Thanks to a recommendation from one of my first collegues and mentors, I began each school year with a “behavior chat”. I wrote out a document and passed it out to all of my staff and then we went over it. During this behavior chat time I outlined all of the expectations I had for the adults who would be regularly working with the students in my classroom. Flash forward to mommy-hood, and I have found myself applying the same ideas and reflections within my own parenting.
So naturally I am going to share them with you! My point in this first piece is to identify the basic things I use when dealing with behaviors (good and bad) in my own home. I will follow up with a few articles that go more into depth.
Expectations: Keep them high and reasonable! Children consistently rise to every expectation adults in their lives set for them. If the expectations are low or unreasonable, unwanted behaviors usually present either when they are young or when they are older. If the expectations are high and reasonable considering age and abilities, good behaviors usually present consistently…sounds simple huh…that is because it is!
Encouraging Independence: I have never met a parent of any child who has said, my hope is that my child grows up to depend on me completely and never do anything for himself…Parents’ goals include teaching their children to be as independent as possible so they can be contributing members of society, or simply as independent as possible so they can better function in society. Guess what, if we consistently encourage independent skills and are there to help teach and promote those skills while they are young, then we will successfully help our children build a strong behavioral foundation. (Note my use of the word “encouraging” and not “forcing” independence).
Natural Consequences: This is a necessary step to allow in the behavioral development of all children ages 2 and up (from about two months to two years cause and effect teach our little ones for every action there is a reaction). Help and bailout will not always follow our children around to protect them from making mistakes. So as much as we want to control and protect our children (or ourselves) from failing, throwing tantrums, stumbling, we need to show restraint while they are young and developing. A simple example is dinner time. If a child is not hungry enough to eat the good food that mom and dad made for them, they are not hungry enough to have a dessert. Or if you throw a tantrum and you break one of your favorite toys, it is gone, you don’t get a new one.
Understanding/Acceptance: When mistakes, bad choices or messes occur with our children it is OUR reaction that will make or break the situation. Acceptance of your child’s abilities and current developmental stage is key. If you can quickly assess the situation, take a deep breath and use one of three tools in your response. Empathy: “ouch that really hurts when you jump off the table and hit your head, what do you think about that choice?” Laughter: “Umm excuse me, who said the Hulk could come out and destroy this room? Who are you going to call to clean it up?” Remove from situation: (screaming, yelling, kicking) “Time to separate and have alone time, you upstairs, you downstairs and take a minute to cam down.” Then bring everyone back to discuss the situation.
Communication: One of the very best tools I have learned to use for all children of all developing ages is the use of appropriate communication. Children do not know how to rationalize and explain their thoughts in a “mature” way. They need to be taught, and they need to be taught appropriately to their development age. When a child screams, or throws a physical tantrum, we as parents need to provide the correct language. (“I need help”, “I am not ready”, or “I can do it myself”) This also works really well when there is no problem at all. As parents we can teach all day by modeling language to use during all fun and learning experiences.
Discussion: This can be scaled to your child’s abilities. However, I think discussion of past, current and future events is key to teaching children. I like to use this tool when I am teaching my children that although I have a tendency to want to control everything that happens in our lives, I am not perfect. When I allow my emotions to get the better of me, I make a point to discuss with my kids what I did wrong, and how I could have been better (again this language can be as simple or as complex as needed depending on the child’s development level). This opens doors for them to talk about what they have been processing in their own heads.
Reflection: Parenting is not all about the moment and what my child did to elicit the response from me. It is an ongoing, changing and developing state of mind. I try to reflect on every significant (what I consider significant in our lives) event that happened. I focus specifically on myself, what I did, how I responded, and how it affected my children or entire family. This goes back to I’m not perfect, and therefore I can not expect my children to be perfect. The reflection tool helps me identify my behavior and the consequences of my behavior as well as what I can do differently when the situation undoubtly presents itself again.
Thanks for taking the time to read some of my thoughts, I hope they helped you identify some things you already use in your parenting, or maybe even gave you some new ideas to try!