Oh, this is an interesting one.
I wonder if my mother put this in.
My 8-year-old is a saint at school. However, she is so disrespectful to us, her parents, at home.
How do we deal with this?
Alright, so let's imagine with me for a second, and we're gonna use the word disrespect.
What is disrespect at home? What's actually happening?
“No, I don't want it.” Well, interestingly enough, we put ourselves in roles—how we see ourselves in relationship to others.
At school, I might have had a teacher that taught me, “You have to be respectful. You have to do these things.” And I followed the rules at school because I didn’t want to get in trouble.
But what happens if at home, I'm told, “Well, this is the family troublemaker. This is the child that's always in trouble.”
Everybody in every family has a role that they take upon themselves.
You're the peacemaker. You're the black sheep.
You are the smart one. You are the math whiz.
You are the geek. You are the cheerleader.
You are the academically, physically—whatever it may be.
We put each other in these roles.
We do it almost subconsciously. We put ourselves in them.
We put family members in them.
I mean, I can tell you in our families, we can tell you whose role is what.
For the most part, we understand each other, those traits.
So I wonder how this child got to the point where they're getting energy—and I’m gonna use that word intentionally here—energy, by being negative.
What would happen if they got positive energy?
So when they were doing something good, you caught them doing something good and you praised them for it.
Now that might change their perception of their role.
And the more we do that—in other words, catch them doing good things—the more effective we can be as parents.
So there's the defiance. What is the defiance about?
I'm gonna put it up here. We’re gonna call the defiance—we’re gonna call that a misbehavior.
But underneath the misbehavior, there's always a reason why. Always a story.
What we’re trying to do is peel back the onion metaphorically to get to the root cause of the misbehavior.
I don't know why the child’s misbehaving, but my invitation to the parent who asked the question is: ask a deeper question.
I wonder why this child is misbehaving.
Why are they doing that? Why are they being defiant? Why?
If you don't know the answer, go get more data, because this is really important.
If I were roleplaying with this parent, I’d say, “This is really important for you and your child.”
So ask some questions.
“It feels to me like you really don’t want to do what Mommy or Daddy asked you to do. Do you know why not?”
Ask some questions. Get to talk with them. See how they respond.
They may not even know.
They might just automatically be defiant, saying no, because that's how they get your attention.
Or maybe they're trying to get another point across to you.
Or maybe they're trying to say something else.
I don’t know. I would invite you to find out.
So that would be my invitation or a starting point.
There are a whole lot of other questions I would want to ask here.
But the more information you get, the more you can understand the defiance.
Help me understand—because now I might even say, “It seems when Mom or Dad asks you a question, your automatic response is no.”
Or you don’t want to, or you get upset.
“I wonder why you’re mad at me. That’s what it feels like.”
“I’m not mad at you. I just don’t want to do this.”
“Okay, so you’re not mad at me. That’s good, because I really love you. But something here is happening, and when I ask you to do that, you get upset or angry.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that I have to do that, and blah, blah.”
And now we’re starting to get the story.
So we’re trying to get the story from our children.
We’re trying to get them to communicate and talk.
Notice now I’m not focusing on the misbehavior.
I’m trying to get the story and my child to share that story with me so I can actually understand what they’re going through and what they’re experiencing.
That’s much more effective, and that’s what I would try to focus on.
