Disrespect for Your 8-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to teach your child to communicate well; working with them to transform disrespect is an excellent opportunity.   

You can be purposeful and deliberate about how you respond when you feel your child has shown disrespect through words or actions. A child may lash out with words when they feel powerless in an attempt to gain power. You must offer ways for your child to gain power while expressing hurt or angry feelings in ways that demonstrate respect. Learning to respond to anger constructively requires all five social and emotional skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Your reaction to your child can help teach them constructive, healthy ways to be understood, seek and gain power, and respond to others respectfully when angry or upset. 

Seeking power is a typical human need. Everyone desires control over their lives. Yet, children may often feel they lack control over their circumstances, leading to frustration. One essential role parents or those in a parenting role can play is to educate their child on positive ways to seek and use power. 

Parents or those in a parenting role often need to deal with their upset feelings and calm down before responding, so they react in ways that take advantage of the teachable opportunity.

Some parents or those in a parenting role feel that if they do not impose punishments, their child will not understand that their behavior is inappropriate. When a child is punished, they often feel scared, humiliated, and hurt. This overwhelming sense of fear or hurt impacts their relationship with you while also failing to teach them the appropriate behavior. Your child’s sense of injustice and anger may increase. Most importantly, your child will likely miss the lesson you want to emphasize and feel unsafe. 

Research confirms that when children learn to identify, understand, and experience big emotions without feeling overcome, they can better manage their behavior, problem-solve, and focus their attention.¹ Children need the guidance and support of caring adults to learn these skills.

Many parents or those in a parenting role find respect challenging. Approaching challenging, power-seeking words and actions as teachable moments that grow your child’s skills can transform your relationship with your child. The steps below include specific, practical strategies along with effective conversation starters.

Why Transform Disrespect?

When your five-year-old yells, “I hate you!” when frustrated with your “No” response, or your ten-year-old intentionally creates a mess when angry, these situations are opportunities to transform disrespect. 

Today, in the short term, transforming disrespect into learning how to use power and channel anger in healthy ways can create

• a sense of confidence that you can help your child regain calm and focus
• a greater understanding in you of the connection between your child’s feelings and their behaviors 
• trust in each other that you have the competence to manage your intense feelings
• a growing understanding of rules and expectations 

Tomorrow, in the long term, transforming disrespect helps your child

• build skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision making 
• learn independence and self-sufficiency
• grows assertive communication to respectfully express needs and boundaries, which is critical for keeping them safe and ready to deal with various relationships

Five Steps for Transforming Disrespect

This five-step process helps you transform disrespect in your child. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

“Too many children who have problems with behavior also have problems with accurately labeling their feelings.” – Maurice Elias

A child’s behaviors are often influenced by their feelings. Feelings are spontaneous reactions to people, places, and experiences. Feelings are not right or wrong, but your child’s behaviors in response to their feelings may be appropriate or inappropriate. 

You can help your child start understanding their feelings by asking open-ended questions. In gaining input: 

• Uncovering your child’s feelings can transform an unsafe or inappropriate behavior into a teachable moment.
• You can better understand why your child is behaving in a certain way.
• You can teach your child how to understand their feelings, which will help them have more choices over their behaviors.
• You can grow their self-control, social awareness, and problem-solving skills.

Actions

Children ages 5-10 are still learning to understand their feelings, other people’s feelings, and how their actions affect others. They will need your support to figure this out. When both you and your child are calm, reflect on your child’s feelings so you can be prepared to help. 

