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Children will tell you they don't care' for a variety of reasons, not all of them are likely to be what you assume. Sometimes the answer may be a form of surrender where they suddenly realise the impact of a situation and no ability to deal with the consequences. Other reasons may be failure to think a situation through to a logical conclusion, or perhaps an emotive response in the heat of a moment. When confronted with this frustrating and sometimes irrational answer to what you consider deserves some explanation, you really only two choices accept the answer or drill down into the issue and find out what is happening.

Acting with a little sensitivity, sometimes it may not be appropriate to confront a situation until things have cooled down a little. Having achieved a state where conversation is at least possible, it will come down to your questioning technique. The fastest way to the dead-end and dreaded answer is to ask closed questions (yes or no responses) or start making assumptions or accusations. Dealing with sensitivity takes a considerable amount of patience on your part and this is possibly the most difficult part of parenting.

"I don't care" in many ways will provide you with some interesting opportunities with which you can modify behaviour, provoke some thought into cause and effect and more importantly begin the process of guiding your child towards understanding the meaning of consequences. Consider the following exchange:

Adult: "You need to finish cleaning your room"
Child: "What for? It is my personal space and you have no right telling me what to do in it" (Yes this is increasingly starting to creep into many homes)
Adult: "I am your parent and you will do what I say, this is also my house"
Child: "I don't care"

Not hard to see where this one is likely to go nowhere, and very fast. You can effectively cut off the personal space' issue by not rising to the challenge and perhaps acknowledging the space is personal. From this point it seems you may have a good opportunity to lead into responsibility of personal space', think a little creatively. Why not suggest that since this is your personal space, it is going to be a little difficult asking me to pick them up for you next time they are forgotten'. Oh Dear an activity junior is absolutely passionate about is suddenly on some shaky ground!

The message in this is that you know what your children enjoy, without being too obvious; use this knowledge to work for you. Think in terms of how you can most effectively tie consequences to the activity in a way that motivates a more meaningful response than "I don't care". What should be obvious in this is that your child will most certainly care if the impact suddenly involves something important to he or she.

It is a bit of a mind-game but falling into the trap of playing on your child's terms will get you absolutely nowhere. Start paying attention to what your child actually does care about and use this to your advantage. Work with a little sensitivity and try hard not to react, or to deal with issues in the heat of anger or high emotion.

Learn more about this author, Ian Loft.
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