Guru Ron Taffel Offers Tips on Reducing Stress at Home

Though parents often wish they could reduce the stress level at home and avert conflict with their children, few have effective techniques to make this happen. On Tuesday January 13, Ron Taffel, a leading expert on raising children with less anxiety made a return visit to Scarsdale, sponsored by Scarsdale C.H.I.L.D. and the PT Council. He was greeted at Scarsdale Middle School by a crowd of parents eager to her his talk, "High Anxiety 21st Century Style: Ten Enduring Keys To Lowering your Child's, Your Family's and Your Own Stress from Elementary through High School." He focused on what causes kids to be anxious and what parents can do to lower their children's anxiety levels.

Dr. Taffel solicited most of the ideas on how to help children with anxiety from the community itself, calling on parent after parent for answers about how they deal with anger, anxiety, and indifference in their children. According to Dr. Taffel, several factors may cause child anxiety, but there are actions that we as parents can take to minimize their negative impact. Anxiety inducers for kids are:

• Parental anger and parent-child conflict
• Parents threatening unenforceable consequences for bad behavior
• Forcing kids to talk about their day
• Inauthentic praise (or overpraise)

1. Parent Anger and Parent-Child Conflict:
"When surveyed, guess what kids wanted more than anything from their parents?" Dr.Taffel asked. "The answer is attention. But not just attention, they specifically want undivided attention. They don't want their parents doing 50 other things." This want/need leads to kids not listening to their parents or pleasing them. One audience member brought up having to ask her kids numerous times to perform simple tasks. Dr. Taffel noted, "You get into competitive dances with your kids and they tune us out because of it. What goes on in the first 30 seconds of the dance decides the dance."

His way of combatting this frustration is writing down what happened, the he-said, she-said of the situation and working to stop the negative interaction as it's occurring. Some parents also raised their hands and added comments about their own experiences. One mom said, "I turn on music to stop the interaction." Another mom said, "I leave the room." Still another claimed that saying "I love you" repetitively worked well with her daughter. Another said she makes a joke and that alleviates the tension.

"Tone is also very important," cautioned Dr.Taffel. "Many kids are tone sensitive. Listen to how you're saying something to them and try changing your tone to see if that helps." He also suggested starting sentences with "I" versus "you." "It puts them immediately on the defensive, and the research is very solid around this idea. Using 'I' makes a person more accessible. If you want to break through to your child, you MUST hold back, stop the interaction, and calm yourself down." One last parent raised her hand and said that deep breathing works for her when she feels angry or upset with her kids, and Dr. Taffel agreed that there is scientific evidence to show that deep breaths work to calm people down.
He recommended that at the end of a particularly contentious day, it's a good idea to find a quiet moment to ask your child how they can do things differently tomorrow. "It gets kids to think about their problems and helps lessen their anxiety when they've done something they know is wrong."

2. Parents Threatening Consequences That are Not Enforceable:
When we threaten a consequence we can't follow up on either because it's too extreme, not possible, or we just won't do it, it can actually make a child more anxious and backfire on the parent. "When we're angry," Dr. Taffel lectured, "threats pop out of our mouths. Before you threaten something, bring it down by a third or a quarter. After everyone has calmed down, come back to the child and explain it to them." This makes kids feel calmer and teaches them that they have thoughtful, reflective parents and hopefully they will learn this in turn.

3. Forcing Kids to Talk About Their Day
How do you get your withdrawn child to open up and start talking about their day? Dr. Taffel posed the question to the audience, "When was the last time you had a great conversation with your kids?" Answers included right before bed, driving in the car, eating dinner, while playing with toys, and while baking. "Try to notice when your child opens up," Dr. Taffel said, "and build a ritual around this, even if it's only for five minutes a day. Kids usually talk the most while they're doing other things. Don't grill your kids with questions at dinner and don't ask big, vague questions like 'how was school?'" Instead, he proposed asking about the day in a more specific manner. For example, learn when your child has art class and on that day, ask what he did at art. If Friday is a spelling test, check in on how the test went.

"Another great way to get kids to talk," he recommended, "is to talk about your self. I can virtually guarantee your kids will interrupt and want to talk about their selves the more you talk about your own day." A great time to relate to your kids is at bedtime. Kids love hearing personal stories so when you think they are age appropriate, Dr. Taffel advocated starting to tell stories about your own childhood little pieces at a time. Lastly, he recommended a set of books that he has found helpful for kids at bedtime by Maureen Garth called Meditations for Children. He called the stories "soothing but entertaining."

4. Inauthentic Praise (or Overpraising)
Most of us have heard this before, but Dr. Taffel reminded the audience not to use praise unless a child is deserving of it. "The more you praise when it's undeserved, the less your kids will want to do and the more lazy they'll become; it ultimately hurts their self esteem," he cautioned. You should praise your child, but it should be authentic and realistic. "It's not about building self esteem...it's about building trust," he said. "Parents shouldn't praise what kids DO. They should praise the effort involved to overcome their own difficulties." He added, "there is such power in the proper use of praise and works better than any form of punishment if used in the right way." Learning to praise a child properly (for effort, not product) is one way that you can significantly reduce your child's anxiety level.

Dr. Ron Taffel, PhD, has been a contributing editor at Parents Magazine for several years and writes well-received columns about relationships and child rearing. He has authored five mainstream books and two professional books including Childhood Unbound, The Second Family, Nurturing Good Children Now, Parenting By Heart, and When Parents Disagree and What You Can Do About It. He can be reached about specific issues at www.rontaffel.com.