When your child is showing difficult or unruly behaviors, there are a few steps you can take to help them navigate their emotions and reactions. The Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) model, developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis, can be useful for all children, not just those who have been through hard places. The three steps include connecting, empowering, and then correcting your child in a manner where he or she feels understood, involved, and empowered.
Step One: Connect with Your Child
Focus on the need behind the behavior and implement a strategy of self-awareness. Just like when you’re on a plane and the attendants have you put your mask on first, you need to check in with yourself before you can be of any help to your child. Be aware of your state of mind and body to know how your reactions will affect your child in the moment of connection and correction.
Then look into your child’s eyes when you speak with them rather than speaking from across the room. Remember, while words matter, our tone of voice communicates much more than our words.
Step Two: Engage & Empower Your Child
After you’ve established your connection is secure with your child, use engagement strategies such as eye contact, healthy touch, voice tone, and behavior matching. Getting on a child’s level lets them know you respect them and that they can trust you. Try calming techniques such as taking deep breaths or counting to ten together. Make the interactions between you engaging so that your child will be more likely to receive your correction.
You also want to make sure to empower your child to learn and grow to his or her fullest potential. This includes addressing their physical needs by making sure they’ve had a healthy snack within the last two hours and proper hydration. You should watch the amount of noise and movement in your child’s surroundings, as well as their sleep duration if they are easily stimulated.
Step Three: Correct Your Child with Affirmation
Now, after connecting and empowering your child, it’s time to correct the behavior. Use words that will communicate to your child that their worthiness and value do not depend on their behavior. The actions they took or words they said were a reaction to their environment, and it does not define them.
Explain the difference between misbehavior and stress behavior in their terms. Implement choices for your child based on the behavior and consider offering a re-do. Through this, they will feel involved and empowered to act on the correction.
Key Takeaway
Just as our actions as children of God don’t define who we are as His children, the same is true for our children. Connect, engage, and empower your child so that you can correct and reinforce new behavioral skills.
“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”
~Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)
Application
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