In the first half of the course we focussed on relationship development with
Now we are moving on to managing behaviour.
So this week we’ll be looking at how to give instructions in a way that is specific and clear to our child. First we’ll be looking at how to ignore some negative behaviours (and how to stay calm whilst doing so); so that we can focus on those behaviours which cannot be ignored and which must improve.
Remind the parents that the subjects we covered last week were
Emotions
Specific Praise
Ask if anyone have any interesting results after last week that they would like to share, or any questions they would like to ask. Once any sharing has finished, hold up a copy of the One to One Time Diary which you handed out last week and ask how their One to One time assignments went; ask
Did anyone have anything to share about the One to One time assignment? Any problems? Any questions?
You now give a short presentation about ignoring and staying calm
With your assistant do a brief demonstration (based on the Santiago/Nicola “biscuit” scenario) of ignoring.
Assign the parents into pairs and ask them to turn to the Ignoring and Staying Calm Exercise in their Parenting Workbooks.
Ask them in their pairs to spend a couple of minutes:
· listing any behaviours they can ignore in their home context
· listing any behaviours they can not ignore in their home context
In their pairs ask the parents to role-play ignoring and staying calm. Give them two minutes each to play the child and the parent.
Bring the pairs back into the group as a whole and ask them:
· What kind of behaviours did they decide they can ignore? Do they have any concerns about this?
· If the children choose to escalate their behaviour, what will they do?
Do they have any way of helping themselves to keep calm while they are ignoring?
You now give a short presentation about clear instructions
Ask the parents to get into pairs again and turn to the Clear Instructions exercise in their Parenting Workbook.
There are five examples of poor or unclear instructions; ask them to work in their pairs to turn each one into a clear instruction.
Come back together as a group and go through the five poor instructions; ask them to call out ideas of better ways of wording the instructions. Ask if they have any questions or examples of other instructions they would like to improve.
Hand out copies of the One to One Time diary, explain how to use it and ask them to fill it in over the week for discussion next week.