Way to go, you've made it through almost the entire course. Take time to recognize all the hard work that you've put into the process to change your parenting skills. In this lesson, I want to take some time and focus on a few things to keep in mind when you're implementing the right approach, things that will either increase or decrease the effectiveness of these strategies. First thing you need to be aware of your body language. If you're giving your child two choices, or you're redirecting, but your your body language is saying, I'm not in the mood. You've got your arms crossed or standing with your hands on your hips.

This may still produce that same tension. I love to get down on the child's level. I also like to stand facing the same direction with them to show that I'm on their team, we're working on this together. Another thing to keep in mind is your tone of voice. Think back to those phrases we talked about from your boss, saying some of those phrases in the right tone of voice might actually come across, okay? Like, do you want to go?

Do you want to go right now? You're kind of telling me with your behavior you want to go home? Or I'm gonna count to three. Are you ready? Let's see if we can be all done. One to see how that could be much more acceptable.

On the flip side, if we use the wrong tone of voice when we're giving our child two choices, like I said, Do you want an apple or banana? So be aware of your tone of voice when you're speaking with a child. Another thing to keep in mind is keep your interactions with your child. This especially the In those moments, when they're showing inappropriate behaviors, keep them private. Not everyone in the playground or at the party should hear you reprimand your child from across the room, you should go towards your child. Once out, I was at a restaurant, I heard this mom from about 10 feet away, try to get her three year old who was playing at the little train table, try to get his attention.

And she literally said 10 times, look at me, look at me. Look at me, going on and on. All she had to do is walk over to her son, and let them know, Hey, you got two more minutes and then we're going to eat. He would hear her without looking at her. So go directly to your child. Squat down, get on their level.

And that's when you could have that quick moment. Hey, what's going on? Hey, remember we talked about this? Do you need some help? That's where you can coach your child. Just like a kid on the tee ball field, the coach is going to come up to give them a couple pointers, then the kid gets a chance to implement what she just learned.

Good stuff, right? Here's another. I like to think about when I'm giving a child a direction. I like to think in my mind, am I going to follow through with this, if I'm going to follow through to make my child do this, then I'll give them that instruction. If there's a chance that I might be too busy doing my work or my focus on something else, and I tell them to go put on their shoes, then I shouldn't tell them to put on their shoes. You need to be ready to help them to complete their task.

So think before you give an instruction, am I going to follow through with this? And if you are, then give them an instruction. Give them a few seconds to respond. then help them Oh, here your shoes. Bring the shoes right to them. It's right there ready for them to put on.

And you can guide them to put on their shoes. And now they're ready to get all the credit. Hey, you're ready. All right, let's go. Here's another, he or she who gives the demand must follow through with it. We don't want too many cooks in the kitchen situation.

This helps with the prior idea of being more thoughtful with our demands. You can tell your spouse, if I tell Susie to do something, I got it. But if you do, and it's all on you keep each other accountable. Of course, there are times when we can assist each other but just avoid multiple people jumping on top of the child with too many demands. Have you seen a photo shoot where 12 adults are telling a young child to smile never ends well. Another thing I'd like you to think about is to set clear expectations Tell your child exactly what you're looking for.

When you go to the supermarket, or when you go to the playground, tell them the behaviors you want to see, rather than the behaviors. You don't want to see. Like, hey, all right, we're heading to the park. What are a couple things we need to remember? Oh, yeah, okay, we got a we got to take turns. That's right.

Okay, good. Okay, yeah, we got to check in every five minutes. Great. All right. Okay, cool. That's a good one.

We got to keep our hands to ourselves. That's right. Okay. So focus on the positive behaviors, the behaviors you want to see more of, and then notice those when your child's doing them. I highly recommend you practice behaviors. If you know your child struggles with the playground or going to the supermarket, or getting dropped off at school, practice, practice, practice.

Just those behaviors outside of the actual time that the behaviors happening, make a little school area in your house and practice that drop off. I know I did with my own daughter. One day I was dropping her off at her daycare. walked her in and she got really emotional like you want me to leave as she came this big hug. I was like, I don't want this. I don't want to have a have a difficult situation where I drop her off at her school.

So I made a mental note and I knew I need to practice this one when we get home later that day. So we did we set up a school I dropped her off. We practice we gave each other hug we said by the next morning, I go to drop her off. We did the same thing. We got our hands we went to hug each other since we practiced it. And it's like my daughter was an actress.

She's by dad. I just smile so big and she went off and played with her friends. So remember, if you ever have an issue with whatever it may be be using the bathroom or bathtime, your bedroom routine, practice those. It's fun. Your kids will like to practice those and they like to receive your praise for their behavior. And if it doesn't work, don't give up.

Keep practicing. And remember, we're trying to help our children develop a new skill and be patient with them. Alright, those are the things that I like to keep in mind. That's a ton of stuff. And you have so much to keep in mind when you're interacting with your children. And it may seem like, How am I supposed to remember all this stuff?

What I like to do is to try focusing on one of these, and then the next day, focus on another and then focus on another and over time, six months from now, your behavior will have changed because you're focusing more and more and better Be more purposeful with your interactions. Head on over to the next lesson, where I'll be teaching skills for co parenting