The Art Of Negotiating With Children
Should I negotiate with my children? That’s a question I hear many parents asking. That’s a very good question. And to answer it, let’s look at how the world operates.
You want a day off work. You go to your boss and say “please can I take Friday off work as a flex day? If you let me, I will have such and such done on time and I will meet all my deadlines, I promise”. Your boss has two choices. He can say “OK, that’s fine, I will allow that to happen”. Or he could say “no, I really need you here on Friday. That’s not possible”.
Why am I mentioning adults? Because as parents our job is to prepare our children for the adult world. Everything we do for them should be in preparation for the time when they get to live their own lives without any help from us. If we do not prepare them for that we are doing them a disservice.
Now, back to negotiation. It is good to negotiate whenever possible. Allow me to give you an example: My family and I go to church every Sunday. After Sunday the kids all go down to the basketball court to play with their mates. I always find it hard to get them to leave. I reckon they would stay all day if I let them.
I know that every Sunday my kids will give me some resistance about leaving church. I have learned to deal with it. If I go to them and say “OK, kids I would like to leave in five minutes”, they will inevitably say to me “make it fifteen minutes please”. When they say something like this I always have a comeback, and usually it is something like “let’s make it ten minutes and you’ve got yourself a deal”.
Can you see how I am making things easier for me by doing this? Whenever possible you need to allow your children to practice the art of negotiation. It’s a bit of a game really. The kids know what you are doing but they love to do it. They feel like they have some control and kids love to feel in control. Mind you when I play this kind of game with them, I know what outcome I am hoping for prior to starting. They think they are persuading me but I start with the end in mind!
When my daughter has to have a bath at night I don’t just tell her to have a bath. She is quite strong willed at the best of times and would often react in a not so positive way to that statement. So I make it into a game for her as well by saying “Beck, would you like to have a bath before dinner or after dinner?” This gives her the chance to negotiate with me to get the outcome that I wanted all along – Beck to just have a bath before bed time. As parents we need to use the strategies that help us get things done easier. We want to try to avoid battles and power struggles at all costs.
Conclusion: whenever possible, use negotiation to get your kids to do what you wanted them to do anyway. They will love the game and everyone is a winner. Negotiation is a great tool for great parenting, and one of my favourite strategies that I use.
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