In today’s episode, I’m talking about encouraging your child’s intrinsic motivation to change unhelpful behaviors—meaning, changing because it’s satisfying for them to do so—not because they’ll get a reward or avoid a reprimand.
When you’re hoping your child will change their behavior for the better, it can be easy to double down on nagging, pleading, and lecturing your child in an effort to convince your child to see things the way you see things. Unfortunately, you might notice that this doesn’t get you very far. The more you push, the more resistant and defensive your child becomes! Dr. Nanika Coor offers some tips for encouraging motivation for change in your child from a place of acceptance, compassion, and collaboration.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
Have a parenting question? Email Dr. Coor at parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com or leave a voicemail at 646-926-3243.
Find Project Parenthood on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the Quick and Dirty Tips newsletter for more tips and advice.
Project Parenthood is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.
Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe
https://www.facebook.com/QDTProjectParenthood
https://twitter.com/qdtparenthood
https://brooklynparenttherapy.com/
Hey parents! You're listening to the Project Parenthood podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor—clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll introduce you to the same respectful parenting practices that I use to help parents repair and deepen connections with their children. You’ll get tips for cultivating more parental self-compassion, more cooperation from your kids, and more joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about encouraging your child’s intrinsic motivation to change unhelpful behaviors—meaning, changing because it’s satisfying for them to do so—not because they’ll get a reward or avoid a reprimand. Stick around till the end to hear about three special questions to ask your child that will move them toward making positive changes in their everyday lives.
It can be so frustrating when you’re convinced that you know the best course of action your child should take. It’s hard to see them doing things that aren’t in their best interest or simply things you just don’t agree with. You’re asking yourself why they aren’t working harder, or planning for the future, or taking more responsibility for themselves.
When you learn about a mistake they’ve made or a pickle they’ve gotten themselves into, you get hooked by your “righting reflex”—or the urge to tell your child what to do, give them a solution that you think would work better, or “fix” them in some way. Because you only have control over your own actions, you can get pretty desperate in your attempts to persuade your child to do what you want them to do. This is usually driven by anxiety, worry, and fear on your end about the riskiness of their actions. Maybe they’re in distress and you want their suffering to end—because then you will be in less distress.
So you argue your position, you debate with them, or you threaten to take loved items away. But instead of taking your wisdom to heart, your child reacts with anger, defensiveness, irritation, annoyance, and agitation. You’re no closer to getting them to change and your relationship with them becomes strained. You end up feeling helpless because you just can’t force your kid to do what you feel is the “right” thing.
You might have tons of ideas about why and what your child should change, but if they don’t like those ideas—you’re stuck. Usually, the more anxious you are about your child’s behavior, the more controlling of them you tend to be. When your child gets the feeling that you judge their point of view as misguided and irrelevant, and are trying to impose your ideas on them, they close themselves off from you. They feel unseen, unheard, and resistant to change.
What if you could engage the part of your child that does want to change, elicit the reasons they might want to change, and strengthen your relationship with your child at the same time? Let’s face it—most kids want to be autonomous beings who follow their own path. Motivational interviewing (MI) skills can help you help your child to take their own path!
MI is a way of being with your child—coming alongside them rather than trying to lead or direct them. This way they don’t need to take up their sword and shield in preparation for battle with you and your parental expectations. They can lay down their defenses and think about what they want for themselves, which is the beginning of them making a change.
Mind you, this isn’t about covert manipulation or somehow secretly “getting” your child to do what you want. This way of engaging with your child requires a genuine desire to understand their motivations and help them reach the goals they say they have. Your only goal is to better understand their current thinking and see if they might be open to some rethinking. It has to be genuinely okay with you that they make a decision for themselves.
It might sound far-fetched, but when you ground yourself in the belief that your child is doing the best that they can do at any given time, listen carefully, and meet your child exactly where they are, you can have collaborative conversations with them in which you help your child make a positive change in their life that they actually want to make and help them identify the reasons they want to make that change.
Originally developed for use with problem drinkers, and found to be effective for strengthening motivation for change in many different types of people and problems, motivational interviewing (MI) is a therapeutic and person-centered approach to enhancing a person’s motivation to make a change by helping them resolve their ambivalence about changing.
Sometimes your child’s uncertainty or inability to make a choice is because they want two opposite or conflicting things at the same time, or they keep switching between the two. Their conflict is between making changes in their behaviors that will probably be beneficial versus not making that beneficial change because it seems difficult to do - and they’re not even entirely sure at this point that it will work.
Ideally, you already have a connected relationship with your child and they generally trust you. But even if that’s something you’re still working on, it’s important to establish a trusting connection from the outset of any change-focused conversation that you initiate with your child. To help draw out their own thoughts and ideas, use the MI principles and skills in the spirit of being collaborative, non-judgmental, and compassionate rather than confrontational. Have a laser focus on your child’s autonomy, their point of view, and their experiences rather than your own.
You can build rapport and create a space of open communication using the four principles of MI.
