Addicted to Teasing

Q: Our 5-year-old son loves to tease his 7-year-old sister—and when I say, love, I mean it’s nearly constant throughout the day. We’ve tried time outs in his room when he teases her but that hasn’t slowed the taunting. Part of the problem is that he can so easily get under her skin with a comment, and I can tell he loves getting a rise out of her! What can we do?

A: Your son has become addicted to teasing. Right now, he receives lots of attention when he teases his sister—both from her and you. And children who get attention for doing something will keep on doing it until you step in with an offer he can’t refuse (a la the Godfather Principle, attributed to John Rosemond).

Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The easiest way to address this is to institute the ticket system for teasing. Write down (or use illustrations if he can’t read yet) three target behaviors related to teasing, such as name-calling, put downs, etc. Post that sheet on the fridge along with four tickets (squares of cardboard or construction paper). Each day, he starts out with a clean slate of four tickets—essentially, his margin of error. Every time he teases his sister, he loses a ticket. All you have to do is call the infraction and have him remove the ticket from the fridge.

When he’s used up his “free” quota (i.e., all four tickets), then he’s confined to his room for the rest of the day and goes to bed directly after supper--and make supper early than usual. This system works because you’re not talking about the teasing with either child—you’re only calling the infraction in a calm tone.

It’s likely that he’ll race through his tickets at first because he’s not learned how to control his tongue. But if he’s like my sons, the thought of being indoors during this glorious springtime will drive him to figure out how to stop teasing. As he progressives and starts losing fewer tickets, you should take away a ticket at a time, to tighten up his margin of error gradually. When you get down to one ticket, you can suspend the program, as you can’t expect perfection.

As for his sister, tell her that you are handling it, that she’s not to tattle-tale about the teasing, and that her brother is younger and therefore needs more time to learn self-control. You don’t want her gleeful at his mistakes, so make sure you don’t accidentally appoint her in the role of victim, thereby placing him in the role of villain.

Email Sarah if you have a parenting question you would like to see answered on this blog.

A Wordy Problem

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

But words will never hurt me.

Whoever thought up that little ditty probably never was teased as a child. Words do hurt, especially those uttered by family members. We do our children a disservice when we gloss over teasing, taunting and name-calling by our offspring. As parents, it’s our job to help our kids understand the power of words—and why watching our language is essential to building good relationships with each other and ourselves.

Here are some tips for parents to model—and teach—to our children regarding spoken words.

Image courtesy of farconville/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Speak well of all. We must be careful not to bad-mouth anyone in front of our children—not another child, not a teacher, not our spouse. We should also halt any talk among our children that denigrates another, even if that person is not part of the conversation. Ask them how they would feel if a friend or classmate said that about them. Remind them to always strive to speak well of everyone, even those they don’t like. The old adage “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” still retains its wisdom and is an easy way for children to remember their manners.

Watch the language. One of the most destructive things in any relationship is name-calling. Calling someone names that are derogatory, disparaging, belittling, deprecating, derisive, and ridiculing tears apart the relationship. Ban name calling of any sort in our homes, and address name calling seriously when you overhear a child do so. Yes, all children will sometimes call one another “Stupid,” or “Dummy,” etc., especially when vexed, but we should try to nip destructive speech in the bud.

No teasing. Taunting, while not strictly name-calling, is its kissing cousin as far as its destructive nature. Teasing can trigger fighting among siblings, friends, classmates, etc. We need to discourage interactions that are mean, belittle or knock down the other person. Teasing can become a habit for some children, too, so it might take discipline for the child to break the habit.

Check motivation. We like to think our intentions are always good and noble, but the reality is, it’s usually not. Children’s consciences are in the developmental stage, so we have to guide them to look inside their hearts when it comes to their speech. To help kids do this, here are some questions you can ask them:

• Are you being a tattle-tale?
• What did you hope to gain?
• What did you think you would lose?
• What do you think the other person felt when you said that?

These are just some of the ways we can help our children to develop more self-control over their words. What are some ways you do this in your home?

Until next time,

Sarah