To be fair to my buddy, this bad habit is easy for anyone to fall into, including our kids. Parents can help their kids break this habit by making a pact that they won't say a single word to their kids when they begin to interrupt. Nope—not a single word or even glance their way.
Of course, kids will react by intensifying their interrupting in the short term! When this happens with small children, we can buckle them into their stroller or highchair, or we can gently put them in their playpen or room. All of this is done with no words or excess attention given to the tots.
With older children, we must grit our teeth and get through the conversation as best we can, in spite of all the whining going on around us. When we're finally done with our conversation, we can say to them, "This is so sad. You guys really drained our energy by how you behaved when your mom and I were talking. How are you planning to replace that energy?"
In our audio, Love and Logic Magic When Kids Drain Your Energy, we teach that kids can replace this energy by doing extra chores, paying for a babysitter when parents go out for an evening, staying home instead of being driven somewhere, etc. By applying the Energy Drain technique whenever kids try to interrupt our conversations, we can help them overcome the habit of interrupting others and learn to respect other people’s conversations.
Thanks for reading!
