Connection Before Correction - Addressing a Child’s Mistakes

Children make mistakes, both big and small. Now, as parents, how do we deal with our children when they commit mistakes? What is the right time to address the mistake they make, and how do we address it?

Very often, our tendency as parents is to correct our child immediately when they make a mistake. We tend to believe that if we don’t fix mistakes at once, we are spoiling the child. Hence, we try to discipline them then and there. However, even if one does so, it is quite possible that the child may not absorb the parent’s message because they’re usually very emotional immediately after a mistake is committed. When we move from a mistake to correction directly, the child may not listen, and even if they do, not completely. Many times, when the child does listen to a parent when reprimanded immediately for a mistake, it may be out of fear rather than an understanding of what went wrong. In such a scenario, they would not be in a position to correct themselves or offer a corrective course of action to stop the mistake from repeating. Further, since it’s possible that the parent themselves may not be in a calm state, what they say may come across as very intense and reactive – all the more why the child wouldn’t grasp a corrective action or a value the parent is trying to imbibe.

When a child makes a mistake, instead of correcting them immediately, a counter-intuitive approach would be to connect with the child first before correcting them. Doing so could be valuable for both the parent and the child in the long run. In fact, bigger the mistake, more the focus should be on connection rather than correction.

Let me share a personal example. One day, couple of years ago, my daughter Ria who was then four years old was zipping around in her skateboard in the living room of our home. My partner, Akshay and I, were in two other rooms, busy in our respective office calls and therefore were unaware of this. Suddenly, we heard a loud crashing sound and we rushed out to see what had happened. We realised that while Ria had been skateboarding, she had accidentally dashed into the French door in the living room, and the door had broken. As soon as Ria saw her father, she ran to him and said, “Papa, I was playing with the skateboard and I banged into the French door, and it broke.” Nervous and scared, she came running to me next and told me the same thing again.

When Akshay and I realised what had happened, we were of course, angry and triggered. At the same time, as parents practising connection parenting, we could address the incident through a set of steps.

Here are the six steps that we followed; ones that you too can walk your child through when they make a mistake.

Step1: Calm down and gather yourself. When you realise that your child has done a mistake, it is quite natural that you are triggered. Take a few deep breaths, drink a glass of water or take a walk and calm down.

So, when Ria approached us after the skateboarding incident, the first thing we did was to breathe deeply and calm ourselves down so that we could address what happened with her.

Step 2: Empathise with your child. Once your child has done a mistake, whether they admit it or not, try to view the situation from the child’s shoes. Understand the position from the perspective of a child facing an adult who is bigger in size, is more powerful and has greater authority.

Ria just about knee high, knew we were physically larger and had more authority. She didn’t know what the consequences of her action were going to be. So, Akshay and I could empathise with her on the level of courage it must have taken for her to admit her mistake to us.

Step 3: Find an opportunity to connect with your child. You can come down to the child’s level, talk to them, understand what happened, let them explain things to you; and then maybe share your perspective as well. What you are doing here is not giving them advice, but really listening and connecting with the child to understand what is going on. This is an important step. Connecting helps you keep a long-term view of your relationship with your child and the values you want to nurture in them, in mind, as opposed to just focusing on the problem in front of you.

In our case, yes, it was true we were upset that the door was broken, and we were going to incur expenses to fix it. We also had the bigger issue of safety to look into. Yet, we had to remind ourselves that we wanted to build character and not doors! The fact that Ria chose to tell us the truth and was courageous to do so gave Akshay and me, as parents, an opportunity to reinforce those values in our daughter. So, we knelt down and told her, “Ria, we know you broke the door, which isn’t a good thing at all. We both are upset about it because it is going to take lot of effort to get the door fixed. But at the same time, we appreciate that you told us the truth even though you knew that we could have scolded you. It takes a lot of courage to do that, isn’t it, Ria?” And we listened to her point of view on this when she spoke.

Step 4: Give space for the child’s emotions. Usually, when you connect with your child, they are likely to break down and cry, or get disappointed with themselves and sit in a corner. Allow the child the space for their emotions. You could perhaps use this time to calm yourself down as well.

Ria was already upset and feeling guilty that she had broken the door; our talking to her with empathy overwhelmed her and she began crying. And this was the fourth step we took: we gave her the space to process and go through her emotions while we sat quietly next to her until she finished crying.

Step 5: Discuss corrective measures. Once you go through steps 1- 4, you are well primed to correct your child. Your child is likely to be receptive to the corrective action, too. Corrective measures can be arrived at collaboratively, with you, the parent, suggesting some options and the child suggesting their own. You could then zero in on one or two actions of correction that work for both of you. This discussion could happen on the same day or one or two days later. If it’s a small mistake, you could choose to correct it right away. However, if the mistake is big, it is a better idea to delay the discussion of corrective action to a later day because the correction is likely to get registered in the child’s mind only when they feel settled, and not when they feel upset or triggered.

So, when Ria had completely emptied her emotions by crying her heart out, she came back to us to address what had happened. At this juncture, we took the step of correction; of setting boundaries. We discussed the course of action in a collaborative way and finally zeroed in on one simple solution – that Ria would play skateboard only outside the house. We also decided that during those rare occasions when she would have to play skateboard inside the house, she would do so only in our presence.

Step 6: Reiterate the corrective action. Children tend to forget things easily. Therefore, once you have decided the course of correction, it is a good practice to reiterate the corrective action a few times, even if the chosen measure for correction was proposed by the child herself. When we reiterate it a good number of times, the correction will get imprinted in their mind.

In Ria’s case, what Akshay and I did was to reiterate the corrective action a few times, whenever she took out the skateboard for playing. We would casually tell her, “Remember what we discussed, Ria? No skateboarding inside the house. Only outside!” We continued to reiterate this over three or four days and now, two years since that incident, we haven’t encountered any damage caused by her skateboarding.

But most importantly, by following the six-step process, and by connecting first and then correcting whenever she did a mistake, we have been able to convey to her that she can be truthful to us and that she needn’t hide anything from us. And we have noticed that quite consistently, Ria has always had the courage to tell us the truth and face the consequences that come with sharing the truth.

To summarise, when you take the six-point approach, you have the opportunity to come down to the child’s level and connect. And when you connect with your child, you are creating a space within the child to listen to you. Moreover, since the approach allows you to work collaboratively with your child in deciding corrective measures, it gives the child more control over correcting their mistakes. While the process may seem strenuous for the first few times, its benefits are exponential in the long run.

So, the next time you find your child has made a mistake, instead of correcting them immediately, try taking a step back, follow the six-step process to connect with your child first and then correct them. Remember, mistakes are great opportunities for you to connect with your child and build values in them! When you calm down, empathise, connect, give space, correct and reiterate, it not only allows you to deal with a mistake your child makes but lets you use the mistake as a chance to connect with your little one. And when you do, it could also be the greatest opportunity for value building within your child!

(Edited by Anupama Krishnakumar)

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