1Where a child is not attending, the adults are often already cross with each other. That argument has to be parked before any plan will hold.
Home thinks the school did not act. The school thinks home is not firm. Both usually have a point, and neither point can be settled quickly enough to help this child this term. Meanwhile a plan applied one way at home and another way at school teaches a young person exactly where the gap is, and they will use it, not from malice but because it is there.
Islamic evidence
So keep to the right course as you have been commanded, together with those who have turned to God with you (Quran 11:112). The word together is carrying real weight in that sentence.
“So keep to the right course as you have been commanded, together with those who have turned to God with you. Do not overstep the limits, for He sees everything you do”
Qur'an 11:112
Psychological evidence
In a worksite trial with 107 distressed employees, acceptance and commitment therapy and stress inoculation training both reduced distress, although they start from quite different premises. It is one trial in one setting and says nothing about who was right about anything. It does suggest that arguing over whose method is correct can matter less than settling on something and doing it consistently.
Flaxman PE, Bond FW. (2010). Behaviour research and therapy · doi
Review detail
Why it works. A plan that two sides apply differently is not one plan, and the child notices the difference before the adults do.
Feedback
none yet3Most of us rehearse the crushing line we wish we had said. Try spending that same time writing what you would actually like to say next time, and keep it short enough to remember.
Take one real episode from the past week and write two things: what happened, and one sentence you would rather have used. Something like I am getting wound up and I want to sort this out, not win it. Doing this afterwards, in the quiet, means you are never asking yourself to invent a good line while your heart is going.
Islamic evidence
Repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend (Quran 41:34). The better response is named as a thing you reach for, which means it is worth having ready.
“Good and evil cannot be equal. [Prophet], repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend”
Qur'an 41:34
Psychological evidence
In laboratory experiments, recalling an anger provoking event was not the problem in itself: dwelling on it prolonged anger and raised blood pressure, while reinterpreting the same event reduced both. In a separate randomised experiment, forming a specific if then plan in advance reduced how much tempting food people served themselves, which shows a decision made beforehand can carry into the moment. Both are small controlled studies rather than trials of this exact exercise.
Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ. (2008). Journal of personality and social psychology · doi
van Koningsbruggen GM, Veling H, Stroebe W, Aarts H. (2014). British journal of health psychology · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Whatever you rehearse gets easier to reach for, so it is worth rehearsing the thing you actually want.