That your son listens to you is a matter of knowing how to ask him what you want from him. This skill is related to the so-called assertiveness, a resource of emotional intelligence that helps you to say what you think, feel and want clearly.
Assertiveness is a social skill that avoids aggressiveness as a way of achieving what one wants or doing what one wants; on the contrary, it allows you to do it always considering how you say it so as not to hurt the other person’s emotionality.
It is a great task of upbringing, because between impatience, stress, grumpiness, tiredness from day to day, we forget to think about how we are talking to children.
Although it is important that you are assertive with your partner and other adults, the most important thing is that you be so with your child so that he can imitate you, especially, little by little he assimilates the coherence between your words and your actions, which you ask and example.
USE THESE PHRASES
They will help you in practice to be assertive with your child. Try them in each case, with constancy.
- Instead of saying: you can’t, say … I don’t want you to.
- Instead of saying: no candy left, say … I don’t want you to eat candy.
- Instead of saying: you have to eat it all, say … I want you to finish everything.
- Instead of saying: the internet doesn’t work, say … I don’t want you to go online
- Instead of saying: daddy can’t play, say … now I don’t want to play son
- Instead of saying: the lord says you can’t run, say … I don’t want you to run here.
Do you realize the enormous power of the phrase “I want or I don’t want”?
Apply it and tell us how it worked for you.