My Kid Hides At The Top Of The Slide, Too

As a behavioral parenting expert, I use my knowledge and skills when parenting my own child. Despite my expertise, my child is still a child. There is nothing I can do, for example, to fully extinguish defiant behavior (nor do I want to for that matter, as this is a very important developmental process)!

That is why when we were at the park yesterday (or Spielplatz as he calls it), I was standing at the bottom of the slide telling my kid we needed to go home after 1 more slide down, while he was “hiding” at the top. By hiding, I mean trying to squeeze himself into the space between the stairs and the slide where he thought I maybe couldn’t see him and not following my request. He had his own agenda and was trying to assert his independence.

My kid does this too, it’s not different from what pretty much every parent experiences. What is different compared to many parents’ experience, given my knowledge and skills regarding these kinds of situations, are things like:

• Total time spent dealing with the situation (relatively little, <5 mins in this case)

• My level of frustration (low)

• Level of effort involved on my end (low, can handle with verbal commands and no threats etc.)

• My kid’s experience (no theatrics, relatively quick compliance)

The #1 skill that I use to achieve this response is consistency across every aspect of my interactions with him as much as humanly possible. That way when I say, “It’s time to go home and you need to come down now, please”, he knows I mean it, because I mean what I say.

If you are struggling with these kinds of situations and want to learn more, contact me for your free intro call and let’s get to work!