A long time ago, we met a young girl who was having a rebellious streak against her parents. She explained their determination to control her life and how it made her lash out in very loud ways. We remember her mother even talking to us and how we got into the conversation of what we like to call, “the red button syndrome”.

The red button syndrome is when one person tells another person not do something and they do it anyway. “Don’t do this”, “don’t do that” and “no, no, no” are all negative demands, that oftentimes have no effect or opposite of the intended effect. We’ve found that in our own relationship, choosing positive reinforcement encourages trust, support and healthier communication. It just takes practice to rewire the brain from “don’t do this” to “how about we try this”.

Parents and children can begin trusting one another to make the right choices if they spend more time together communicating, teaching and learning from one another, like guides. If parents aren’t there, or act as negative enforcers instead of positive teachers, children will find other guides, like their peers, who are often instigators of more bad behaviors.

We all need to know everyone makes bad choices and bad choices can be learned from. We can’t just tell people not to press the red button, we have to show them other options with more positive outcomes. All we have to do as couples, parents, siblings, friends and neighbors is be the positive example, be more understanding, teach with solution-based thinking, be forgiving and supportive of one another as a whole.