“Your kids aren’t the problem. They’re the clue.”
I know that sounds crazy. Because when your child is screaming, refusing to cooperate, arguing, whining, or doing the exact thing you’ve told them NOT to do for the 47th time…
It sure feels like they’re the problem.
But what if their behavior is actually giving you information? What if your child’s behavior is showing you something you need to understand?
That’s one of the biggest things I learned from my wife, Shelly.
Shelly had an analogy I absolutely loved. She said… “Kids are like velociraptors.”
Think about the movie, Jurassic Park.
The velociraptors were kept inside fences with electricity running through them. And what did they do?
They constantly tested the fence. They’d push here… they’d push there. They’d look for weaknesses… and the minute they discovered that the electricity wasn’t working…
CHAOS.
Shelly realized kids do something remarkably similar.
They test. They experiment. They try whining. They try arguing. They try screaming. They try stubbornness. They try mean words. They’re trying to figure out how the world works.
And here’s where this gets really interesting… KIDS DO WHAT WORKS!
So the question isn’t only… “Why is my child doing this?” The better question is… “What is my child learning from what happens next?”
I saw this play out first-hand with a mom named Aly.
Aly was frustrated because her kids were constantly whining.
She’d tell them no. They’d whine. She’d say no again. They’d whine louder. Eventually, she’d give in because she was exhausted.
And then she’d wonder… “Why do my kids whine so much?”
But once she understood the principle that kids do what works, she had this incredible realization.
She had accidentally trained them to whine.
Not intentionally. She wasn’t a bad mom. She was simply teaching them, through repetition… “If I whine long enough, Mom eventually changes her answer.”
So she stopped rewarding the whining… and over time… the whining stopped.
And then she taught her husband the same principle. Suddenly Mom wasn’t fighting the kids.
More impotrtantly… Dad wasn’t undoing Mom.
And the kids weren’t getting mixed messages.
They had learned something new… Whining didn’t work anymore.
Now, I’m NOT saying you should tolerate everything your kids do. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be boundaries. There absolutely should be.
What I AM saying is this…
“Before you react to the behavior, get curious about the behavior.”
Ask this question. “Why is this happening? What is my child trying to accomplish? What have they learned works?”
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question…
“What might I be teaching them without realizing it?”
Then… because once you understand the clue… you can change the strategy.
That’s what Shelly eventually became obsessed with.
She stopped asking… “What’s wrong with my kid?” And started asking… “What is this telling me?”
Because she realized something clearly at that point…
Every behavior was giving her an opportunity to learn something about her child… and something about herself. And once she understood that, she could build a better response.
Not a perfect response… but a better one.
And that’s where something really interesting happened.
Shelly developed a way to take these difficult moments and turn them into customized strategies for each individual child. Not a generic parenting rule. NOT… “Here’s what you should do with every kid.”
Something designed specifically for your child… your family… and your situation. And that’s one of the things you can learn inside The Shelly Method book.
HERE’S WHAT I WANT FOR YOU TO DO. TEST THIS IDEA TODAY!
Think about the behavior your child does that frustrates you the most and instead of asking, “How do I stop this?” Ask yourself…
“What is this behavior trying to teach me?”
If you come up with an answer, put it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re discovering.
Then…. if you want to learn the rest of Shelly’s method, I’ve put everything she taught me into The Shelly Method book.
It’s for the mom who doesn’t need another reason to feel guilty… she needs hope and a way forward.
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