Skill 5: Remembering the wanted behavior in all contexts
The fifth skill is a continuation of the fourth skill. It’s one thing to remember the behavior when you’re at home and you’re alone or just with a sibling or two. It’s quite another thing to remember the behavior when you’re out in public or you’re tired or hungry or just out of sorts.
Children who’ve perfected a certain skill in one place may not be able to generalize it to other areas. Other places seem like they may have completely different rules and often they do. You can’t run in the halls at school, but you can at home and so forth.
You may need to help children or all ages to use the same skills that they’ve already learned in other situations. For example, we have one formlish dinner at our home on Friday nights. We say Shabbat prayers and wait until everyone is seated before we start eating. Manners required on other nights are very minimal. Recently, we were at my parents house and were sitting down together more like we do on Shabbat at our house and my older son asked if we should wait to eat or not. It was such a struggle to get them to remember this skill at home, I was surprised when he was able to generalize it even without the prayers.
The biggest issues come in, though, when the children are in some way out of sorts, whether that be hungry or tired or just in a bad mood. No matter how well they’ve learned and demonstrate some behaviors, they cannot maintain that when they’re “off.” Extra reminders will be needed at this time. One thing I try (not always successfully) at these times is to tell the child that I know that they’re feeling “off” and I wonder what I can do to help them remember how to behave. Sometimes I also try to remember to ease up on my expectations. Instead of expecting that my children will remember that hands stay on their own bodies, I try to keep them apart or give them an activity that gives them some distance.
Currently, my children have just gone back to school. They are both happy in their classrooms, but are coming home increasingly tired as the week goes on. I rented some new movies and try to encourage them to sit and watch a movie in the evening instead of directly playing together, which can lead to more fights when they’re tired. As the school year goes on, they’ll work up more stamina to the pace and have an easier time in the afternoons and evenings.
