“Stop fighting with your sister!”

“Help pick up the toy room!”

“Clean up after dinner!”

“Just put your shoes on!”

“It’s not that hard!”

Sound familiar?

Why don’t kids listen? And then throw massive meltdowns when we try to get them to do simple tasks? We hear this all the time at our office.

This was Doctor Andy. He was the kid who couldn’t handle simple tasks.

That’s why at Radiant Life we’ve put together a 4 steps to help you navigate through this.

So because Doctor Andy wasn’t able to complete simple tasks, he found himself always in trouble, always with some kind of punishment. This probably sounds familiar to a lot of parents, but constantly being in trouble translates to never being good enough. This is so sad and so frustrating.

This pattern for Doctor Andy lead to choices that lead to more failure and then thoughts of suicide. This also lead to him numbing with substances late in high school.

This isn’t what we want for anyone. This isn’t a path anyone should have to take. Kids in pure overwhelm is not what we want.

So what do we do to help?

Trust us that there is hope!

Step 1.

Understand (with Grace) that a child’s capacity to handle instructions and handle assignments just isn’t there. Sometimes, and often times in our office, this is genuinely the case. These kids aren’t able to process the information being thrown at them properly.

Step 2.

Divide the big tasks into smaller tasks that they can accomplish. We want to give them the chance to actually succeed, not fail, and create the pattern of accomplishment. Just like how we celebrate when a baby takes their first step, we celebrate every single step along the way to help encourage their self worth. Create patterns of accomplishments to encourage instead of creating patterns of disappointment. 

Step 3.

Give them an underserved chance to succeed. Every kid wants to be celebrated. Every kid wants to perform well for their parents. Give them the opportunity to try again without being hard on them. Give them GRACE. An example would be if they don’t pick up their room right away, give them a chance to try again. Creating these moments of Grace gives them the opportunity to succeed without feeling like a failure.

Step 4.

Have firm boundaries. Grace is not letting kids do whatever they want to do. If you let your kids do whatever they want, they’ll think they run the show. 

Our firm boundaries in the office include respecting the doctors, the staff, the other kids and people in the office, and our property. This is when Doctor Andy steps in and communicates boundaries and moves the child to safe place for him or her and the rest of the people and place being affected. It’s so important to communicate if something a child is doing is hurting other people. There’s clear, firm boundaries and communication to create a beautiful atmosphere of GRACE. 

This is what Grace looks like at Radiant Life. We love getting to grow and learn with the families at our office and are here for any questions we can answer.

We’re so thankful to be able to connect with every family that connects with us! 

Message us. We’d love to hear from you!