Encouraging Positive Behavior

We all want our children to behave well, yet sometimes it is easy to forget that children don’t have the life experience we have. We often assume they know how to behave in all situations when in fact they are still trying to navigate how to do this. Our child's behavior is often a reflection of what they are experiencing and feeling.  Once we understand where the behavior is coming from we can then know how to respond. For some children a change in routine, lack of sleep, feeling un-well or new situations can see them act out in ways we may feel are not positive. As parents our role is to help guide them in life. For this to happen we need to understand what is triggering the behavior we are seeing. This then helps us know how best to respond and support them to make positive behaviour choices. Tips to encourage positive behaviours include:

• Actively listen to your child – hear what they are saying and how they feel without judgement – listen to hear not to respond, take time to understand their perspective
• Make your expectations clear about how your children need to behave
• Encourage self reflection – ask what they could do differently next time
• Set clear limits and make any consequence fair, don’t over react
• Model the behavior you want to see in your child, remember they learn from you
• Give warning of transitions in activities, moving from playtime to dinner, bed time etc this allows your child to prepare for change
• Pick your battles – Is it really important, does it really matter and is it worth the fight? Teaching children how to let go of little things is just as important in learning to manage behaviors
• Praise your child when you see them demonstrating good behavior, this helps them feel great and reinforce positive behavior
• Encourage responsibility - by allowing your child some age appropriate responsibility you are teaching them independence a skill for life
• Mistakes are ok – let your child know that they will make mistakes and it helps us to learn how we can make better choices moving forward

Mostly importantly have fun with your children, they want your attention, spend time playing with them, talking to them and enjoying them.