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Creating cooperative kids & connected families

Ever wondered why kids become uncooperative or how you can help them to stay calm and be more cooperative at school and at home? Manager of UOW's Northfields Clinic, Mark Donovan answers your questions around how to create cooperative kids and connected families.

00:05
we're here today with mark donovan who's
00:07
the manager of northfield psychology
00:09
clinic at the university of wollongong
00:11
northfield's clinic has been providing
00:13
high quality mental health services to
00:16
the community
00:17
and supervise professional development
00:19
for the university's psychology students
00:21
for 40 years
00:22
first off i wanted to ask you what are
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some of the most common reasons kids
00:26
become
00:27
uncooperative um if you think about
00:30
children cooperation the word
00:32
cooperation is about a relationship
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between two people and here it's a
00:36
parent and a child
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and so we can kind of think about why
00:39
would a child become uncooperative
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and and we're thinking well there's
00:44
there's three main things
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um the first would be biology we just
00:48
know that some children
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uh by nature's uh and they're a little
00:51
more short fused
00:53
they find it harder to kind of run with
00:55
the pack they want to do their thing
00:56
in their time and so if you say to them
00:59
you know go and
01:00
put your shoes somewhere else they've
01:02
got to stop doing what they're doing
01:03
they find that harder so there's going
01:05
to be
01:05
sort of biological factors but it's not
01:07
just the child because it's also the
01:09
parent that's going to influence
01:10
the cooperation as well so apart from
01:13
biology we've also got then
01:15
the environment what's happening in the
01:16
environment and so we know that
01:19
in some households there's a lot of
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stress and so
01:22
within that more stressful household
01:25
maybe instructions are given less
01:27
clearly
01:29
maybe children are already sort of quite
01:32
hot
01:34
before they're asked if they can then
01:35
put their shoes somewhere else
01:37
we also know that there's a whole bunch
01:39
of sort of background factors that cause
01:41
a lot of stress for families
01:42
like um uh you know social
01:46
uh disadvantage um so we know the
01:49
families where there isn't enough money
01:51
uh where maybe um there's a whole bunch
01:54
of other
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difficulties that they're bringing into
01:56
their experience of being a parent from
01:58
their own
01:58
upbringings that those families
02:00
unsurprisingly um there's going to be
02:02
more stress
02:03
and then that stress is going to convert
02:05
into a lack of cooperation at times
02:07
so there's two main ones but the third
02:09
one then is really about
02:11
the patterns of behavior between the
02:13
parent and the child
02:14
and so over time parents and children
02:17
learn how to
02:18
be with each other and we'll see that
02:20
some children will then sort of learn
02:22
the behavior of being uncooperative
02:25
and that's learnt over sort of you know
02:26
months and years
02:28
but then they can become a rut and
02:30
likewise parents
02:31
learn a behavior of inadvertently
02:34
fueling some of those uncooperative
02:35
behaviors
02:36
we used a kind of a little metaphor to
02:38
kind of put it together
02:39
um here at the university sort of think
02:42
a little bit about fire
02:43
um which of course you know we've
02:45
thought about a lot about that in the
02:46
last year
02:47
um you're thinking fuel wise which is
02:50
the biology
02:51
it's like you know we just know that
02:52
some children are a bit more combustible
02:55
some parents will get more combustible
02:57
too and there's going to be more likely
02:59
of having those sorts of difficult
03:00
behaviors uncooperative behaviors which
03:02
become like the fires
03:04
they can sort of rage through families
03:06
and make it pretty difficult
03:07
we also know that there's some families
03:09
where there's a lot more heat around
03:11
they've got those sort of social
03:12
disadvantage factors maybe somebody's
03:14
lost a job
03:15
maybe someone's got a lot of stress at
03:17
work maybe someone's got a lot of stress
03:19
at school
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there could be academic difficulties
03:22
there could be a whole bunch of
03:22
different heat factors it could also be
03:24
just
03:25
tired and hungry you know or don't want
03:27
to do it
03:28
so those sort of heat factors and then
03:30
oxygen is a third part of a fire and so
03:33
that's really the flow of attention
03:35
which becomes those patterns of behavior
03:37
that get learned within families
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and we know from you know sort of four
03:41
decades of research
03:42
that the coercive
03:45
cycles of these things that happen
03:48
between parents and kids and you you'll
03:49
hear parents talk about this
03:51
you know power struggle and you know
03:54
they'll
03:55
they'll sort of give out some sort of
