Why Kids Should Negotiate, with Sharona Drake-Henderson

(gentle music) Headspace Studios. (soft music) Hi everyone, it's Sharona Drake-Henderson here, your guest host for the week. Welcome to Radio Headspace, and to Thursday. We're continuing our week on restorative parenting. The idea that healing ourselves can help us raise happier, healthier kids. And a big part of restorative parenting is teaching our kids self-reliance. But how do we do this? Well, my friends, a good way to start is through the power of negotiation. Yes, it's important for children to learn not to take the first offer that comes their way. So today, I'm gonna give you some tools to help your kids question the status quo and tell you how negotiating can benefit not only our kids but our entire community. (gentle music) You know, depending on how you label people, I might've been labeled a rebellious child. (laughs loudly) And here's the reason why I believe in questioning everything naturally. But growing up, that wasn't the easiest because I was one of those kids that needed to experience things and my mom at times would give me wisdom or advice and I would take it into consideration, but also at times say, "Hmm, but what about if we did it this way?" And in the south they call that talking back. I honestly wanted to understand why do I need to make up the bed if I'm getting right back into it this evening? And if it's explained and it made sense, I'll say, "Oh, okay, well we wanna create this type of atmosphere." It allows you to maybe set up a small win at the beginning of the day of order and productivity, routines help you to function better. All of these things, you explain that to me absolutely. I've seen that those who maybe did not have that natural mindset that learned very early, don't talk back. They learned maybe how to get what they wanted out of people, because we don't realize that as parents when we're saying, "If you do this, you get this", your kids could actually learn that. I don't care anything about why you are teaching me this. I only care that if I clean this room, I get this money. I only care about if I do this. I get this from you. And so while we think and we might label those kids, good children, helpful, all of this, they've just learned how to get what they want out of you. Now, that's not the case for all children, but if you're not teaching someone how to negotiate, how to live in community, how to learn the principle of something then they could just learn how to please you to get what they want. (soft music) So I also believe that in negotiating and explaining things to kids, it teaches them how to deal with the people around you. Like, "Hey mom, I get that you want me to make the bed bed first thing in the morning, and...