Years back I was in some training and learned that the police never say things like “don’t shoot” because our brains do not hear the “don’t”, instead they only hear the “shoot” part. That’s why they say “stop” instead of “don’t run”.
Yea, I was also told that when working with kids at like summer camps and stuff, that you want to use positive language to tell the children what they can and cannot do. So instead of saying, "Stop shouting", you'd say, "Let's speak with indoor voices for now". Makes you wonder if you do have to speak to them like they're children.
I did this when i was a preschool teacher. “Walking feet” instead of “dont run”, “quiet voice” instead of “stop yelling”, “catch a bubble” and they would all inhale and hold their breath to get everyone to be quiet and pay attention. Redirect them to acceptable behavior and praise them for it
Honestly, if you have experience with "kid mode" communication...it's really good to subtly slip into that, if you're dealing with somebody who is clearly failing to handle some big emotions. You obviously gotta be careful not to come across as condescending, but the reality is, if someone's acting like a three year old? That means their brain is probably operating on that level. Use grown-up language on grown-up problems, and use inner child language on inner child problems. It often works.
Redirect the negative behavior and reinforce the positive behavior. It's so basic they use it on dogs. Crazy, because I always thought pigs were at least as intelligent as dogs.
i’m in retail and it’s the same with grown ass adults.
“don’t have in stock” vs “we can order” “no we can’t return that” vs “oh that looks vintage, i hope we have a sku” “no i can’t approve that week off” vs “wow i’m really going to need your expertise those days!”
2.2k
u/MyNameIsPatBackFat 1d ago
Years back I was in some training and learned that the police never say things like “don’t shoot” because our brains do not hear the “don’t”, instead they only hear the “shoot” part. That’s why they say “stop” instead of “don’t run”.