How to Raise Well Behaved Children

When it comes to parenting, there is no rulebook and a million different ways to go about getting the types of behaviour and discipline you’re looking to instil in your children – daunting.

Do you threaten punishment? Take a hardline rule-based approach? Work through issues by talking or try something else entirely? Well, that depends on how you like to parent and what you expect of your children, and below we’ll take a look into how many parents raise such well-behaved children.

Lay Out Expectations and Instill Respect

One of the first things you should attempt with your little ones is working on letting them know your expectations of them in their day today. 

For example, a clean room before bed each evening or a tidy playroom, or even fewer hours on their iPad or iPhone eventually results in the form of self-regulated behavioural management for the little – something you will find encouraged in early learning facilities like Gowrie NSW. 

However, in some cases, parents do mention that smartphones and tablets make parenting easier in some situations, so it’s a good idea to determine when and where these gadgets become most handy and implement them into your parenting strategy. 

Children do understand, and quite well at that, the rules of the household and the boundaries they live within, even though they might not know it or show it. And so we suggest working with these boundaries and tightening them where you can. 

A few tips here are; 

Explain to your children why you have such expectations and how these relate to your home, as well as the real world. A clean room and subsequent sense of self-respect do apply to the real world, for example. 

You are offering up a level of praise that goes along with meeting the expectations you’ve set. Though this might fall very closely with the ‘over awarding’ parenting style, it is important to let your children know that they have done the right thing, and you respect them for doing that. 

Never break your own rules (at least when the littles can see it), as this will immediately devalue not only the broken expectation but also create the impression that your expectations and household rules can be overlooked. 

With that being said, these tips should lay the groundwork for your parenting style. 

Work on Problem Solving Skills

Another key aspect of raising well-behaved children is taking away that sense of out-of-control-ness that young children tend to have. 

By this, we mean teaching them problem-solving and critical thinking skills, which essentially allow your children to tackle an issue or a behavioural conundrum such as ‘should I break this rule’ head-on and choose the right decision as opposed to one that might let down expectations. 

A second thing to note is that the integral ‘try and try again’ should find its way into your parenting, given that this is one of the most powerful learnings and perseverance tools you can provide your children with – and with that said, working on letting your littles try and fail and prompting them to try again is something that is deeply encouraged. 

With these types of skills on hand, your little ones will slowly find their decisions being more deliberate, well-thought and in line with your behavioural expectations at home, in school and one day in the workplace. 

The Importance of Patience

The ‘I want it now attitude is something that has to be immediately mitigated from your child’s thought processes, and it is one of the final points we’d like to make about raising well-behaved children.

As we all know, good things come to those who wait and also those who work for what they want and ensuring that your littles understand and practice this process of thought is imperative to a child who is well-behaved and less prone to acting out when things don’t go their way, or when they don’t get something as soon as they want it.

Though this strategy can be complex to implement, especially in a society that gets everything at the touch of a button, there are a few things you can do in the home to ensure you’re instilling an understanding of patience in your kids. 

One such tip is making your children wait for things and make certain that they know you have heard a request, and you’re not dropping everything the moment they ask something of you. Outline the meaning of patience, explain your expectations of your child and their requirement to wait and let them know you will get to that request when you’re no longer busy. 

Another tip is to play games or activities that have patience as a foundation. Where smartphone applications offer an instant response, other such activities like building with lego, for example, take time and requires quite a bit of patience to complete. These such games promote patience and allow your little ones to understand that waiting and working away at something will eventually garner results. 

Conclusion 

With those tips out of the way and a commitment to raising well-behaved children, we’re sure you’ll have some respectful little ones who are understanding, patient and quite pleasant to raise and watch them grow. 

Keep in mind that this does take time, of course, and moulding new rules into your child’s life can be difficult but be certain not to quit while you’re ahead.