Swearing, lying and punching on + other great kid behaviour
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Hello and happy start to term 2 for those of us in Australia. I am not sure if it was because of the school holidays or if there is something in the air but over the last few weeks, I have received a number of questions from parents on some of the less desirable kid behaviours.
I have written this many time before but will write it again, I love my kids wholeheartedly but they are not perfect and I am not a perfect parent. On the whole, we have pretty good family harmony but there are times when the kids fight, times when they annoy me and I annoy them.
If I were to list what the key issues for disharmony in our house at this stage of our family life it would look like this:
Not enough individual space in the house for having older and adult children all still living at home
Having five kids sharing one bathroom (and I prefer to forget some of the times recently when we were down to one bathroom for all seven of us when we were having the other shower fixed!)
Lack of tolerance/empathy for the stages each other is in from the kids
I really try not to act as a referee in these situations as it is a no-win situation for me but I do note what the root cause is and try to tackle that outside of the heat of the moment. Sometimes I do better at this than others and to be successful it does require me to be present, to listen more than I talk, and to ensure that everyone feels that their voice is heard. It also requires me to be creative with the space and resources we have.
This stage of family life is quite different from the questions that readers have sent in. They are asking questions like:
How do you get the kids to stop hitting each other?
What do you do when kids lie to you?
The tween has started swearing how can I get him to stop?
In a newsletter many years ago I wrote about these issues as it was something that we were experiencing then. I have included it below so those parents who are currently facing these challenging behaviours can see what worked for us
Swearing, lying and punching on - originally published in 2014
My kids are now aged 15, 13, 10.5, 8 and 5.5. I spend much more of my time and emotional energy on the older two at the moment. I know that in their hearts they are all good kids. This is also backed up by the feedback I receive from friends and from their school reports.
Most of what I write next relates to the older three. If you have kids under 10 it still may be applicable, but I have also added some links to parenting style posts at the end which may be more helpful to you.
Like me, my kids are not perfect and they do lots of things I wish they wouldn't. They do things that they know they shouldn't and sometimes are instantly remorseful for. They do things sometimes they know they shouldn't and are only sorry they got caught doing it! Here are some of the less desirable behaviours we have been dealing with in our house recently:
Swearing
I have to admit that I do swear. Not a huge amount, but regular enough that all my kids have heard me swear. I am working on stopping this as it is really hard to ask the kids not to swear when you do it. Role modelling the right behaviour is far more effective than just telling them what they should or shouldn't do.
Our approach to swearing varies on the age of the child. We tend to let the 15-year-old say a few expletives, but with some boundaries:
No swearing in front of the younger kids
No calling parents swear words
And there are certain swear words that are never acceptable to be said in the house
A problem with this approach has been that the 13-year-old has started copying some of his older brother's behaviour in this regard. So last weekend there were serious discussions to be had with him. I explained that yes the 15-year-old gets away with a bit of swearing, but we did not let him get away with it when he was 13 and he will not be getting away with it either. Every time I caught him swearing I allocated him a household task. After having to hand wash a large pile of pots and pans, he seemed to get the idea and we had no more swearing (in front of me at least) for the rest of the weekend.
Lying
I find lying is such a tricky behaviour to deal with. It seems like once the kids reach about 10, there can be a tendency to go for self-preservation, embellishing the truth and denial of actions. I want to show the kids I trust them, yet I know what their weaknesses are and what they may fudge the truth on.
I don't have a perfect solution for dealing with lying, but this is how we approach it:
We have drummed into the kids that they are better off telling the truth as the consequences for lying are always more serious.
I don't ask questions of the kids when I know the answer and I think they will lie in response - eg did you eat the chocolate when they unknowingly have chocolate all over their face!
If we have an issue in the house that I think no one will own up to, I try and provide a way out for the kids. Eg if someone has taken some coins I had sitting on the kitchen bench. It needs to be returned while I am out at the shops.
Have consequences for lying that are natural or logical. Eg they tell me they have cleaned their room before they go out and in fact, they just shoved everything into their wardrobe, upon returning they need to completely fix that up and then vacuum their room on top of that.
Punching on
Unfortunately, our kids do get physical with each other. Mainly the older two boys. I do find this upsetting and when there is anger involved I do worry that they could really hurt each other. We have made it clear to all the kids that we won't accept violent and aggressive behaviour, but it still happens. To date (things always change with parenting!) this is how we are dealing with it:
Consequences for punching, hitting, kicking etc are they receive a large household task like folding up the washing.
I will listen to explanations before enforcing the consequences.
We have a provocation rule, where if one child is persistently provoking another (in the hope they get them to react and hit out and have to do a job), they will also receive a household task to complete.
We repeatedly discuss better ways to react to each other.
Other awesome kid behaviour
There are many other forms of undesirable behaviour we get from time to time from our kids, these posts might help as well:
Hope your week has been great so far and continues to be great!
Nic