Ming, a speech therapist, says stop asking kids "What do you want?" because it frustrates them and triggers tantrums. You already know what they want. Instead, teach them a simple gesture so they can ask without the pressure of finding words.
Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com I'm a speech therapist. Today let's talk about why you should stop asking your child, what do you want? Okay, so I've been talking to a lot of parents, especially through consultations on zoom, since there's still the pandemic right now, it's lessening down and so on. But when they tell me, oh, I can close my eyes and tell you exactly what's happening. Okay? So if what I'm describing right now is exactly what you're facing, then you gotta listen up. All right, so. So first of all, your child comes up to you. He pulls, or she. Mostly he will pull. Pull your hand towards something he wants. Right after that, you give him an expected face. Unex. Like, how to say that word? Like, you give him, like, this kind of face. What do you want? Like that. And then your child's gonna start, like, going, ah, getting a little bit annoyed now. And then you might. You might force. Not force, but you might entice the kid to say, oh, say help. Say, help me. And then the kid's like. And then the force increases and it pushes you towards that thing harder. But then you don't give up. You don't give in, and you say, say please, whatever. Whatever the word is. And finally you give in and you just like, okay, fine, right before the kid gets angry, like, full on tantrum, you gave him the thing, right? So if that is something that is going on in your life, then what should you do? First of all, understand that your kid is treating you like a vending machine. I've said this millions of times. I've learned this through a supervisor back then. Yes, kids do treat us as a vending machine. Sometimes when they need things, they. They press some buttons on us, pull our hand, and they try to use us like a tool to get something open or to get something right. So understand that first. And the other thing is, you already know the answer most of the time, right? Because you know the answer most of the time. And they know that you know. Like, when you ask them, it doesn't make sense to the kid. They're like, you know already. Why are you asking? Why are you making it any harder than it is? Just give me the damn thing. That's what they're thinking. So why would you try it again? And, you know, like, if you keep on doing something over and over and it's always the same results, then it's time for you to change. All right, that's just as much As I can say, because to be honest with you, if I get a dollar about, like, this scenario being described to me, I'll probably be quite wealthy by now, I'm saying. All right, so given that you know the answer already, what you need to do now is to provide a way out for a kid, right? So it's. If you keep on asking and asking them to say something, then it's actually annoying to the kid. It's annoying because if you keep on doing it and then they like, in their minds, the goal is to get the item and not to listen to you, right? And they also don't know because if they speak, they get it faster. They don't understand this fact. So what they do is, like, what they do best is to keep on doing what they know, which is to pull your hand even harder and throw a tantrum at you. That's all they know, right? So what do you have to do now is to. Is to help them. Because you're not helping them. You're testing him, right? You're testing her. You're putting them on a quiz show, right? You're putting them on the spot. It's like, oh, you want this? Okay, answer this question now. But then they're like, dude, that's out of my pay grade. I don't know that. So how do you help your kid? So next week I'll talk about, like, creating a routine. But in this video, easily what you can do is to basically just show them a way to get what they want. And that's usually a gesture. I've said it many times on this channel. A gesture is very, very important. Make up any old gesture, as long as it replaces the hand pulling and the tantrum and the vocalization, like, whatever. Because those aren't very communicative, right? They are communicating to you already. But at the same time, it's not appropriate. And it's actually, it's not as effective. So given that a gesture is something that you can take your child's hand and make them do where they won't fail anymore. Like, because if you tell them to say, it's not like you can put your hands in their mouth and, like, talk, help them talk like a puppet. It's impossible. So what you gotta do is to teach them a gesture that you can take their hands and do, right? There's loads of videos and this channel that you can walk through. And you can go through our online course, especially the micro course, if you go to agents of Speech.com and, you know, like, I try my best to walk you through that and change your mind about this. And that's exactly what you need to do. All right? So if you haven't, please go to agents of speech.com handpool, okay? And there will be five minute activity that you can use that you can copy and paste and do it at home. And you will know at least how to start doing this and change the routine at home so that it's not always as what I described. Just them. All right? So thank you so much. I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.