03:56
instruction they want their child to do
03:57
something
03:58
the child doesn't want to do it so they
04:00
might just ignore the parent
04:02
and then it ramps up and the parent's a
04:04
little cross now
04:05
and so the instruction the second one is
04:07
a little more firm
04:09
a little angry and a child then might
04:11
react to that
04:12
and so and they keep upping the ante and
04:15
so you get these sort of coercive cycles
04:16
which are really part of uncooperative
04:18
behavior
04:20
so there's a long answer to your
04:21
question but if we're kind of thinking
04:23
broadly then we've got
04:24
things to do with the child and the
04:26
parent we've got environmental sort of
04:28
heat factors
04:29
and then we've got the flow of attention
04:30
which becomes like something that can
04:32
sort of fan the flames of uncooperative
04:34
behavior
04:34
so you did touch on this but rock roll
04:36
can parents play
04:38
in helping their kids to stay calm and
04:40
be more cooperative at school and at
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home actually
04:43
first of all they've just got to really
04:44
strengthen up that relationship with
04:45
their child
04:47
and it's hard like we're so busy with so
04:49
many different things
04:50
uh families these days um you know i
04:53
guess
04:53
recently and there's been a reduction in
04:55
the sorts of
04:56
activities through covert that families
04:58
are doing but often we're running around
04:59
doing 10
05:00
000 things and it's hard just to sit
05:02
down and have time together
05:04
but but that is the center of how to
05:07
make things better
05:08
is to just sit down and enjoy some time
05:11
together
05:12
and for parents to just pause and
05:15
notice their child and notice
05:18
not the annoying stuff because that's
05:21
there
05:22
but to notice the other stuff um but not
05:25
only to notice it but to let the child
05:27
know that they've seen it too
05:28
and we've got to then give attention and
05:30
let our kids know that we appreciate
05:32
when they do those nice things to each
05:34
other or
05:35
or for us they might be real helpful for
05:36
us and help us out we're just going to
05:38
say thank you very much
05:39
and try and be specific about what it is
05:40
not just like thanks but
05:43
look thanks for putting your lunchbox
05:44
away straight away when you came home
05:46
today it just makes it so much easier
05:48
for me
05:49
i really appreciate it and maybe a
05:50
little touch on the shoulder
05:52
which again is is is again it's oxygen
05:54
it's a flow of attention but it's now in
05:56
a positive way that's going to help the
05:58
child feel good about themselves
06:00
and it's also going to strengthen up
06:02
that relationship the other really
06:04
important part would be
06:05
um if you want your child to do
06:07
something
06:09
give a really clear instruction like uh
06:12
we we often give sort of what i describe
06:14
as like fly-by instructions we're sort
06:16
of
06:16
two rooms away and it's like you're
06:18
nearly ready yet
06:20
which which meant you know um you know
06:23
put your shoes on make sure your school
06:25
bag's ready and packed
06:26
uh you've got your lunch in there as
06:28
well um don't forget to feed the cat
06:31
um and then be at the door in three
06:32
minutes but we don't see any of that
06:34
and then we're annoyed because they
06:35
haven't done it and then and then it
06:37
starts again with this way
06:38
so we talk about sort of going for gold
06:41
with that first instruction
06:42
because if you can just give that first
06:44
instruction real clear
06:46
then you get cooperation and again
06:49
thinking of those three key things
06:51
like part of it is this pattern of
06:52
behavior between parent and child
06:54
so rather than kicking off some sort of
06:56
coercive cycle
06:59
if you give a nice clear instruction
07:01
where you go up to a child and you say
07:04
you know mark i need you to get ready
07:06
for school mate so what that involves is
07:09
can you do that for me great thanks
07:13
if we can do that then i'm building a
07:15
pattern of cooperation because now
07:17
little mark is doing what i've asked and
07:20
so he's going to be praised for that and
07:21
he's going to feel good about himself in
07:22
the morning he's going to go to school
07:24
feeling much calmer much happier which
07:27
means he's probably
07:28
going better with his mates during the
07:29
day too and the teacher which means he's
07:31
probably going to come home
07:33
nice and calm and then i'm going to
07:35
notice that and it's like oh you had a
07:36
good day today
07:37
and all of a sudden again our
07:38
interactions are full of these lovely
07:40
backwards and forwards compared to
07:42
you know what are you looking at me like
07:43
that for um
07:45
then that can just kick off these again
07:47
coercive cycles
07:49
do you have some practical tips and
07:51
techniques for parents trying to deal
07:53
with challenging behavior
07:54
and lacking the motivation to cooperate
07:58
there's a nice little saying that um
08:01
there's a an intervention called um
08:04
circle of security which has been sort
08:06
of involved for the last release of 20
08:07
years i guess
08:09
and they've got this nice little 25 word
08:11
saying about parenting
08:13
and so it's always be bigger stronger
08:16
wiser and kind
08:18
and so the idea is that you know the

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