How To Change Your Child’s Behavior

July 29, 2009 by Guest Writer
Filed under: Parenting Tips

In our society, we tend to give attention to bad behavior and ignore good behavior. The newspaper,radio and TV tell of murderers, terrorists and rapists. Hardly ever do we hear about people who do good deeds, are kind to relatives and friends and take good care of their families. The habit of giving attention to bad behavior affects family life.

Examples: A family member takes out the trash every day and no one notices. One day when he forgets to take out the trash, other family members complain. No one notices that the laundry is always done and the family always has clean clothes. Then, one day the washing machine breaks down, the clothes don’t get washed and everyone asks “Where are my clean clothes?”

When a child is quietly drawing with his crayons in a coloring book, we tend to leave him alone but when he starts coloring on the walls, we suddenly start paying attention to him. Children need lots of attention. To shape or change a child’s behavior, we need to change the way we give attention. That is… Give attention for good behavior and ignore bad behavior.

Children need a lot of attention and they seek and accept any kind of attention, positive or negative. Some examples of positive attention include: A HUG A SMILE TELLING THEM “I LOVE YOU” Thanking them for something they did or said, telling them: “What a nice picture you drew. Let ’s hang it on the wall.” or “ I feel proud when you put your toys away.” or “ I’m glad to see you playing nicely with your friend and taking turns with your toys.”

Negative attention includes: a frown, a spanking, taking away a privilege, yelling “How many times do I have to tell you to...?”, threatening “ If you don’t stop it this minute I ’m going to... ! ”. It’s better for everyone if most of the attention a child gets is positive. This is hard to do since children often do things that upset us. However, it is worthwhile to give positive attention for good behavior, so good behavior increases and bad behavior decreases.

How do bad child behaviors get started? A toddler hears someone say a swear word.The toddler says the swear word in front of his parents. Surprised, the parents laugh. The next day, the toddler uses the swear word again in front of his mother and a neighbor. Mother and the neighbor laugh. But when the toddler uses the swear word at preschool, the teacher calls the mother and the mother gets angry at the toddler.

What should happen in this example? When the toddler uses the swear word in front of his parents and a neighbor, they should focus their attention positively on something else the toddler had said or done.

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