During these open and collaborative conversations you can guide the process toward “change talk.” These are statements that reveal your child’s consideration of, motivation for, or commitment to change. You want to evoke, listen for and expand on your child’s statements or non-verbal communications that indicate they might be considering the possibility of change. The more they talk about change, the more likely they are to change.
You can gradually move the process forward and elicit a discussion about change by using MI “microskills” that you can remember with the acronym “OARS”.
Before you try tackling a weighty issue with your child, try using MI strategies in a lower-stakes situation like resistance to putting their clean and folded laundry away. Start with the following two or three open-ended questions.
1. “On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning ‘I’m not ready at all’, and 10 meaning ‘I’m ready to do it right now’, how ready are you to put your laundry away (or whatever task you’re hoping they do)?”
2. “Okay, why didn’t you pick a lower number?”
3. If their answer is 1, ask “What can we do to get you to a 2?”
See what you did there? When you ask about readiness versus desire you’re implying that the task will get done sometime and they’re less likely to say, “1.” With the second question, if they pick a number higher than 1, you’re essentially asking them to tell you—and hear themselves say out loud—why they should put the laundry away!
Even if they do say 1, and you ask how you could work together to make that a 2, your child has to brainstorm solutions that will help them put the laundry away, so you’re still getting closer to them actually doing it!
Remember to take the role of a consultant—putting the responsibility of choice on your child. Offer support and don’t try to force them to do anything. Ask open-ended questions and listen reflectively—holding up a mirror so they can see and hear their own thoughts more clearly. If you hear them expressing the desire to make a beneficial change in their current behavior, see if you can guide them toward a plan!
Imagine that you’re trying to sense your child’s inner world—the personal and private meanings they make about their environment and experiences—as if it were your own. But stay mindful of that “as if” quality—remembering that you’re a separate self with your own perspective, you’re just pressing pause on your perspective temporarily. The goal is to take an active interest in seeing the situation through your child’s eyes.
If you’ve historically used coercive strategies—like punishments and rewards—to control your kid’s behavior, they may be hesitant to have these kinds of conversations, assuming they’ll end up being forced into something whether they like it or not. In that case, you can lead with something like: “I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. You’re a smart enough kid to make decisions like this, and I want you to make an informed decision. Is it okay if we just talk about it a little bit without anyone forcing you to do anything in particular?” This is much more likely to keep your kiddo open to the conversation.
When your child is upset or brings you a problem, before you do or say anything, count to 10 in your head. Then, start with: “What I’m getting is…” then mirror back to them what they’ve said. This gets you some buy-in for the conversation and stops you from launching into advice mode. Then just hang with them in their hard feelings—create space using empathy and validation, not offering advice unless your child specifically asks for it. While listening reflectively, don’t ask more than two questions in a row, and have no other goal than a great conversation that strengthens closeness and connection.
Always focus your reflections on behavior change, so only reflect back the topic you want them to talk more about—which is the behavior that’s a target for change. You want to explore with them how their current behavior fits in with their long-term goals. And get used to awkward silences—your child is processing in that silence, so go slower than you think!
You’ll notice that as your child struggles to explain their thought process they hear their thoughts and feelings with more clarity. They’ll start grasping the complexity of their situation and seeing the gaps in their knowledge or angles they hadn’t yet considered.
Be patient with yourself. Reflective listening requires lots of practice. And you can practice in your everyday life with anyone, not just your kids!
Let me know what you learn!
—
It’s intensely difficult to see your child struggling in any way. It’s hard not to jump in with fixes and advice. Resist this urge by engaging in some self-validation: it makes sense that you’re worried! You love your child so much and you want them to be healthy, happy, and safe. At the same time, this worry is your own problem to manage, not your child’s. You might need to hear yourself say out loud: “I have this impulse to tell you what you should do, and I’m really trying to hold back. It’s my problem—not yours, and I’m working on it.”
It’s not your responsibility as a parent to make your child change. And anyway, your child won’t change until they’re ready—and that may or may not be when or how you think they should. In these moments it helps to embrace your role as a guide or advisor rather than a director of your child’s life.
Instead of trying to force your kid to change by attacking, shaming, or endlessly advising them, help them to see the inconsistencies between what they say is important to them and what they’re actually doing. Draw out your child’s own reasons for potentially making positive changes. Call attention to the nuances in their thinking, and they may become more open in their perspectives.
Using these MI skills can help you guide your child toward their own intrinsic motivation to make the change they want for themselves, but know that you may not come to a place of resolution after just one conversation. Your child may need to process the conversation on their own time. The change you’re hoping for may not happen immediately or right in front of you, but you’ve gotten the ball rolling and often that’s enough for them to take it from there.
If you listen well, have healthy boundaries with your kids, and have compassion for them this creates the conditions that facilitate change. They’ll let you help them think through a problematic situation and you won’t have to come up with all the ideas alone. And when you’re able to get below the surface of whatever self-defeating or less-than-ideal behavior your child is engaging in, you’ll find that most kids want what’s best for them and that they know the best and most efficient way to achieve that—because they are the expert in themselves!