Obesity-proofing our children 186 lucky that might coincide with something you quite like too – which is more likely in later childhood and the teenage years. Your child is the arbiter, not you. If they don’ t think it is special, it absolutely isn’ t and the point of the exercise is lost. While there are other factors that feed into how our unconscious calculates our self-worth Special Time is the most powerful one. Far and away the most common cause of children’ s poor behavior that I have seen as I work with parents is lack of Special Time. More often than not the primary culprit is my gender – the fathers. As the parent spends Special Time with their children, after a month or two they nearly always report their children are much better behaved. If there were other problems causing the child’ s behavior, the other spin-off is that, during the time together, the child will talk about what these issues are. Because children will talk most freely while they are doing something else, Special Time is often when you will hear about what is happening in your child’ s life. If there are other problems that sit behind their non-compliance, you will then be best equipped to help them. How often do you need to allocate Special Time? Around once a week for a couple of hours at a time( less for younger children, more for older teenagers) along with 15 minutes or so every couple of days in the course of the day. When a child sees little of a parent they feel unloved, angry and worst of all they have nothing to lose by misbehaving – at least they can get some attention even if it’ s negative. The more quality time they spend with the parent, the closer they become and the more they have to lose by misbehaving. Creating Special Time takes time – it is very much a case of a stitch in time saves nine. Children who are constantly getting into trouble can take up hours of your time, usually when you can least afford it – and of course that is no accident either! Just be aware, though, that one or two Special Times will not suddenly produce a compliant child who will be happy to eat their vegetables. It must be a regular occurrence that your children can come