Neighborhood Doctor: What We Teach Our Children?
All kiddos will make mistakes as they grow-up it is a consistent and inescapable part of childhood. As parents it is out job to help correct those behaviors and teach them behaviors that are acceptable and those that are not.
Tune into this episode to learn how we can best respond to our kids when they lash out and knowing that it is not their fault, join us for this episode of Neighborhood Doctor to learn more.
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Our Host
Dr. Ryan Hassan
Transcript:
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (00:01)
I am Ryan, pediatrician and dad here to answer my patient's most common questions. So you're playing with your baby and all of a sudden she gets upset and starts yelling and hitting and biting. What do you do? Every child will make mistakes in poor choices as they grow up. It's a consistent routine and inescapable part of childhood.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (00:21)
And as parents, we often think that our job is to correct those behaviors and teach children the behaviors that are acceptable and those that are not. And in this punitive society that we live in, it's a natural tendency to simply punish bad behaviors and reward good ones. Your child hits you, put them in a timeout, or sit them in the corner, or maybe you even hit them back. These consequences are very harmful to our children and do not actually teach them the lessons we'd like them to learn. Children who learn to behave based on the punishments and rewards that they might receive, turn in adults who act based on punishments and rewards. That doesn't lead to good decision making. It leads to trying to get away with things. It leads to not understanding how to process emotions and feelings appropriately, and it leads to not being able to communicate our needs.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (01:15)
I think it's helpful for parents to understand when your child is acting in a way that you feel is unacceptable. It's important to remember that our behaviors and our children's behaviors reflect our needs. And when children are lashing out in anger or frustration, it's because they have an unmet need and that is the best way that they know how to get that need met. And it is our job as good and loving parents to accept that and understand that our children are doing their best and that we need to learn to help them how to communicate more clearly and how to understand what they're trying to tell us. When your child is hitting you, it's because you have failed to understand what your child's needs are. Now, that doesn't mean you are a failure. My child hit all the time because I frequently failed to understand what she wants.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (02:06)
And that's not my fault. That's because I speak a different language than her. I'm a grownup and she's a child, and she doesn't have all the same words that I do, and she doesn't have the same understanding of her feelings that I do. And I have to teach her those things by communicating clearly. And I'm not gonna accomplish that by simply telling her she's in trouble or yelling or hitting. Often the lessons that we teach as parents are not those we intend. And I think a good way to understand this is by an example. I had a patient I saw years ago with autism who would steal routinely from people, and his father, who was separated from his mother, felt that the best way to deal with this was to forbid his child from visiting him anymore. And the last time I spoke with that child, he hadn't seen his father in months.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (02:54)
Now, this father presumably believed he was teaching his child that stealing was wrong. I having spoken to his child, knew that his child already knew this. This kid knew that stealing was wrong. He still continued to do it even though he didn't want to, and even though he wanted to see his dad. So what he actually learned from his dad's decision, what his dad's punishment was that his father's love and attention was conditional, and that if he did not behave in a way that his father demanded, his father wouldn't wanna spend time with him. So when you're trying to think about how you want to react to your child's behaviors that you don't like, I think it's helpful to bear in mind what kind of relationship you want with your child as they grow older, because you're not going to be able to put them in timeout when they're an adult or when they're an angsty teen, and when they inevitably make mistakes when they're older throughout their entire lives as they will do, do you want them to think, oh no, I have to tell my parents I wonder what they'll think. Or do you want 'em to think, oh no, I have to tell my parents they'll know what to do. If you can be a source of wisdom and understanding and calm for your child, then you can help them learn how to understand what they're feeling, how to communicate their needs, and how to get their needs met in a way that is helpful to others and help them learn how to be the kind of person you want them to be, rather than how to avoid unnecessary consequences.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (04:21)
So that's my show. If you have any medical questions you'd like me to answer, reach out to Boost Oregon online and come back next week for a new episode of boosting our Voices with my friend Ari.