The power of a neutral tone

From my last post about introversion, you know I've been working hard lately on my relationship with Buddy. I'm just now starting to get a handle on it, almost seeing patterns and techniques that bring out the best of the shining, happy, meticulous, and helpful boy that he seems to be. And I'll tell you what, *sigh* it takes a lot of focus.

I feel like I'm learning an entirely new language and culture. I'm setting the same boundaries as I was before, but it's a totally different technique from what comes naturally to me. I wish I could describe it better. I'm REALLY excited that I've happened upon something that seems to work better for us. The biggest difference is my tone of voice. It's really, really important that I approach him with positive or neutral emotion. Negative emotions like anger, frustration, and disappointment are effective in the short term, but tend to make him insecure...he soon lashes out physically and emotionally on his siblings, resulting in more negative emotion from me. It's not even that MUCH negative emotion. I'm not a yeller, after all, but I can get pretty stern.

[Sidenote: I found Buddy in the bathroom one day practicing his "mad faces" in the mirror. They weren't your typical "bad guy" faces with exaggerated eyebrows and snarling. No, these were REAL mad faces. Subtle. Silent. He showed me his Daddy mad face and started counting to three. It was pretty darn good. I told him that Daddy sometimes clenched his teeth, too, and we worked on that bit together.]

The last couple days, Robert has done a few infuriating things. I've kept my cool, remaining emotionally neutral and casual as I asked him about each situation:

• Tearing the corners off of a couple pages in a library book---with his teeth!---and chewing up the paper into a slimy wad.
• Sneaking James into the bathroom with him after I explicitly told him James was not allowed in there.
• Using the red handle of the broom to draw lines down the corner of our front room wall.
• Punching James in the face for smearing a slobbery toothbrush on his arm.

Seriously, I don't know where all that patience came from. Anyway, I probed each situation with a few neutral-voiced questions, determined that he already understood the actions to be wrong, rewarded him for his honesty, and meted out the appropriate consequences as I deemed fit (I love, love, love Love and Logic). He didn't enjoy the consequences, but at the end of the day, I still had energy and he still felt secure in my relationship with him. He also managed to accept the corrections and modify his future behavior. That's a win-win.

Another tip when working with Robert: When asked directly about his guilt in a situation, he will lie almost every time. Instead of "Did you do this?", I ask in a curious and interested tone, "Huh, what happened here? I wonder how that could happen." His typical guilty response is a shrug of his shoulders and, "Mmm-mmm. It could happen like..." and I usually get part of the real story. A few questions later and I get the whole story. I can tell he doesn't really want to lie, but it's hard to tell the truth when he knows it was wrong to do.

Alice wasn't the kind of kid to create these sorts of infuriating situations. She also took snippets of direction very seriously, acting with self-control, and often asking permission if I didn't make a boundary explicitly clear. She's still like that.

[Sidenote: I think school has made the permission-asking thing even worse. She asks if it's okay to do everything. Anything. Sometimes I have to give her permission three times before she acts.]

I think Alice and Robert are similar in how sensitive they are to redirection/correction. Alice crumples into a pile of tears and obeys, no matter how you deliver it. Robert sucks the pain in deep for a while and then pushes it out other ways, eventually obeying with great reluctance. I guess what I'm saying in this post is that slight changes in how I deliver redirection/correction to Robert can prevent him from sucking in the pain. He accepts the corrections and remains positive about his ability to make better choices in the future. He seems to be obeying with joy. Maybe it's a phase. Maybe it has nothing to do with my technique. I've seen that happen too many times with my kids, so I'm not calling it a real pattern yet, but at least my perspective change hasn't hurt the situation :) Maybe.