How to keep working on tone and dealing with family reaction to scripts

Hi Nicholeen!

I feel like I’ve been continuing to work on becoming gentler and softer with my tone, so if you have any tips on continuing to improve on that, that would be appreciated.

My family however, seems to be bothered when I intentionally try to speak in a very soft way, and very intentional with my word choice, and they say that it sounds weird or unnatural (my son yesterday was saying it does not sound natural to say “out of instructional control” or “disagree appropriately“). While I understand that it’s more important to observe the principles, rather than specific wording, I have hesitated to change any wording from the scripts much, because I know that they are tested and tried in the trenches! Would you recommend adapting the wording to try to have it feel more natural to the family? Or simply sticking with the scripts until they get used to it (and then is more expected perhaps sounds natural coming from dad?)

I know out of control can also be used, but to me it also seems inaccurate when a child is rolling eyes, walking away, slumping in their body language, talking back but without yelling… These could be argued as still being in control, however they are not willing to take instructions so I see the benefit of using the specific “instructional control” description. I’ve played a little bit with saying something like “you’re not ready to receive instructions”. Our son who has been oppositional, argues that “he will never take instructions from me” use that I am trying to control him!

I know that these are also all things that in theory could improve if we do pre-teaching properly and get the family to understand the whole program, but that has been extremely difficult especially since Mom is not on board, so I’m trying to chip away and little by little implement this while still offering Everyone an opportunity to understand what I’m doing and why.

Thank you!