If you feel it’s time to stop spinning your wheels and start seeing progress with your child’s behaviour, then we need to talk.

Because I know what it feels like to sit across from a frustrated parent, hearing them say, “I’ve tried everything.” But when I dig a little deeper — it turns out they’ve tried about three things… and repeated them in different ways. Tony Robbins once said, “Don’t tell me you’ve tried everything until you’ve listed a hundred things.” That’s a hard truth. But an empowering one, too.

Why Behaviour Isn’t Random – Even When It Feels Like It

Let’s rewind to the basics for a moment and look at the work of B.F. Skinner and the field of behaviourism. It tells us that every behaviour, no matter how baffling, is meeting a need. That could be attention, comfort, control, or even just a sense of safety in a chaotic moment.

So when your child shuts down, melts down, lashes out, or refuses to engage, they’re getting something from that behaviour. The question is: are you helping to reward it without meaning to?

I’m not just talking about reward in the “gold star” sense. I’m talking about emotional rewards — the attention that comes from a parent who rushes in, explains, argues, confiscates, negotiates, and ends up spending far more time and energy on the problem behaviour than on the calm, constructive moments. That’s the trap. And most of us fall into it. Because we care.

“Where your attention flows, behaviour grows.”

Praise Isn’t Enough – It Has to Replace the Reward of the Bad Behaviour

Here’s where things get sneaky. A lot of parents will tell me: “I do praise them when they’re calm! I do reward them when they try!”

And they probably do. But here’s the kicker: are those positive moments getting the same intensity and emotional charge that the challenging ones get?

If your child throws a wobbly and ends up with 20 minutes of your fully focused attention and animated explanations, but when they manage a calm day you simply say “well done” while scrolling through your phone… then we’ve got a problem.

That’s not balance. That’s reinforcement in disguise.

You can’t just ignore the behaviour you don’t want — you have to drown it out with rich, meaningful, high-impact rewards for the behaviour you do want. And that takes intention. That takes strategy. That takes shifting from firefighting to coaching.

You’re not just a parent. You’re shaping patterns that last a lifetime.

This Is Where NLP Changes the Game

In our NLP4Kids coaching franchise, we teach practitioners how to help families interrupt those sneaky patterns and create new, sustainable ones. It’s not about using “magic words” or scripts. It’s about understanding the needs behind the behaviour and designing responses that feed the right needs, not the disruptive ones.

We show parents how to build consistent emotional rewards around bravery, calmness, flexibility, and communication. And yes, sometimes it means ignoring the tantrum — but it always means celebrating the recovery from it. Loudly. Colourfully. Repeatedly.

If you’ve been caught in a cycle of reactions that never seem to shift the needle, you’re not failing. You’re just missing the behavioural blueprint that your child is operating from. And we can help you find it.

Our coaching franchise is built on the belief that parents and children deserve tools that work, not just theories that sound nice. And that change isn’t just possible — it’s probable, when you know what to reward and why.

Whether you want to work with one of our licensed practitioners, or explore how to become one yourself, you’re in the right place.

by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai)

Becoming a Licensee