At specific points in your child’s life, they learn important lessons. Any experienced parent will tell you about how complicated child psychology can be, particularly when they start to develop a rebellious side to their character. This can become pronounced during the ‘terrible twos’ phase, but it’s also something that needs to be managed throughout their childhood.
So, if you’re going through that particular stage of parenting your little one and they’re beginning to get a bit full of themselves and are starting to display difficult behaviour, you need to know how to cope with and better manage the situation. With this in mind, we now look at 5 tips to help you keep on top of things and keep providing excellent parental guidance.
Tip 1 - Prevention is Better Than a Cure
Our first tip sometimes takes a little practice to get right, but when you know what your child does when they act out, you can take steps to ensure they can’t do them. What do we mean by that? Well, if your kid’s way of behaving badly is to pull everything they can out of your kitchen cupboards, your parenting plan should perhaps involve locking those cabinets so that the behaviour isn’t able to get going in the first place.
Tip 2 - Always Try & Remain Calm
Ok, so one of the common denominators of most child flare-ups is stress. However, if you’re able to keep your head whilst all those around you are losing theirs, you’ll be much better placed to handle things in the right way. Raising children is challenging, but if you can remove much of the emotion of the situation and keep a calm voice and attitude, it can really help to diffuse things. In certain circumstances, like when preparing for dinner, perhaps suggest that your child could “help Daddy & Mummy lots” by washing their hands, rather than barking orders. There’s a good chance that it will result in your child actually doing what you ask the first time around.
Tip 3 - Be Empathetic With Your Child
Something else you’ll learn in a good parenting courseis the need to empathise with your child. Taking time out of your day to sit down with them and really talk to them can work wonders for how they feel about the world. It can actually prevent them from acting up in the first place, as they’re more likely to feel listened to. Also, when they don’t want to do what you ask - like having a bath before bedtime - you can use empathy by saying something like, “I know you’re too tired, but we’ve got to get you nice and clean for bed”, rather than “GO AND HAVE A BATH!!”
Tip 4 - Try & Make Their Diet Healthier
Healthy eating for kids is so important for child development, so when they’re not getting the right nutrition or too much sugar in their diet, it can have a detrimental effect on their mood. This, in turn, can affect their behaviour, which can certainly have a bearing on things.
Kids with more energy coming from a healthier diet are much more likely to be happier and better balanced, so it’s an important aspect of your parenting plan to get right.
Tip 5 - Offering Your Child Choices
When a child is told what to do, it often results in feelings of wanting to rebel; however, when they think they have a choice in what they do, you actually circumvent the issue. It can be as simple as giving them a choice of two options to present the illusion of total freedom.
For instance, instead of saying, “Clean your room”, you could instead say, “Would you like to clean your room or help Mummy do the dishes?”. It’s subtle, but it works.
Get the Parenting Skills You Need Online
So, as you can see, you can make quite a few easily implemented changes to make your child’s behaviour more manageable. What’s more, it’s also possible to enhance your parenting skills with a range of parenting course options from OCA, with our Manage Your Child’s Behaviour Micro-Credentialthe most helpful in the sphere we’ve been talking about here.
Whether you want to be a better parent or you’re a professional looking to improve your child-care skills, why not come and take a look at the range of short course options we have on our website www.onlinecoursesaustralia.edu.au. There you’ll see our flexible payment options and the fact that our courses count towards CPD points.
Alternatively, if you would like to speak to our team directly about your online training needs, give us a call at 1300 611 404 today, and we’ll do our very best to help.
