Conversations for the harder moments
Discipline, consistency and hard days at home. Practical ways to create safer conversations, repair relationships and support young people through difficult moments.
Starting a conversation?
Four holds for the harder moments
This section is for adults whose role includes discipline or behaviour management.
Ask yourself: does our approach help this young person understand their behaviour, or does it silence them?
Small punishments can build up. A child whose behaviour is misunderstood at seven may be punished again at nine, then eleven, and later excluded. Each decision may seem reasonable on its own. Together, they can create a pattern of punishment instead of support.
Settings can ask whether their behaviour policies help young people understand what happened, or mainly demand compliance.
Emotional-regulation tools, including Zones of Regulation and similar systems, can be useful. But they can also feel like punishment, or a public sign that a young person is “the problem”.
A tool’s purpose is not always the same as a young person’s experience of it. Ask young people how these systems feel. Where possible, involve them in choosing the language and deciding how the tool is used. A system that publicly labels a child’s emotional state may create shame rather than help them regulate.
Young people in our sessions repeatedly described school as a cage or prison. They were describing confinement, not learning.
It was like a cage. From being in the cage to now you're free.Young person, from one of our focus groups
One young person told us they were excluded for something that happened during the summer holidays. They were not allowed back to sit their GCSEs, were placed into care, and did not hear from the school again.
You may work in a system that a young person experiences as controlling, unfair or unpredictable. You can still be the part of it that feels different.
Be consistent. Follow through on what you say.
Be reachable. Show that your support is not conditional on good behaviour.
Speak as yourself. You are more than the institution’s representative.
Create a reliable pocket of safety. This might be a room, a regular time or simply a calm, respectful way of speaking.
Restorative practice puts relationships and repair at the centre of responding to conflict. It can sit alongside consequences, but it goes beyond punishment.
It means working with people, rather than doing things to them or for them.
Use these questions with everyone involved:
- What happened?
- What were you thinking at the time?
- What have you thought about since?
- Who has been affected, and how?
- What needs to happen to make things right?
Circles can build relationships before there is a problem. People sit together, with no front of the room, and take turns speaking using a talking piece. A short, regular circle can create more connection than a one-off assembly about respect.
Restorative practice helps answer a key question: does our response create understanding, or silence young people?
Name it. Offer choice. Give space. Reconnect.
Families in our research described different versions of the same approach for difficult days at home. We have written it down here so more families can use it.
1. Name it. Name the hard day, including your own feelings. Try: “Mummy’s having a bad day today. It is not personal to you.” This means nobody has to guess what is happening or take responsibility for someone else’s mood.
2. Offer a genuine choice. Ask: “Do you need a hug, or do you need some space?” Both answers are acceptable. The choice only works if a young person can safely choose either one.
Do you need a hug or do you need some space? Those are kind of the questions that I give them a lot.Parent, our family focus group
3. Give space. Chosen time alone can help young people settle after a hard day. This might mean music, gaming, cleaning, making something, spending time with a pet or sleeping. Parents and carers can protect that space, including from interruptions or pressure from siblings. Giving space is not withdrawing care. It is respect for what a young person needs in that moment.
4. Reconnect. Check in after the hard moment has passed. This could be through a meal, a short conversation, a message or time spent together.
Even when I'm having a hard day I will say to them, it's not personal to you. Mummy's having a bad day today... so they can navigate a little bit more sensitively.Parent, our family focus group
Adults are often told to connect before they correct, while young people may say, “Leave me alone.” Both can be true. The connection is the offer. The space is the respect.
Practise these four steps in week one of the family journey in Chapter 18.
Chosen solitude can help a young person settle. Withdrawal without a chosen activity can sometimes mean they are feeling stuck or overwhelmed. For the gentle “stuck in your head” check, see Chapter 6.
The hard day card, to keep
- Name it, including your own bad days.
- Offer it: do you need a hug or do you need some space?
- Protect the alone time.
- Reconnect after.