• Ask yourself: “Does my child have an unmet need? Is my child hungry or tired?” They might need someone to listen or give them attention, some alone time, or some help so they can be successful at something they are trying to do. 
• Check on how you are feeling. If you are angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed, take a “parenting time out” and take several deep breaths or sit quietly for a few minutes. An upset parent can unwittingly fuel the flames of an angry child, so calming down first is necessary.
• You can ask them about how they are feeling.
• “I noticed your face got red. So, when you said unkind things to your sister, were you frustrated?” 
• “I saw your friend leave you to play with someone else at the playground. I wonder if you are feeling sad?”
• Use your best listening skills! Listen closely to your child’s concerns without projecting your thoughts and feelings. It helps to use a paraphrasing technique to ensure you fully understand what your child is communicating. 
• Paraphrasing is repeating to the person a summary of what they’ve said to check how accurate your listening is and confirm to the speaker that you have heard them. It may seem awkward initially, but this step is essential for you to check your understanding while teaching children how to listen for comprehension. It might go something like this: 
• Child: “When my brother told me to leave his room, I got so mad that I yelled and called him a name.” 
• Parent modeling paraphrasing: “So, when your brother told you he wanted you to leave his bedroom, you responded by yelling an insulting name at him.” 
• You can reflect on the implied feeling if you hear a subtext of feeling, as in this example. Also, you can seek further clarification if needed. Parent reflecting feeling: “I hear you were mad. Were your feelings hurt too when he told you to leave?”
• Remember, you can empathize and validate your child’s feelings even if you disagree with their behaviors. Empathy does not equal your approval of how your child behaves. Empathy shows your care about understanding your child’s thoughts and feelings. Your child will better understand any conversation on behavior correction once they feel heard. Chances are, they don’t feel great about their behavior either.

The fundamental purpose of transforming disrespect is to grow new skills and behaviors to replace behaviors that hurt others and cause disconnection in relationships. Learning new skills and behaviors requires modeling, practice, support, and recognition.

Understanding your feelings and behaviors when your child misbehaves is a great way to start. It will help you understand what they are learning to do. You might ask yourself:

• “Do I get angry when they do a certain behavior?” 
• “How do I respond to my anger?” 
• “How do I want my child to respond when they feel angry?”

Learning about your child’s developmental milestones can help you have reasonable expectations for your child. 

• Five-year-olds are working on understanding rules and routines. Consistency helps them feel a sense of stability.
• Six-year-olds may be more apt to question your rules. They thrive on encouragement but can become critical of others and need experience practicing kindness and inclusion. 
• Seven-year-olds crave structure and may resist changes to the schedule. They may be moody and require reassurance from adults. 
• Eight-year-olds are more resilient when they make mistakes. The approval of their peers and teachers is significant.
• Nine-year-olds can become easily frustrated. They need directions that contain one instruction. They may worry about peer approval and their appearance and interests. 
• Ten-year-olds are developing a strong sense of right and wrong and fairness. They tend to be able to work through conflicts with friends more rapidly.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.² Two specific areas of focus are required to transform disrespect. They are (1) dealing with challenging feelings in healthy ways and (2) learning to use and share power constructively. 

Actions for Dealing With Challenging Feelings:

• At a calm time, ask, “What helps you feel better when you’re sad, mad, or hurt?” Share ideas and practice them together, such as taking deep breaths, drinking water, or walking. 
• Create a calm-down space. During a time without pressure, think together about what a “safe base” might be or where your child decides they would like to go when they are upset to feel better. The only way this space serves as a tool for parents or those in a parenting role to promote their child’s self-management skills is if they allow a child to select the calm-down space. You can and should practice using it and gently remind them of it when they are upset. “Would your calm down space help you feel better?” you might ask. Don’t use that space as a punishment or a directive.
• Work on your family’s feelings vocabulary. Children ages 5-10 are learning about feelings—notice and name feelings when a family member shows an expression to offer plenty of practice. Ask, don’t tell. “Dad, you look sad. Is that right?” Being able to identify feelings is the first step in successfully managing emotions. Remember to recognize positive emotions as well!
• Model assertive communication through “I-messages.” Here’s how: “I feel (insert feeling word) when you (name the words or actions that upset you) because (state the impact).” Here’s an example: “I feel sad when you say hurtful things to your brother. It hurts his feelings.” This helps you take responsibility for your feelings while avoiding blaming language like “You did…” (which closes down the mind and ears of the other). It helps communicate the problem constructively.

Actions for Using Power Constructively

• Model words and actions that are respectful to them and others. Your modeling of behaviors is children’s first teacher of social and emotional skills. 
• Teach your child positive ways to seek control or power. How can they demonstrate responsibility by caring for their toys or caring for a sibling? Each time your child misbehaves, ask yourself what positive behavior you need to teach and practice that can replace the inappropriate behavior.
• Teach your child to repair harm. A critical step in teaching children about managing anger and responding to others respectfully is learning how to repair harm when they’ve caused it. Harm could be physical, like breaking something, or emotional, like hurting someone’s feelings. Mistakes are a critical aspect of their social learning. Everyone has moments when they hurt another. But it’s that next step that matters in repairing the relationship. 
• End the day with love. If a child has acted disrespectfully during the day, they may end the day feeling bad about themselves. Children tie your love to their behavior. If you act proud of them, they feel loved. If you are disappointed or mad at them, they feel unloved. Be sure to spend one-on-one time with your child if they have had rough patches that day. This teaches them that they are loved no matter what choices they make. It encourages them to practice new ways of behaving.

