labeling

Label their goals

Label their goals

When you label what your kids are after, you put a concrete definition on the next steps (implicitly or explicitly). “you really want my attention”, “you want him to hurt just like you do”, “you got mad when I said it’s time to stop the game”.

Maybe it seems kind of dumb to say this, because you think it. And you think they are thinking it. But what if they aren’t? What if it’s just a tangled ball of intensity and not much definition? By giving it some definition, you’re helping your kids make connections between how they feel and what they do, and THAT’S how you start to see behaviors change! This is literally the start of taking ownership.