same. Whenever their response or tone is incorrect, calmly ask them to repeat what they said, but with an appropriate response, whether that be something more kind, polite, or respectful.
This helps them on the fly to:
- Recognize that their behavior, tone, or approach was not appropriate
- Gives them an immediate opportunity and practice to correct it
Benefits of the Repeat Re-do Strategy
With consistency over time, your child, through practice, will quickly catch on that asking or responding the proper way the first time is always in their best interest.
By doing this, you are subtly helping your child acknowledge a needed change in their behavior. You’re also guiding their heart towards a simple and respectful solution to fix it before having to resort to more serious discipline strategies if the misbehavior were to continue.
Whether the issue at hand is an improper verbal response, a temper flare, or a selfish reaction, a repeat re-do gives you an on-the-spot training opportunity to help your child course correct by reframing the situation and their proper response to it.
Grace-Based Approach of the Repeat Re-do Strategy
As parents, our job is to prepare our children for life and adulthood. This simple training strategy helps us ‘train up our child in the way he should go.’ (Prov. 22:6).
A repeat re-do is also a small version of the biblical principle of renewing our mind (Romans 12:2)—continually changing the way we think to become more like Jesus.
In a sense, as parents, we are our child’s “Holy Spirit” until they come to know Christ. By teaching children self-awareness to self-correct over time, you can prepare them for the voice of the Holy Spirit, who will help them continue making changes and course corrections for the rest of their lives.
Next week, we’ll talk about behavior strategy #2 — How to deal with a child who constantly uses excuses like, “But I didn’t hear you” or “I forgot.”
