Every Parent definitely wants their Chirldren to have an improved behavioir. Children are little humans and as such will surely misbehave, display various shortcomings etc. Guess what! this is why we are in their lives to nurture them, euip them and direct them on the right path..
In order to improve your Child’s behaviour, you need to have an understanding of what behaviour is. A beautiful definition I saw on this is – a Behaviour is a way that a person reacts usually in response to a particular situation or stimulus.
This means it is important for us to know that any behaviour we observe in our Children is their response to a situation.
Most times when Parents see their children behave in a certain manner, they attack the children instead of the behaviour. When you understand that the behaviour is not your child but just a response to something, then you’ll begin to investigate in an intelligent manner and ask yourself questions like, what is triggering that behaviour? What is the child is responding to? etc. If you’re able to answer this questions, then you’re on your way to improving your Child’s behaviour.
This investigative approach helps you to look at your Child’s behaviour with an open mind and enables you solve the problem while equipping your Child with skills to behave better in future. For instance, if you have a Child who is slow with doing chores or probably you tell him or her to do something and you come back to meet it undone, instead of yelling or hitting the Child, what you should do is to find out why your Child is behaving that way, what is triggering the behaviour, what is your child responding to, if there’s any way you have contributed to the behaviour, if the environment is contributing to the behaviour etc. If you give your child a chore and there is TV or there are children playing outside, that environment may be preventing your child from doing that chore because of the distractions. So when you have an understanding of what is going on, you will remove those things that are distracting your Child or have a conversation with him or her which can start with something like this “I know you will love to watch TV, but let’s create a routine on time to do chores and time to watch TV. You have to strategically help them build the right habits untill it comes to them naturally.
In summary, anytime you notice an unacceptable behaviour in your Child, ask yourself questions like – what os my Child responding to? What situation or enviroment is making this behaviour to thrive? Who is the external influence behind the behaviour? etc. Having the right approach and asking the right questions is the Foundation of improving your Child’s behaviour.
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