” width=”240″ height=”234″ />Have you ever had the experience where your child misbehaves, you tell them NO! to only have them move to the next undesirable activity that gets them yet another NO! from you? Has that made you wonder why it is you have to say so many NO-s and why your child won’t behave as you would like them to? I doubt it is an enjoyable experience being this person who says nothing but “NO! NO! NO!” yet we often don’t know how to move beyond that. This problem may actually be quite simple to fix – perhaps you haven’t told your child what a desirable behavior or activity is.
Leaving the No! No! Parent Behind
As adults we have had many years of experience living life. We know what is acceptable and what not, we know what will get us in trouble and what will be beneficial to us. It is easy to forget a child is a new comer to life and has yet to learn how life works. A child doesn’t have a clear concept of what is OK and what not and they do not operate from judgments of good or bad. Their motivators come more from the feeling they receive from the activity they engage in – if it is nice to experience or not and if it meets their needs in some way. And we have to admit some of the ‘trouble stuff’ they do can be so much fun too!
Children like to be given guidance, in fact without clear guidance from the parent they may simply not know what to do. When we only say NO! to what our child does we only tell them what is forbidden without giving them guidance on what is allowed which may lead to the child feeling restricted and confused. That in turn may lead to even more misbehavior as the child moves from one activity to the other to try to get the experience they are after. When correcting a child’s behavior after expressing what is not OK and explaining why we need to tell them what is OK and allowed. We can give them healthy options they can choose from, and allow them to make a choice. In that way the child will feel free and unrestricted. They will be happy with their choice and the chance to misbehave further will diminish. And we will be teaching our children what they can do in life instead of giving them only negative examples of what they can’t.~
Makayla Sadamori combines many years of experience as a teacher and a childcare provider with her Maven Method coach training to follow her passion – helping parents bring love and joy into parenting and create a healthy, nurturing, and fulfilling relationship with their children.
Picture source: http://lifelessonsmilitarywife.blogspot.com
