Tag Archives: parent training

Child Behaviour Strategies: Focus on What You Want

When parents come to me for help with a child, they naturally start by telling me what is wrong with their child and what behaviours or emotional responses they would like to get rid of or change. That is totally understandable.

If a child is frequently acting in a way that is inappropriate, unacceptable, annoying, or worrying, it is reasonable that the parents would focus on those bad behaviours and reactions in an attempt to stop or modify them; especially if the parents have got to the stage of seeking help from a psychologist. By that time they are usually tearing their hair out with frustration and losing sleep.

When I observe these parents and children together, I notice that the concerned parents often spend a great deal of time and energy giving negative attention to the children’s unwanted behaviours in an attempt to stop them. Again, this is totally natural and understandable.

Attention Encourages Behaviour

The problem is that every time the parents focus their attention on unwanted behaviours, they inadvertently encourage those behaviours, particularly if the child is hungry for attention. Some children need an enormous amount of attention, and they can unconsciously develop a taste for bad attention if that becomes their main source.

A powerful strategy when you are dealing with an attention seeking child, is to pay more attention to the behaviours and reactions that you want, and less attention to the behaviours and reactions that you don’t want.

Focus on What You Want

If you focus on desirable behaviours and give them your love and positive attention, you will nurture and encourage those positive behaviours. It’s a bit like watering, fertilising and protecting flowers in a garden, and allowing the weeds to wilt and be trampled in a natural way.

It is sometimes difficult to see the positive in a child who has driven you crazy with their disobedience, or laziness, or inability to listen and follow instructions , or silly behaviour, or rudeness, or dangerous antics, or anxiety, or aggression, or temper tantrums. Many parents of challenging children find it very hard to find anything they feel worthy of positive attention.

Start with Small Seeds

But remember, beautiful flowers grow from small seeds. You have to make a conscious effort to turn your habitual attention giving around, so that you notice and acknowledge positive behaviours, even if only tiny things.

Try to notice and acknowledge when your attention seeking child plays quietly by himself for even a minute. Smile and give a thumbs up when your argumentative children agree over which TV program to watch. Praise your dreamy child when she manages to follow a small instruction. High five your angry child when he gets through a short shopping expedition without a tantrum.

Gradually Expect More

Make sure the praise and attention suit the age, personality and maturity of the child. As your child gets better at taking these small steps, you can reduce the frequency of your praise and raise the bar slowly, and as they mature acknowledge this with the expectation that things will keep improving. ‘You are getting better and better at staying calm as you get older. Well done.”

Want More Help?

If you are interested in other parenting tips, get a copy of my free twelve part e-book, ‘12 Super Child Training Secrets’. Or, if you are after a much more comprehensive and intensive training that you could do at home in your own time and pace, check out my parent training package, ‘How to Manage Your 3 to 10 Year Old Child’. The links to both are on www.Psychology ThroughTheInternet.com, on the right hand side of the page.

Happy parenting.

Lorri Craig

Discipline Doesn’t Have to Mean Smacking and Shouting

Parents often struggle to know how to discipline and teach their children right from wrong without smacking or shouting at them.

Although smacking and other aggressive forms of discipline can stop a problem behaviour at the time, research has shown us that the long term effects are not so positive. As soon as the threat of physical punishment is removed, children are more likely to revert to the prohibited behaviours. Instead of the child striving to please the parent, the aggrieved and humiliated child is likely to feel resentment, so is more likely to rebel and disobey at the first opportunity.

And, because children generally copy their parents, children who are chastised with violence or shouting are more likely to be violent and aggressive. On top of that, children like attention, the more the better. So all that intense aggressive attention from parents can fill a need in an attention seeking child, and inadvertently encourage the bad behaviour to be repeated.

The other part of the anti-smacking argument is that parents end up feeling… well… bad. Most parents don’t enjoy the feeling of aggressively attacking and bullying their child into submission, particularly afterwards. It tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth. It’s demeaning for both sides, and can seriously affect a child’s self esteem and create emotional problems. And if a parent uses physical punishment when they are angry, they sometimes hit harder than they meant to. For these reasons, in many places in the world it is actually illegal to smack a child.

But children do need discipline. They need guidance and rules, and clear consequences when those rules are broken. Children without rules and consequences tend to struggle to make sense of the world and find it difficult to internalise positive values from their parents. They can become pretty painful to be around, both within the family and in the outside world.

I’m about to release a training program for parents and carers called ‘How to Manage Your 3 to 10 Year Old Child’. It’s made up of 3 hours of interactive downloadable videos, workbooks, course notes, sample charts and certificates, plus a bonus Relaxation DVD to help you become a calmer and more assertive parent. You can watch the videos at any time of day or night to learn effective strategies at your own pace. No need to arrange childcare to attend an expensive course. If you are interested leave your name in the box on the right of the page to qualify for my generous prelaunch discount.

I have plenty of other articles on this site about managing children’s behaviour, so check them out HERE, or just do a search through the search box.

Enjoy and happy parenting.

Lorri

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