Practice can be pretend play, cooperatively completing the task together, or trying out a task with you as a coach for support. Practice is necessary for children to internalize new skills. Practice makes vital new brain connections that strengthen each time your child performs a new action.

Actions

• Accept feelings. If you will help your child manage their biggest feelings, it is essential to acknowledge and accept their feelings — even ones you don’t like. When your child is upset, consider your response. Instead of focusing on their actions or the problem, focus on their feelings FIRST. You could say, “I hear you’re upset. What does your body need right now? Would your calm down space help you feel safe and supported?” Then, focus on teaching and practicing better behavior.
• Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity. When a child learns a new ability, they are eager to show it off! Give them that chance. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. Say, “Show me how you can make a good choice when you talk to your sister.” This practice will remind your child to use their power wisely if tempted to misbehave to meet their needs.
• Offer limited and authentic choices. Even if small, offering them an option—“Do you want to do your homework sitting at the kitchen counter or the dining room table?”—can restore a sense of control to their lives. It also offers valuable practice in responsible decision-making.
• Share power through turn-taking or cooperative decision-making as a family.
• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like, “I notice how you used our ‘code red’ signal. It worked! That’s excellent!”
• Practice deep breathing. Because deep breathing is such a simple way to assist your child anytime, anywhere, it’s important to get plenty of practice to make it easy to use when needed.³
• Follow through on repairing harm. When your child has caused harm, they need your guidance, encouragement, and support to repair it. They may require you to hold their hand through that process, and that’s okay! They are learning the invaluable skill of responsible decision making.
• Include reflection on the day in your bedtime routine. You might ask, “What were your highs and lows of the day?” This question allows your child to share their difficult moments and bright spots with you. You should answer the questions as well. Children may not have the chance to reflect on what’s good and abundant in their lives throughout the day, yet grateful thoughts are a central contributor to happiness and well-being. They realize they are not powerless but quite powerful.

At this point, you’ve taught your child some new strategies and practiced them together. Now, you can offer support when it’s needed by reteaching, monitoring, coaching, and, when appropriate, applying logical consequences. Parents or those in a parenting role naturally offer support when they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different. 

Actions

• Ask key questions to support their skills. For example, “You and your brother must work together to clean your bedroom today. Do you remember what you can do if you start feeling frustrated?”
• Learn about development. Each new age and stage will present differing challenges, stress, frustration, and anger.
• Promote an “I can” belief. Children need to hear that you believe in their ability to learn anything with time and hard work. 
• Foster friendships. Close friends can be an invaluable source of empathy and support for your child. They also offer an opportunity to practice sharing power, negotiate roles, and work through conflict.
• Stay engaged. Working together on ideas for trying out new and different coping strategies can offer support and motivation for your child when challenging issues arise.
• Reflect on the real-world natural consequences of disrespectful behaviors. Discuss what choices people have instead that show respect and do no harm.

Learning new behaviors to replace inappropriate behaviors takes time. Children ages 5-10 will likely not do it right the first time (or even the second or third!). That’s OK. What’s important is that you transform disrespectful words and actions by understanding feelings, teaching new healthy coping strategies and ways of managing complicated feelings, practicing sharing power, and taking responsibility while maintaining a healthy, supportive, loving relationship. Your trusting relationship with your child is what is most important.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also encourages safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow. 

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.   

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is vital in promoting more of it. For example, “You talked to your teacher respectfully—I love seeing that!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment such as a smile, high five, or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect. It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation. 

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent or someone in a parenting role offers to buy a sucker if the child stops the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice. For example, when children complete their homework on time, a short, specific call out is all that’s needed: “I notice that you calmed down and answered me with respect. Excellent.”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after you’ve completed your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed. Or, in the morning, once you’re ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together. 

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.