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Parenting is hard work, and it’s a hard job to get through some days. Here are 10 quick tips for better behavior that you can implement right away and see an improvement in your child.
Because parenting is a full time, non stop job, it can get overwhelming and stressful. All the “parenting rules” and positive parenting guidelines can get a little muddy when you think about applying them to your own life.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, and need a little bit of encouragement, here are 10 QUICK tips for better behaviour that you can implement right away and see an improvement in your child, and take some of that stress and anxiety away.
1. Set Routines
Kids do need routine and structure to thrive, especially for school morning and afternoons, bedtime and even dinner time.
Let your children in on the set up of your routine and keep practicing the routines to make them a nice and easy habit.
Young kids can use routine cards and charts while older children can go through a written list of tasks as part of their routine.
Here are some charts for kids that can help ease the stress of creating routines;
2. create Connections With Children Daily
Spending quality time with your children will help improve your children’s behaviour, and it’s easy to do too! Give them positive attention and connect emotionally to satisfy their needs for connection with you.
If you do not provide your child with enough attention daily, they may start to seek it out negatively through back talk and power struggles, making your job as a parent much more difficult.
All you need is 15 minutes a day for quality connection. My favorite way to connect is through conversation games.
3. Encourage And Praise
While praising your children can be harmful if done too much, encouragement can be very good for your children. Let your children figure out their own fights during a disagreement, and don’t step in so soon. Afterwards, make a comment on how they solved the problem. For example, “I like how you talked to your sister about how it made you feel when she took the remote away earlier today, that was very mature.“
4. Use Positive Words In Place Of “No”
When we say no all day, everyday, our children begin to resent it and us too. Try to find opportunities to say YES, even if you are actually saying no, or not right now.
For example, your child asks you to go to the library but you have a busy day planned. Instead of “No, we cannot go to the library” you can say “That sounds like fun, do you want to go tomorrow or on the weekend?“
Putting a positive spin on your “No” doesn’t mean you’re being a soft parent or aren’t setting up proper rules in your home. It simply means you want to create a positive environment for your kids, and that is a nice thing to do.
5. Ensure Your Family Members Get A Good Sleep
Children need their sleep, and they become better behaved when they get enough of it.
You can ensure your little one gets enough sleep by setting up bedtime routines and encouraging sleeping in if your kids are early risers.
A well rested child is a better behaved child.
6. Make Rules Clear
Family rules can get muddled if they aren’t being tracked. A family meeting can help the family agree on a set of rules that work well for everyone. Rules should have consequences (especially if natural consequences aren’t going to occur).
When children are aware of consequences ahead of time, they are less likely to not follow the set rules that you set during the family meeting.
7. Find The Source Of The Behaviour
Usually when children act out, there is a deeper issue than what may appear at first. If we can dig deep into the root of the troubling behaviour we can fix it at the root.
Sometimes children are lacking that attention or routine. Sometimes they may not have gotten enough sleep. Whatever the issue is, think about your child’s day (or last few days) and see ify ou can do a little detective work and find out where the behavior stems from.
Stay calm, and using positive parenting to solve this mystery.
8. Ditch The Time Out’s
While time out’s are not positive parenting approved, calm down corners are. Time out’s simply do not work, and they make the child angry, resentful and could cause further behavior issues down the line.
A calm down corner, however, is a positive experience that can help your child get centred and grounded. They can reflect on their actions and see what they can do differently next time in reaction to what just happened to make them lash out.
9. Family Contributions Are Important
When children contribute to caring for the family which does include helping parents when they need it, they understand that they are needed.
When children feel needed, they act better! This also helps bring the family together, so it’s a huge win for all.
10. Self-Care For Parents
If you can fill your own cup, you’ll be able to fill your child’s emotional cup of needs better too.
You don’t need to be your child’s best friend, but you also don’t need to appear stressed out and bossy all the time either. If you take care of yourself, you can change your entire energy which will help you stay calm, in turn creating kids who are more calm and positive.
Quick Tips For Better Behavior Wrapped Up
While these tips may seem obvious to some, they aren’t obvious to everyone!
I do hope these quick tips can be helpful to you and your family and that you do start to see better behavior and have a happy peaceful home in no time at all.
If you need more tips on using positive parenting, check out this comprehensive online parenting course where Amy McCready goes over 37 tools to help you tame the power struggles and bring peace and calm into your home.
I hope you find joy and happiness in your parenting journey and thank you for taking the time to read all about positive parenting, which is much needed in today’s world!
