First you might want to ask “The Kid Whisperer,” also known as Scott Ervin. The third-grade Fairborn Primary School teacher has a blog and The Kid Whisperer Facebook page designed as resources for anyone involved with children.
“It’s a mission for me,” Ervin said. “I want to do what I can to help the most people possible.”
It was Ervin, however, who needed help early in his teaching career in the Dayton Public Schools.
“I was a horrible teacher when I started,” he said. “I yelled and screamed, I warned and lectured and none of it ever worked. I was exhausted at the end of every day.”
One book, “Teaching with Love & Logic: Taking Control of the Classroom,” changed everything.
Love and Logic
“That book completely changed my life. Everything I tried worked with really, really difficult kids,” he said. “Without that book, I probably would have been out of the education field within two years.”
The book, written by Jim Fay and David Funk, changed how Ervin approaches the classroom and interacts with children in all aspects of his life.
“Because of the skills I learned, I could go into the classroom and be the strictest teacher and simultaneously, the most loving,” he said. “That’s why I became so passionate about it.”
Ervin translated that passion into practice as he became an independent facilitator for Love and Logic programs for teachers and parents. Love and Logic is designed to provide simple and practical techniques to help parents raise responsible kids, have more fun in their roles, and easily and immediately change their children’s behavior. There are also tools for educators, principals and school districts that promote healthy parent-teacher and teacher-student relationships and positive school-wide discipline.
“There is so much junk out there when it comes to parenting, things that really don’t work,” Ervin said. “This is about learning actual skills, and when people learn these things it can completely change their lives.”
Little changes
Dayton mom Tonia Fish didn’t have a discipline problem in her home, and there were no specific issues she needed to address.
“But I felt like I left some parenting situations feeling like it could have been better,” Fish said.
Fish and her husband completed the entire Love and Logic series with Ervin and were thrilled with the results.
“Now after an interaction, I have a huge sense of total satisfaction, like getting an A+ in parenting,” Fish said. “I feel so empowered by it.”
Like many households, she and her husband had different parenting techniques but the course helped put them both on the same page. And Mom and Dad aren’t the only ones who are benefiting.
“It has really helped improve my daughter’s self-confidence because she is making choices, not just being told what to do,” Fish said.
Big issues
While parents come to Ervin with any number of issues and problems, there are several that the educator and consultant see as universal.
The first is dealing with children’s arguing.
“Whether they are conscious of it or not, they use arguing as a way to subvert everything their parents or teachers are trying to do,” Ervin said. “You cannot argue with children.”
The second major issue is children who are raised to be helpless.
“If you always solve their problems, it stunts the growth of your child,” he said. “Those kids turn into adults who can’t solve their own problems, and we all know those people.”
The third issue pertains to the behavior of the adult, not the child.
“Teachers, parents and adults in general often feel like they have to come up with an immediate consequence in response to a difficult behavior, but delayed consequences are more effective,” Ervin said.
The Kid Whisperer has been guilty of this himself.
“I actually told a student they were never going to recess ever again,” he said, smiling.
Ervin advises delaying consequence to figure out what makes sense and to avoid silly consequences.
Sharing the skills
Ervin has conducted in-service programs in school districts across the country and worked with many families.
He also answers questions and addresses issues on his blog, ask thekidwhisperer.com, and his Facebook page, The Kid Whisperer. He has had about 2,000 views on his blog since he started it a few months ago and has tallied more than 200 hits in a single day.
While he has worn many hats, from public school teacher and principal to adjunct faculty member at Antioch University Midwest and discipline specialist, his most challenging job just began. Ervin and his wife had their first child, a daughter, in August.
“I feel like I’m really prepared,” he said. “Droopy-eyed after a long sleepless night, but prepared.”
The nine essential skills of Love and Logic
(Interpreted by Scott Ervin)
1: Neutralizing arguing: Allows the adult to avoid arguing with children while training the child not to argue.
2: Delaying consequences: Gives the adult the time and space to come up with effective logical consequences for behaviors.
3: Utilizing empathy: Allows both the child and adult to calm down and enter a thinking state so the child is able to learn from his or her mistakes and solve his or her own problems.
4: Utilizing recovery: Allows the adult to change the location of the behavior. This is more effective than a "time-out."
5: Building positive relationships with children: When adults are taught explicitly how to build relationships with even the most difficult students, all other skills become more effective.
6: Utilizing enforceable statements: How to set and enforce strict limits without telling children what to do.
7: Utilizing choices to prevent power struggles: How the adult can give away control he or she doesn't need in the form of small choices in order to gain compliance from children.
8: Interventions: Techniques that allow the adult to stop unwanted behaviors before they start.
9: Guiding children to solve their own problems: Allows adults to guide children to develop self-esteem by owning and solving their own problems.
About the Author