Parenting Expert Points Out Why Using “If” Starting Sentences When Talking To Kids Makes Them Not Want To Listen

Being a parent is not as intuitive as it looks and it actually requires preparation and knowledge. But not everyone has a background in child psychology, so parents just do their best and learn from their mistakes.

Even then, it’s not always clear what they are doing wrong and why the child is misbehaving. So it’s useful when other parents or experts share their own experience and knowledge. Especially on social media apps that people are on all the time anyway.

This time we would like to draw your attention to a suggestion that parenting coach Tia Slightham says is a game changer. It’s to formulate your requests to children using ‘when’ instead of ‘if.’

More info: TikTok

A parenting coach on TikTok says a good parenting hack is to change your wording from ‘if’ starting sentences to ‘when’ sentences

Image credits: parentingcoach

Tia Slightham is a parenting coach, teacher, best-selling author (You’ve Got This Mama, Too) that has a lot of other interests, and most importantly to her, a mother to two boys, Hudson and Beckett.

She has a Masters in Early Childhood Education and later earned her certification in Positive Discipline. She started from being a kindergarten teacher and now she has been coaching parents virtually from around the world for over 12 years.

Tia says that ‘if’ is an argument starter and a guarantee for power struggles

Image credits: parentingcoach

To help other parents with their raising healthy and happy children, Tia started a TikTok account and she also has an Instagram account where shares what she feels is important to know to have efficient communication with children.

Since starting in January, Tia has managed to have several videos go viral and a few of them have been seen by more than a million people. In one of them Tia says that parents have a habit of giving kids ultimatums and they would greatly improve their relationship with their kids by just switching ‘if’ with ‘when.’

Sentences starting with ‘if’ sound like ultimatums and threats and that is what makes children not want to listen

Image credits: parentingcoach

She gives a couple of examples. Instead of saying something like “If you don’t eat your dinner, no dessert” Tia suggests trying “When you’re ready to go, then you can tell me it’s TV time.”

The parenting coach claims that when a parent starts by saying ‘if,’ they are already starting an argument and the children’s immediate reaction will be to resist.

In another video, she calls the word ‘if’ the most detrimental word parents use, worse than saying ‘no.’ And if you feel like you are giving empty threats all day, it would be worth a shot to change up the language a bit.

Image credits: parentingcoach

Bored Panda reached out to Tia and asked to explain in more detail why this language change is so important. She told us that parents should avoid engaging in power struggles and try to make children cooperate without force.

Using the word ‘if’ indicates that the parent is wanting to overpower the child because the parent is the obstacle not allowing the child to do what they enjoy. But just a simple shift to ‘when’ gives children a certainty that they will absolutely be allowed to get to do what they wanted after they do what the parents asked them to.

Image credits: parentingcoach

Many people pointed out that the parent has to be the one in power and this method of giving them all the time they need for doing something gives over that power to them. To that the parenting coach replies by saying that just one thing is not going to solve a problem that is continuing for a long time.

She told us that parenting is a big puzzle and the tools are the pieces. If your child is refusing to cooperate, you have to yell, the child is back talking, refusing to do homework and just misbehaving in general, a simple language shift won’t help the bigger problem. She says, “It is one important tool but it’s not all the tools. There is no one magic pill.”

The parenting coach claims that parents can’t force children to do things and ‘when’ sounds less like an ultimatum

Image credits: parentingcoach

Another video by Tia may explain why it’s hard to communicate with kids. She says that they might not listen to you until you start yelling and get really mad because it was the boundary you set. Children naturally push boundaries to find out the point they can’t cross.

So the solution would be to change the parenting so that children’s behavior changes. Because according to Tia, children don’t care if they receive negative or positive attention, when yelled at, they feel in power and realize that misbehaving gives them what they want.

Image credits: parentingcoach

Tia believes in positive discipline and thinks that it’s best to avoid punishment tactics. Because from what she saw punishment brings blame, shame and pain and discipline teaches, guides and supports.

The parenting coach told us that parents also have to learn how to deal with children. She suggests parents implement what she calls the “3 Cs” boundaries which are, “concrete, clear and consistent so that your kids know what needs to be done, in what time frame and have really clear expectations,so we could set them up for success. Parents also need to learn how to follow through with discipline and not punishment.”

Tia believes in positive discipline and avoids punishment but it takes effort to see the results and changing just one thing won’t make the relationship flip

Image credits: parentingcoach

Tia doesn’t deny that parents should be the authority but there is a line not to be crossed to dictatorship. Because if the child has to listen to the parent just because they are bigger and stronger, that teaches the child that the bigger children are allowed to overpower the weaker ones.

Parents have to find a balance between being overpowering and permissive, “We want to model in our parenting how our children should be treating other people. We don’t want our kids to run the roost which is permissive parenting, where we give in all the time and our kids are in control.We want to be a positive discipline parent when we always have mutual respect, we are still the guide, the teacher and the leader. We still have boundaries and expectations. Our kids still have consequences, but we do it in a way that doesn’t overpower our kids or make them feel inferior, but rather still are equal. We’re teammates with our kids, not opponents.

Image credits: parentingcoach

Here you can watch the whole video yourself

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What do you think of Tia’s approach to parenting? Would you like to try out her methods and hear what more she has to say? Or do you have other methods that help you with making children do what you need them to without having to yell? Leave us your opinions and reactions in the comments!

Here are some of people’s reactions and it seems that there were some mixed opinions, with not everyone believing in the method

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