Every responsible parent wants only the best for their children. When they stumble on their kids using swear words or disrespecting their elders, they automatically act on their impulse to correct them. While some parents are able to correct the mistakes of their children without making them feel like one, some others lose their temper and resort to physical abuse like hitting them hard on the face or using a whip on them—all these they do out of love.
Some parents end up feeling bad after beating their kids but try their best to convince themselves that their children will understand the reason for that when they grow up. While that may be true, how about learning to correct your kids without resorting to physical abuse? That way, you’d escape the blues that accompany your negative method of correcting them and your curious and mischievous kids will grow to become the kind of adults you hoped they would be—not stunted by your over-protective or over-critical attitude.
The following are positive ways to correct your kids:
Listen To Them
It’s natural to become angry when you see your child littering the room or splashing water around the house. It takes having a lot of patience not to scream their heads off or grab and shake some sense into their head. But that may not aid the healthy development of that child. Instead of resorting to physical abuse, ask your child to tell you why he is doing that. Put yourself in his/her shoes—just children being children and like humans, they are imperfect too.
You could ask them to fix their mistakes by cleaning up the mess they made by themselves.
Show And Tell
Believe it or not, your little one of 4 to 5 years old watch your every action around them. Children can be easily influenced: when they see something, they are moved to imitate. So if you lie, leave the dishes scattered around, quarrel with neighbors or smoke, best believe that your kid will follow in your steps. Trying to make them better than you are would only confuse them and make them want to rebel.
A positive way to correct your kids is to lead by example.
Ignore Them Sometimes
Don’t be the over-critical or over-correcting parent; sometimes allow them to learn from their own mistakes by themselves. Ignore them when they are misbehaving in a way that isn’t dangerous. If, for instance, your child keeps dropping the food on his plate on purpose, don’t say anything to him/her. They will soon learn that acting that way will cost them their food and make them go hungry.
Give Consequences
An alternative to the above tip will be to let your children know the consequences that will follow the bad behavior they keep displaying. You could say something like “if you keep scattering the house, I will put away your toy for the rest of the day.” Ensure you follow through on that threat if they keep misbehaving. However, never take away anything your child really needs like food.
Commend Their Good Behavior
As much as you try to put your kids in the right path when they go astray, remember to praise them when they do something good. Praising them will actually make them long to do things that will keep the commendations coming. So try to catch them doing something good and don’t slack in pointing it out to them.
