In elementary school, children learn about the different sentence types, where sentences are categorized as statements, commands, questions, or exclamations. The sentence, “Nip it in the bud.”, for instance, is a command because it’s indicating that some kind of required action must take place. And for those of you who aren’t old school, “nip it in the bud” is simply Jana speak for “stop negative behavior patterns at the onset.” Furthermore, when using this command in reference to your kiddo, it means “don’t reinforce negative behavior patterns expressed by your child.”
Let me break down a relevant based on a true story account for you. One of my responsibilities as a mom is to teach my 8-year old son to perform tasks that he can do for himself, like taking off his dirty clothes and putting them in his laundry hamper instead of on the bedroom floor. Reasonable, right? So, Little Man has been instructed to do so and has demonstrated proficiency in this area, but here’s the kicker. I recently noticed a change in how he was taking off his dirty clothes before they hit the clothes hamper. (Yes, I do his laundry for him. He’s only 8; and I didn’t make my older children do their laundry until they were young teenagers. I’ll probably stay consistent with my theory on the topic of young children operating expensive machinery. My theory says…wait until your child is old enough to properly handle certain appliances, or else you might get to participate in one of those unwelcomed and costly lessons learned).
Getting back to the story, here’s what was happening. Little Man was taking off his pants with the underwear still attached to them. Hmmmm. At the time, the first laundry load where this occurred didn’t seem like such a huge red flag (just a teenie one), even though absolutely every pair of pants in the bunch had underwear attached to them. So, I reluctantly gave him the benefit of the doubt; because who knows, maybe Little Man just couldn’t hardly wait to get those dirty clothes off and get into the bathtub. (Okay, I’m being totally sarcastic, because this hardly ever happens with 8-year old boys). When the second laundry load came around, it happened again. I thought…”Ah hah! Buddy, you’re starting something that I’m quickly going to break you out of.” But, I still didn’t draw Little Man’s attention to the matter, because I wanted to make sure that he was truly developing a pattern and that it wasn’t some fly-by-night occurrence that would remedy itself on its own. So, the third time it happened I stopped him in the middle of what he was doing, calmly called him over to where I was getting his clothes ready for the washing machine, and I had him literally hand separate his underwear from every pair of pants it was attached to. He definitely wasn’t digging it; but hey, he knew how to handle his clothes before, so why develop this negative behavior now. More importantly, if he thought separating his dirty underwear from his pants was a bit disgusting, then how did he think I felt for the past two weeks. It’s one thing to deal with your own dirty drawers, but an entirely different thing when dealing with someone else’s.
Wait a minute, though. I was for sure Little Man had learned his lesson and that he would be back on track for the next laundry load, but I was wrong. He did it again! CASE IN POINT ⇒ Bad habits are hard to break. Parent, be consistent in the strategy you’re using to break the negative behavior pattern your child has assumed. (On my end, I’m committed to consistently having Little Man hand pick his underwear apart from his pants when I’m getting them ready to wash, if he happens to forget. I will no longer perform this task for him, since the issue has been directly brought to his attention. If you don’t address the unacceptable behaviors, your child will continue to do them). Implement your methods in love, not frustration; you’re trying to assist your child in being the most capable young person he or she can be. So, be purpose driven and empower your child to travel the positively productive road. Don’t enable him or her to follow a negatively nonproductive path.
Bonus points for you if you noticed that the preceding two sentences are “command” sentences.:)
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