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This is a collaborative post.
As a parent, one of the more difficult jobs is teaching your child to behave. It’s a task that requires lots of patience and understanding healthy discipline strategies can really help. Research shows that physical punishment and harsh language is ineffective, so an independent school in New York have put together the five following tips to help parents understand the best tactics for disciplining their child.
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Ask Them Why They Have Misbehaved
Giving out consequences without truly understanding the reason behind a certain type of behaviour isn’t an effective way to prevent the behaviour from happening again. Listen to your child and find out why they have done whatever it is that they have done. Maybe they’re jealous or perhaps they feel insecure. Help them work through these emotions and explain better ways for them to deal with how they’re feeling so that they don’t lash out again in the future.
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Give Them Your Attention
Keep an eye on your child and be sure to praise and reinforce them when they display positive behaviour. If you are only there to punish them, they are more likely to behave poorly in the future as a form of attention seeking. Instead, encourage good behaviour by rewarding success, kindness and good effort.
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Model Good Behaviour
You are your child’s number one role model, so always display behaviour that you would want to see from them. For example, when you’re feeling angry use calm words and actions to express yourself, rather than shouting and swearing. You can’t expect your child to respect others if they witness you disrespecting others.
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Set Clear Rules and Limits
Make sure you have rules in place for your child to follow, with regards to how they behave in each situation they’re placed in. If they don’t have clear guidelines, they won’t know that they are pushing the limits.
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Be Prepared for the Worst
In new situations or those that have incurred trouble in the past, be prepared for bad behaviour. The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to diffuse the situation if it gets out of hand. Speak to your child in advance and let them know how you would like them to behave. If you see them getting bored at any point, distract them with something so that they don’t throw a tantrum.