Oh, Behave: 9-year old rolls her eyes at me

Q: If my nine-year-old doesn’t stop rolling her eyes at me, I think I’ll go crazy. How can I stop this annoying habit? BARB D, BARRIE, ON

Try
ignoring it; sometimes it goes away because it’s just for attention. If
that doesn’t work, then use it as one of many examples to help your
child begin to understand that her behaviours can influence others
around her in both a positive and negative way. Use positive examples
(“when you smile, it lights me up”) and some negative examples (“when
you roll your eyes, it makes people think less of you”). Dealing with
this in a general fashion will mean that she can learn from you, even
when you think you’re about to go crazy.

Depending on your
child’s ability and level of maturity, you may also want to begin
teaching her that rolling her eyes communicates a negative attitude to
others and sends a rude message that she might not want sent.

As
an aside, remember that as parents we sometimes take our kids’ behaviour
personally and some ideas – ignoring, teaching from the positive and
the negative, and increasing our insight into their behaviour – are all
designed to help get us out of the ‘taking it personally’ and back to
the tasks at hand.