Penelope's Place Childcare

Children need to be resilient in order to adapt to an unknown and constantly evolving future. You can support the development of resilience by helping children focus on creative problem-solving.

You will always see more of the behavior that you give attention to. If you give a lot of attention to negative behaviors, you will see more negative behaviors. If you give a lot of attention to positive behaviors, you will see more positive behaviors.

When kids use crying to distract from being corrected, or because they didn’t get what they wanted, we say

“That won’t work.” (Talking a lot about the issue while the kid is crying is reinforcing the crying!) say “here’s a place where you can cry. When you are all done crying, we can talk about … how to solve the problem.”

Ignore the behavior – not the child!

Then walk away, turn your back, talk to someone else, etc. When the child stops crying, you can re-engage with the child, defining the problem, generating solutions, etc. You can also use this “ignoring” time to gather your own thoughts about what happened and where you want this interaction to go. It’s okay to ask the kid if they are ready to solve the problem while they are still upset but be sure they know they must stop crying before you can help solve the problem.

Under no circumstances is it helpful to keep talking while the kid is crying. That reinforces crying as a way to get attention.

One example of how this works is when we are walking to the park and someone falls. Rushing over to offer sympathy while the child is crying is not helpful. Crying to get someone else to rescue them is not a life skill. We try not to rescue because teaching kids to rely on someone else to rescue them is disabling i.e.: teaching them that they are not capable of solving problems! We teach children how to get their needs met independently. This is the reason we focus more on what caused the fall. You’ll notice that almost always the kid is interested in why they fell. By focusing on the cause of the fall, we EMPOWER kids! We are teaching them that this is something that they can have some power and control over – they can change their behavior to avoid another fall – (stay on the sidewalk, etc.) We are giving our attention to problem-solving. If a kid needs a lot of attention, and they get a lot of attention for getting hurt, they will get hurt more often. We do not teach kids to be Victims. We teach kids to be Problem Solvers.

After the kid stops crying is the time to offer hugs. (Try: “I can help you when you stop crying” or “I can’t help while you are making so much noise.”) Indicate that when the fussing stops –  you are available to help – offer once – not repeatedly.

Penelope’s Place raises kids who are confident, resilient problem solvers. We know that little kids are generally a lot smarter than folks give them credit for and we want them to know it too.