When To Ignore Your Kids Alaska

There are occasions when speaking to groups of parents where someone will object to the notion of “ignoring” their children. These objections take two forms. Some argue that ignoring the behavior will teach their children that negative behavior is okay. There are other parents who do not like the concept of ignoring because they feel that they want their children to know that Mom or Dad is always listening to them…regardless of how whiny or obnoxious the behavior may be.

There is merit to portions of the rationale behind both of these perspectives. However, the argument only makes sense if we have an incomplete understanding of your power as a parent.

As I have discussed in other articles (www.TerrificParenting.com) I find most of us are unaware of the extent of our power and influence that we have with children. The reason for this is that our influence is subtler than it appears, and the results manifest themselves in days and weeks…not in minutes. Thus, we do not appreciate the full power of our choices, at times.

Weeds of Negativity and Seeds of Success

For most of us, we tend to categorize behavior into two rough categories: desired behavior that is positive and healthy, and unwanted behavior that is negative and unhealthy.

Lets think of the healthy behavior as seeds. These behaviors represent the seeds of success, happiness, responsibility, cooperation, gratitude, and intelligence.

The weeds are the unwanted behaviors. This is the whining, complaining, repetitive questioning, siblings bickering, disrespectful, talking back, and overly dramatic responses. If “weeds” are growing in your family, it’s likely that you’re not a real happy trooper right now.

To grow a healthy family, we want to nurture seeds…and starve weeds. In other words, the more you nurture the seeds of happiness and success, the more responsible and happy your children become. On the flip side, the more you can starve the weeds of drama and negativity, the more the negative patterns naturally fade away.

Starving The Weeds of Negativity

You do this by understanding that your “attention and energy” to a particular behavior is just like feeding that behavior…it’s like water to a plant. If you are giving lots of attention to weeds in your home (i.e., negative behaviors), it’s like your watering the weeds. On the other hand, if most of your energy is going into the seeds of happiness and success…then you are likely nurturing a healthy environment.

But notice! Weeds keep screaming for your attention. Weeds keep hollering out to you. And what do you do? You react! And when you react…you are watering those weeds! When you keep arguing with your child, you are watering the weed. When you nag your “unmotivated” teenager a dozen times, it’s likely you just fed that lazy weed a dozen times!

Just remember: whatever behavior consistently and repeatedly gets your attention…that behavior must grow! It’s like the law of parenting.

Forget about ignoring…and think about investing!

So when I am talking about ignoring the negative behavior, I am really talking about where you invest your energy. If you repeatedly get caught in a pattern of investing your energy into behavior you don’t want, you are watering that weed.

Nothing is going to save you from the chaos and unhappiness that emerges out of that environment. That is why the concept of taking your energy away from the weeds is so important to master. It’s one half of the critical equation that gives you control over your most powerful tool you have available to you…your energy and attention. To master this half, you must learn to stop investing your powerful life energy into moments of negativity that you don’t want to promote!

So lets not use the term ignore. Lets talk about where you invest your energy. Why would you invest your energy in what you don’t want and expect it to go away? That makes no sense to me. Instead, where do you want to invest your energy?

Intentionally Water the Seeds Of Success and Happiness

We must become more intentional gardeners as we invest in the seeds of success and happiness at home. We do this by making a commitment to “obsess” upon finding moments of healthy behavior…and simply noticing it. Engage these positive moments with a smile, a touch on the shoulder, a head nod, or a gentle kiss. When you are just beginning to grow these seeds, you must really water frequently! You can’t take it lightly. You keep searching for moments of healthy behavior (e.g., cooperation, kindness, studying, reading, helping out, etc.), and then you simply engage that behavior WHILE it’s happening.

If you keep investing your attention in what you want…rather than the behaviors you don’t want…your investment will begin to pay off. As you combine your intentional actions of walking away from the weeds, and start obsessing upon the seeds of healthy behavior, you will begin to see the true power of your attention. The results may evolve over weeks rather than minutes, but the enduring effects will continue to emerge over your child’s lifetime.

So this is not really ignoring your child…it’s about refusing to use your energy to water the weeds that will crowd away your child’s success and corrupt their behavior. You are using their energy to starve the weeds that could squeeze the happiness out of their life and squash their hopes for a responsible and productive life.

Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Park-based parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. His Web site, www.TerrificParenting.com,, offers free parenting guidance and an e-mail newsletter.