If you are a parent of a young child, you have faced challenges: getting children to do what YOU want, on YOUR schedule can be… “challenging”, to put it mildly. First, a few words about what NLP is. NLP is short for “Nuero-Linguistic Programming”, invented by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder and first widely promoted in the 1970s. Although the name is a bit unfortunate, it sounds a bit like programming or brain manipulation, against the will of the subject, in fact, it is useful to consider NLP as “Practices of the New Language”, which will allow you to communicate better with any person: your spouse. , your students, your peers, or in this case, your own children.

When faced with a tantrum from a young child, most of us, myself included, have “bought” into our child’s emotional play, and as the voices and tensions rise, it is sometimes hard to tell if the child or the father is having more problems. tantrum. Here is a simple example of how Nuero-Linguistic Programming (or New Language Practice as I call it) can change the communication between a parent and a young child:

Single Whose say no.”

A UCLA survey from a few years ago reported that the average one-year-old hears the word “No!” more than 400 times a day! “NO!” is not necessarily a “bad” word, and can be used in emergencies or to avoid dangerous situations. “NO!” it will prevent a small child from sticking a fork in the outlet… the first time.

The problem is that our brains, even our children’s brains, get too used to the word “no” and we tend to filter it out. You say, “NO playing with food!” and your child’s mind listens: “Playing with food!” I say “DO NOT think of a pink elephant”, and your brain has to imagine a pink pachyderm before it knows what “NOT” to do.

The NLP (Practice New Language) way of avoiding the “NO” problem is simply one of the phrases. Instead of telling your toddler the behavior you DON’T want, frame your instructions in language that indicates the behavior you want to see. “Don’t play with your food” becomes “Let’s see how well we can use the fork and knife.” “Don’t fight with your sister,” becomes “Please play nice together.” See how two seconds of thought to change the language can change your child’s response? Try it for a week. I am sure you will be surprised by the results.