Children need to be encouraged to have good behaviour. It’s a trait that can benefit them both as children and as adults. Being respectful and knowing when to display this behavioural trait is important to their success and happiness in life.
At the same time, it’s good to reward good behaviour when it happens so that they’ll continue to do it, even if they don’t always get rewarded for it.
While children – and adults for that matter – don’t always have good behaviour, there are certainly ways in which you can help your children grow into respectable and kind adults. Here are some tips for encouraging and rewarding good behaviour in children.
Give them plenty of attention and time spent together
When it comes to seeing more good behaviour than bad, a lot of the behaviour you’ll see from your child is influenced by their environment and the level of attention or time spent with their parents and loved ones.
If you’re not spending enough time with them because work is getting in the way, or household chores have taken away your attention, you might want to look at giving your children some of that attention back. Children will often lash out because they feel like they’re being ignored or that they’re not getting the time they need with you.
Giving them plenty of love, care and attention is going to greatly impact and influence their happiness levels, meaning they’re less likely to get upset and exhibit typical bad behaviours. Make sure you’re making time for them every day and finding ways to balance everything life throws at you at the same time – easier said than done of course!
Encourage your child to express their feelings
For many generations who would go about their life not expressing how they felt, it’s refreshing to see younger generations now being open and honest about their feelings. Even more so, for a lot of men who would have often kept their thoughts and feeling suppressed, are also opening up as a result of all this positive change.
For your child or children, it’s good to encourage them to express their feelings as and when they feel them. For younger children, they may struggle to understand what they’re feeling and naturally, this sometimes comes out as what is typically described as ‘bad behaviour’. However, at a certain age, they don’t know any different and so it’s important to have patience.
Of course, some behaviour can be so bad that it’s the child testing their limits with you or others. However, even in this scenario, it’s a good opportunity to learn about why they’re reacting the way they are and if there’s anything that can influence them to start behaving positively again.
Be a positive role model
It’s always good to show what you want from your kids by doing it yourself. Role models are important for children to have in their lives, especially growing up. Young kids will absorb everything that they see and hear, which is why you want to be cautious about how you act and react to certain things in life.
A bad reaction that they see, could influence their own behavioural traits as they get older. Being a positive role model for your children is only going to bring good behavioural traits to the table.
As your child grows, they’re likely to have multiple role models in their life for all sorts of reasons. However for many children, when asked as adults who their first role model was, they’ll likely come back with the response of their parent or both parents if they’re lucky.
If this is the type of answer you want your child to have when they become adults themselves, start leading by example. In everything you do, it’s important to be a positive role model for your kids.
Catch your child being good
Catching your child being good is something that is easily done but as parents, many will often only catch out the negative behaviours and criticise their child for misbehaving.
While it’s important to make sure they know when they’ve been bad, it’s more important to celebrate and recognise the moments where they’ve made good decisions. Pay attention to your child and when they’re exhibiting good behavioural traits, be sure to reward these and encourage them further by cheering on their efforts.
A lot of children like to receive praise and adoration, especially from their parents. They would most likely want to receive that than to be on the receiving end of a disappointed parent. By catching your child being good, you have ample opportunities to encourage your children to be better in their lifetime and to not cause as much trouble.
Get down to your child’s level
When a child has been bad, it’s hard to communicate what you want to tell them when you’re towering down over them. For the little ones, that’s only going to make them fearful and that’s something you don’t really want to foster as a dynamic between yourself and your child.
Of course, it’s important to know whose boss but you should treat them with the same level of respect that you’d like to be treated by anyone in your life.
With that being said, it might be helpful to get down to your child’s level. This is good because it helps with communication between you and your child. It helps to engage with the child more without it feeling threatening or condescending. You can also understand a little more about how they’re feeling when you get down to their eye level.
Choose your battles
Not every day is going to go swimmingly. In fact, you might have a spattering of bad days all at once. All kids go through various development leaps and it’s important to remember that you can’t always win when it comes to the battle between you and your child.
Sometimes, it’s good to choose your battles wisely so as to not make the situation worse. It’s hard to relinquish that control as a parent but backing down can sometimes make for a better resolution.
Don’t shout
Shouting is never going to be a great way of communicating your issue. It’s also not a great way to communicate with your child and the result is often that they’ll want to shout back.
Over time, that might cause them to react the same when having disagreements with others. We’re all a product of our environment and so how our parents behave, influences how we behave toward others and ultimately towards our children.
It’s a slippery slope when you go from speaking to shouting. It escalates rather than de-escalates. Try to shout less when it comes to your children and find ways to calm down if you find yourself getting frustrated in the moment.
Keep your promises
If you’re rewarding good behaviour in the form of a plushie toy or a trip to the cinema, be sure to keep your promises.
There’s nothing more disappointing as a child to be promised something and then to realise that it’s not going to happen. Even if you re-promise them that they’ll get the reward over the next day or so, that’s a long time in a child’s mind to wait. For some, it’s too long!
Try to keep the promises you make and to fulfil them in the time you give to your child. Remember, they’re like sponges so they’ll take the information they give to you and treat it as bible.
By keeping your promises, you keep them happy and that’s all that matters for your own sanity.
Create the right environment for positive behaviour
As a parent, it’s important that you’re creating the right environment to foster good behaviours. If you’re creating an environment in your home that’s a negative one, then it’s going to bring bad behaviour to the surface on a daily basis.
Using the above tips can all contribute to the environment that you create or set for you and your family. From the household environment to wherever you might be on the weekends or out in the evenings.
Consider how you could better the environments you create for your little ones and how they might be influential to your success in encouraging good behaviour this year.
Reward good behaviour
Rewarding good behaviour is often the best way of getting that behaviour to repeat itself over and over again. It’s a good lesson for kids to learn that when they’re good, they get rewarded for it.
Of course, life isn’t always that simple and even when you do good sometimes, it doesn’t result in a reward or recognition. However, as kids, it’s good to provide rewards for the good behaviour they show, especially in times where they might opt for the bad route.
Look at ways you could reward your children both in the form of physical gifts and other ways that provide them so form of emotional value.
Encouraging and rewarding your children for good behaviour is a good thing, so use these tips to do it more this year.
