Dr Judith Locke: How to convince your child that you’re in charge

Emotional manipulation, bribes and distraction will only get parents so far, writes parenting expert Dr Judith Locke. Here are some solutions to getting obstinate children to do as you say while preventing temper tantrums.

I can’t tell you the number of parents who have talked to me about an almost overnight change in their child. Typically, an older primary school child, who was compliant, suddenly has become unmanageable.

Some parents blame their child’s new teacher or some new friends. And sure, that might be the case. But when I ask further questions, I usually find that it is caused by the way the parent has gained compliance from their child in the past.

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Many parents find three types of instructions work very well when their child is young, but then don’t work at all when their child is older.

Let me go through the trio of short-term effective but long-term ineffective instruction types.

Convincing your child that you’re in charge is easier when they’re young. Picture: iStock

1. Manipulating the relationship

When your child is young then, usually, they are very eager to please you.

This means that it becomes easy to use your admiration as a means of getting them to do things you want them to do.

So, rather than telling a child a direct instruction, one might invoke your feelings, “I’d really like it if you put your shoes in your room.” Or, “It makes me sad when you aren’t nice to your brother.”

That’s often going to work in the younger years when they can think of nothing better than making you happy.

Trouble is, when they become a little older and more their own person, they will calculate the effort of cleaning up their room as being much greater than the pay-off of pleasing you.

That’s when this type of instruction is not going to work.

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2. Magically appearing carrots

This is when you get your child to do an activity by producing some sort of incentive out of the air.

So, if they are taking their time to put their shoes on, you tell them that if they put their shoes on quickly, they will get an ice-cream.

Occasionally, this is not so terrible, but regularly used and it doesn’t actually make them compliant — it just makes them behave appropriately purely for a material incentive.

Unless you are willing to keep offering these gifts, then this strategy is going to stop working. Worse still, it is an external reward, which will muck up their personal, internal motivation to do the right thing.

Bribing your child to put their shoes on will only get you so far. Picture: iStock

3. Distraction

Some parents tell me how great this technique is, and it usually works briefly. So you are at the park and you tell them that you need to leave soon and you can see the beginnings of a tantrum.

Many parents will offer a distraction to help them forget their irritation — “Look at the cute puppy.”

But what happens when your teen demands a new phone or argues with you about playing on the Wii?

I don’t think telling them, “Look, there is a helicopter in the sky”, is going to take their minds off their expectations.

The way you give instructions is more than half the battle of getting them to comply with what you want them to do.

Giving them clear instructions that don’t use any of the above techniques is also going to make them much more likely to see you as the person in charge.

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This will mean that when they do get older and a bit more independent, you are not going to have such a battle on your hands to gain their respect and compliance.

Convincing your child that you’re in charge, is a much more onerous task in the teen years when riskier activities appear on their wish lists, and they’re more independent and strong-willed.

So, do try to get it right now, and make their future much more harmonious … for all.

What are the ideal ways to give instructions at any age?

● Gain their attention — ideally with eye contact.

● Give them a clear calm instruction, “Put your shoes in your room”. Avoid questions. “Would you like to pack your toys away?” is confusing as it sounds like a survey more than an instruction.

● Wait a little bit for them to do it and if they don’t, repeat the instruction in exactly the same way.

● If they comply — praise them. If they don’t, give a consequence such as turning off the TV if they haven’t turned it down as you asked, or a brief ‘time out’ if they’ve refused to clean up their toys.

Dr Locke did her PhD at Queensland University of Technology on the changes in parenting and is now a visiting Fellow at QUT doing ongoing research on modern parenting, child and parent wellbeing and school environments.

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