Are you unintentionally reinforcing your child’s problem behavior? Well, it’s no wonder as you were given a monumental task at a relatively young age with zero job experience. Parenting is one of the most (if not the most) difficult jobs that we’ll ever tackle. Yet we receive little, if any, training for the job.
Imagine an aspiring engineer showing up for a difficult job the day after graduating from high school. Or someone hired to assemble a spacecraft with no prior training. The very idea seems ridiculous to us but is the exact reality that we face as parents!
Our children have multiple physical, emotional and social needs. Yet from day one, we enter this highly demanding job with almost no job experience. We struggle to understand our child’s needs, take care of and nurture a little human being. Before long this little one grows and has a whole new set of needs that we have to meet. This continues each time our children enter a new developmental stage. We have to learn to understand child development, meet his/her ever-changing needs and become a psychologist at the same time. All of this on little sleep, a possible job outside the home and millions of other responsibilities. It seems overwhelming.
So the last thing we want to hear after all of this effort is that we may be reinforcing our child’s problem behavior. Are you saying one thing but your child is hearing something else?
Perhaps you are taken aback when your child lashes out at you. Perhaps your child’s unleashes his frustration on you as you try to help him. Many of us have been there and it’s no fun!
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Of course, we can work to comfort our children and help them through difficult times. An amazing way that I have found for children to work through their emotions is using the program Snuggle Buddies. It is a program that helps children identify their emotions. It is beyond the scope of this post but you can learn more about it here.
Our Parenting May Reinforce Our Kids Problem Behavior
However, there are times when without realizing what we are doing, we sometimes reinforce our child’s problem behavior.
Children are discovering the world around them and learning about relationships. Their interactions with you as parents teach them ways to interact with others. Children test their parents to learn boundaries.
When parents are consistent, children learn that they mean what they say and will follow through and enforce rules. When kids see that sometimes we follow through, but at other times we don’t, they will continue to test us. Perhaps this will be a time that we don’t mean what we say or that we will give in.
Why is this important? Parents are frustrated when their children do not listen to a rule that they have stated many times before. We have all heard parents or either said ourselves, “How many times have I told you…:”
This happens when children learn that we only enforce expectations some of the time. That means that if enforcing the rule is too difficult or we are just too tired and let it go, our kids will learn that we don’t really mean what we say. Or that we mean it only sometimes.
We may not realize that we are unintentionally teaching this lesson, but that is what our children learn. When we are consistent, our kids learn that our word is our word and they stop trying to test. In fact, they feel secure that their parents have set clear boundaries.
Consequences for Problem Behavior Should be Natural and Not Punitive
This is also true of consequences. If our children exhibit problem behavior that is not in line with our expectations, they know that we will enforce consequences. Of course, our consequences shouldn’t be harsh or punitive, but rather natural consequences that flow from actions to teach kids that they are responsible for their behavior.
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For example, let’s say that (for older children) we expect that our kids put their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. We have made our expectations clear about what we do with dirty clothes. We have taught our kids how to do this as well as guided them so that they know the routine. Now we can expect them to follow through. If they decide to leave their clothes on the floor, then the natural consequence would be that their clothes don’t get washed.
Let’s say you are about to take your child to some type of activity. You let him/her know the time and give him/her a reminder a few minutes before its time to leave. If your child is not ready, then the natural consequence is that you would not take him/her. Or perhaps you would tell him/her that you will cancel the same activity next week.
If your child is yelling at you and you have already set the expectation on the type of voice that they need to use when speaking to you, you can refuse to talk to them until they approach you with the proper voice.
I once took five of my children to get shoes. Since I had taken them before and their behavior was always appropriate, I didn’t review my expectations before we went (a big mistake!) When we got to the store, the many different choices were too much for some of the slightly older children. They began running around the store and bothering the salespeople and generally exhibiting problem behavior.
I realized that I had not reviewed my expectations beforehand with my children and I realized that when they began to misbehave, it was partially my fault. However, in order to drive the point home, I quietly said that it was time to leave the store. As we walked out there were certainly some tears, along with shocked expressions that we would not be buying shoes that day.
The message was clear. In order to buy shoes, the behavior would have to change. I really didn’t have to say anything, the older children understood that we had left the store because they had chosen to misbehave.
I also learned that when taking so many children to accomplish a particular task, I needed to review the expectations clearly before the actual event and not assume that they would remember how to behave.
Consistency Is the Key
The important point here is that we need to be consistent in our parenting. Consistent not to make our lives easier (although it most certainly will) but because our kids need a consistent, predictable and secure environment so that they can learn to be successful in the world. Consistent so that they can know that what they do matters and that by showing up and doing the right thing, they will live happy and successful lives.
And this gives us the strength to carry through and make sure that we are consistent – even when we are tired and even when we had a terrible day.
We may slip up now and then. We are only human. But if our kids see that in general, we stick to our guns and that we mean what we say- they will be much less likely to ignore our rules or show problem behavior.
This means that we have to be very careful about the consequences that we choose. We have to think before we speak because it is important that our consequences teach our children:
a) Our rules are important and preserve the dignity for everyone in the family
b) Because they are important we need to make sure that our children follow them
Therefore when we make a consequence, we have to make sure that it is not punitive but instructive. We also have to make sure that it is a consequence that we will be able to follow through. If the consequence is too difficult to carry out or too inconvenient, then we will probably not be able to carry it through and this will enforce problem behavior.
Make Sure that You Can Carry Out Your Consequences for Behavior
This can happen for instance if we are on a trip with several kids and one of them decides to misbehave. If you were to say to your child, ”if you continue to do that we will have to go home” you are setting yourself up for a difficult situation if the child continues to misbehave.
To follow through, you would have to end the trip for all of the children in order to take this child home. If you don’t follow through, your child will learn that you can be swayed, making it much harder for him or her to control his/her problem behavior. S/he will learn that you don’t mean what you say.
Therefore it’s better not to speak when you are frustrated and take some time to think of an appropriate reaction. You can say to your child. “You are not acting according to the rules and you need to sit on the bench for 10 minutes before you can come back and play appropriately.”
Because you took the time to use a consequence that makes sense for everyone, it is instructive and not punitive and allows you to follow through.
To get my free checklist: Five Conditions for Effective Consequences:
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Teaching our kids to act appropriately and not to misbehave can sometimes be challenging but by using the principles stated above you will be able to set secure, predictable expectations and help your child develop appropriate behavior. Your children will feel secure because you have set appropriate boundaries and you will stop the cycle of endless testing and problem behavior.
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