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1- Before Bad Behaviour Even Begins…
Before you’re put in the position of having to discipline your child, consider this: don’t just talk about good behaviour; model it! In other words, as the old saying goes, “do as you do.” If you want your child to have good table manners, for example, be sure you have them yourself. Chances are, if your son or daughter sees you putting your napkin in your lap from a very young age, they will eventually start doing it too. And if you are not slurping drinks, chances are they won’t begin doing it. Children are mirrors of adult behaviour, and we can usually tell a lot about the parent by watching how the child behaves. After all, they learn their lessons about this at their parents’ knees, so if you want them to act in a certain way, you must act that way yourself 🙂2- Explain The Consequences of Bad Behaviour
Once your child is old enough to understand the basic principles of right and wrong, they are old enough to understand the fundamental logic of consequences and the concept of empathy. For example, let’s say that your older child keeps taking a toy away from a younger child, and they end up in tears and a shouting match. Explain to your older child why it upsets his sibling and how, if the situations were reversed, they would be upset, too. Some disagreements between siblings are completely natural, so don’t make the consequences extreme. But don’t ignore it either and think, “kids fight; it’s no big deal.” This is one of those situations that allows you to teach your children about the importance of considering other people’s feelings.3- Don’t Overreact
If your child knocks over a vase that was very dear to you, don’t imbue the incident with too much gravity. It was likely an accident, and everyone has those, right? Making the child feel awful about a genuine accident is no way to teach them life skills, and shouting will only make them – and you — feel worse.
Keep the incident in perspective. Explain why you are upset, but don’t let the situation drag on all day or send them to their room for a minor mishap.
4- Praise More Often Than You Criticize…
Constantly making your child feel like they are not good enough, refined enough, or independent enough contributes to anxiety and insecurity. It’s vital that you praise your child’s good behaviour as much as you correct and criticize their bad behaviour. Keeping the focus on what your child does well fosters happiness and security. It also means that when you do correct or criticize, they are far more likely to pay attention to what you’re saying and accept whatever discipline you mete out.5- Use “time outs” Judiciously
Please don’t send your child to their room every time they do something irritating or upsetting; all that does is demonstrate you are out of patience and unable to deal with the child’s tantrums or bad behaviour. Most experts agree that time-outs should be saved when a situation escalates, and you, the parent, need a few minutes to compose yourself and arrive at a suitable punishment for whatever your child has done. Being apart from each other allows tempers to cool, yours and your child’s, and fosters clear communication about the problem when you’re back together.6- Explain…
Explain how and why their behaviour was wrong and why you are disciplining them. Don’t assume that your child automatically understands why something is wrong simply because they see you are upset.
Telegraphing it with visible anger is not enough – you must clearly and as calmly as possible explain why their actions were unacceptable. This ties into the previous point about explaining the consequences.
If it’s not the first time the child has acted improperly – let’s say your son pulled a neighbour’s ponytail and she started crying – be sure to remind him of why hurting others is so serious. And if the behaviour does repeat itself, the discipline should become more severe with each infraction.
The first time, perhaps ban screen time for two hours. For each incident after that, discipline should be more pronounced – perhaps a whole evening without screens.
Any discipline involving the loss of screen time certainly gets children’s attention these days. (At what age to allow them access to screens at all is perhaps a topic for another column!)
Great ideas, thanks for the clear explanations!