Parents love it when their kids are displaying good behaviour. Aside from making you feel like you’re right on track to raising a responsible child, it also makes going to public places a whole lot easier.
Anyways, if you’re looking for ways to encourage your children to exemplify good behaviour, then you’ve come to the right place. Here, we’ve collated a few tips to help you make your children behave well at home and in other places.
Be a Role Model
First, become a good role model to your children. Children watch their parents closely, especially when it comes to behaving in the world. Therefore, use your behaviour to guide your children. Always remember that your actions have much more impact than your words.
So if you want your child to behave appropriately during parties, show her how you behave in parties. If you’d like your children to say the word ‘please’, say it often. If you want your child to talk calmly when she’s upset, make sure you’re also talking softly and gently when you are upset.
Showing Emotions
Show your emotions to your children. Be honest to your child whenever his or her behaviour affects you. By doing so, your child will be more empathetic to your situation. He will feel or see himself in you, just like a mirror.
So for example, you can say ‘I am getting upset, I can’t concentrate on cooking with all the noise’ or something similar. If you use the word ‘I’ at the beginning of your sentence, your kids will be able to see things from your point of view.
Praise Your Child for Being Good
Acknowledge your child for being good. When your kids are behaving appropriately, be sure to acknowledge them. For example, ‘Wow, you really did behave properly during the part at your aunt’s house. You even helped your cousin in cleaning up his room. I am really impressed’.
When giving positive feedbacks to your children, make sure you try to give 6 praises and words of encouragement for every reprimands and criticisms. Always bear in mind that children, if you give too much attention to the negative actions or behaviour, and give no notice to their positive behaviour will more likely exemplify undesired behaviour.
Listening to Your Kids
Listen to your child, especially when he’s letting his emotions out. This will help your child to cope up with his emotions. As you may already know, children can easily become frustrated when they are unable to express themselves verbally.
Remember to repeat to them what you think they’re feeling to help relieve their tension. Listening intently will also make your kids feel respected and comforted. If you do this, you’ll also notice lesser temper tantrums.
Don’t Break Promises
Once you have an agreement with your child, make sure to stick to it. One of the negative results when you break promises is that your children will less like trust what you say. It also loses his respect for you. So when you promise that you’re going to eat ice cream after your child picks up her toys, make sure you keep that promise.
This also applies when he is showing undesired behaviour. When you tell your children that you’re going home because they keep on fighting in the mall, do it. This way, they know that you always mean what you say.
Once is Enough
Nagging and criticizing doesn’t work. Well, it may work, but instead of having a positive outcome, you get negative outcomes. Such action will only cause your child to tune you out and wonder why you’re getting upset.
So, instead of hounding your children to do their chores or homework just say it once. Then remind your child about the consequences of not cooperating and then count to three. If he doesn’t cooperate still, then allow him to suffer the consequences. Just provide guidance, but do not bail him out.
Then the next time you tell him to cooperate, he will surely know that he needs to do it. Otherwise, he will be facing the consequences on his own. Doing this will not only help your child learn how to prioritize homework and chores, it will also help him learn how to manage his time.
Giving Chores
Children who contribute to the family tend to feel important. So as your child grows, make sure to present him with appropriate chores. Most parents would rather have their children play on gadgets, while they’re doing all the house chores.
Giving chores to children make some parents, if not all, feel guilty. But that shouldn’t be the case. Remember, children who don’t do chores tend to grow up to be irresponsible and dependent.
Chores will make your children feel how important they are to the family. Children who do chores tend to become more structured and responsible. So give your child some chores and supervise by doing a different chore. Life if your child is making his bed, you can vacuum the floor or something.