‘We are all serving a life sentence, and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.’
As humans, we all tend to behave in a certain way that is socially acceptable and considered moral. This kind of behavior is what we call positive behavior.
However, these positive behaviors are the consequences of different learning experiences and social norms.
If we talk about kids and young children, they learn good or bad behavior as they grow. Children do not think about the pros and cons of their behaviors before doing it. They don’t think like:
Is it acceptable for me to do this?
Is this a good behavior?
Is this a bad behavior?
What would be the consequence of my behaviors?
Kids do not care about all of this. Which results in challenging behaviors that parents have to deal with. A child’s behavior is mostly the result of their own will to behave a certain way according to their mood and feelings. When they are excited, they play around with excitement. When they feel angry, they don’t care about anything and may act aggressively. It may include refusal to obey and even misbehaving with elders.
Parents are highly concerned for their young children who adopt bad behaviors. Well, there comes an age in everyone’s life when they are learning to adapt to society. And young children are prone to this learning. As they are exploring their environment. So if they adopt bad behaviors, they must be monitored. Parents should develop positive behaviors in children to create a positive home environment.
Here is a list of some steps that you can take to develop positive relationships with your young children. Ultimately it will help to develop positive behaviors.
1. BE A ROLE MODEL:
Every child learns by observing their environment. And your kid’s ultimate environment is your home.
If you adopt positive parenting techniques such as talking respectfully to your kids, maintaining healthy boundaries, and showing patience and empathy, then your kids will learn the same.
They will act the way you do. Because in early childhood development, all a child does is observation. According to Bandura’s observational learning theory, we learn by directly observing others.
2. SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS:
Setting up clear expectations for your children helps to enforce positive behavior in them. When they know that they are not expected to behave in a certain way, they avoid doing that.
But that requires clear open-ended communication with children. You should be friendly enough with your kids that they do not hesitate to discuss their issues with you. And you discuss your expectations with them.
So when you have clear discussions, your child behaves accordingly.
3. USE POSITIVE LANGUAGE:
Your way of communication has a direct connection to perceptions. If you communicate positively, like praising somebody on their little achievements, addressing people with respect even though they are younger people or elders, and showing empathy through words.
This has a positive effect on people.
But nobody would want to talk to you if you communicate negatively, use bad words, have a rude or harsh tone, and have aggressive responses.
So if you use sentences like ‘please open the door’, ‘kindly help me with this’ and ‘ I’m proud of you’ instead of assertive ones, your child will feel good. And they will desire to be like you and adopt positive behaviors.
4. USE POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT:
Positive reinforcement strategies refer to adopting such methods that make your child want to engage in a certain behavior.
In positive reinforcement, we introduce anything in the child’s environment that they want to have. But only when a task is completed.
So it’s more like a reward system in which you encourage people to adopt behaviors by rewarding them for it.
For example, you want your child to complete homework on time. You can keep the reward of increased screen time for 30 mins for it. So to get the reward, your child will complete their homework.
That’s how positive reinforcement works. It helps a lot in promoting healthy habits in children as well as encouraging good behavior.
5. TEACH SOCIAL SKILLS:
We live with people and interact with them daily. Every person has a different role in living in a society. Young people are expected to respect the elderly and the same goes for youngsters. They should be respected the same.
You should teach your child how to behave socially. With friends and peers so that they develop good communication and problem-solving skills. This helps a lot in the social-emotional learning of children.
Spending time with your kids in different social environments such as parks, playgrounds, museums, and libraries can help in the development of social skills.
6. EMOTIONAL REGULATION:
Encouraging positive behavior does not mean that you impost only strict lectures and orders for your child. You have to keep track of your child’s emotional regulation too. Kids go through a cycle of development where they learn about different emotions and their expressions.
Sometimes, children fail to truly understand their emotions. This results in tantrums, aggressiveness, and sometimes misbehavior.
So you should avoid scoldings in this case and focus on behavior management in toddlers to encourage good behavior.
CONCLUSION:
In this article, we discussed different child discipline methods that you can adopt to develop positive behavior in your children. They will help in building resilience in children and help them become a better future of society.
We as parents or caregivers should not forget that kids learn by making mistakes. And these mistakes make them able to understand what to avoid and what to approach.
So we should focus on supporting positive behavior rather than pointing out negative ones and do scoldings for that.
Spread positivity with smiles in young children to help them better able to learn.
