6 Essential Parental Tips On How To Instill Discipline In Children
One of the primary responsibilities of parents is to discipline a child. It involves teaching the child the difference between right and wrong, making him/her learn good habits and instilling the values of honesty, patience, tolerance, perseverance, respect and good behavior.
However, ensuring healthy child development is easier said than done. Disciplining a child without making him/her rebellious or stubborn requires sensitive and careful efforts and most importantly, an in depth understanding of the child’s behavior. Here are a few parenting tips for disciplining your child without damaging his/her personality development:
- Stay calm
Maintain your cool whenever your child misbehaves. Screaming and yelling at your child won’t help in any way. It will only worsen the situation and make your child even more stubborn and rebellious. And never resort to punishing your child physically for the sake of instilling discipline in the child.
Discipline is about teaching your children the good values, it is not about punishing them. Even if your child has committed a mistake, do not lose your cool. If you calmly explain to your child the bad effects of his/her misbehavior, you will find that your child is paying more attention to what you are saying. On the other hand, if you scream and yell, you may find that your child is unable to clearly understand the seriousness of his/her mistake or misbehavior. The discipline that you are trying to instill in your child would be lost amidst your raving and ranting.
If you do find yourself losing your calm, take a deep breath, regain your composure and talk to your child.
2. Do not criticize
Never criticize your children, especially in front of others. Too much criticism will make them feel unloved. Appreciate your children and whenever they make mistakes, tell them that you love them but what you are not happy with their behavior. Children are not any less intelligent than grown ups. Only their age is young and their exposure is less. If you explain to your child why you are unhappy with his/her behavior, your child will surely understand what he/she did was wrong.
3. Do not praise too much either
If criticism is harmful, too much praise too is equally bad. If you begin to appreciate your child too often, your comments will soon become ineffective. Your child will expect to be appreciated for every little thing and your appreciation will not create any sense of achievement or joy in him/her.
4. Stay away from bribing the child
Give rewards to your children for behaving well or doing good work. However keep in mind that there is a fine-line difference between rewards and bribes. Bribe is something which you offer to your child in order to get things done. On the other hand, reward is something which your child gets for doing something good. Make sure your child appreciates being rewarded and works harder to win it.
5. Be a role model
You must have heard of the saying, “Preach what you practice.” In order to discipline your child you have to first set your own example before him/her. If you want your child to develop good habits and manners, you must do so yourself too. Children quickly pick up habits from their parents and emulate them.
6. Watch a motivational videos
It is not enough to simply teach, preach and discipline children. Most importantly, parents need to spend quality time with their children. In a parent-child relationship, the quality of parent-child interaction has a large role to play in how the child develops his/her dreams, goals and abilities to make the correct decisions. As a parent, you have a great role in instilling life wisdom in your child.
For instance, you can read to your child some motivating stories, inspirational children quotes or tell your child about the lives of great people. Or better still, you can join your child in watching motivational videos that give inspirational messages of life wisdom. These videos provide an ideal platform for launching a conversation with your child on the values and virtues of life. These brief experiences and inspirational quotes are great tools for developing fulfilling, loving parent child relationships.
Motivational videos help children learn family values and skills, gain self esteem and learn to appreciate and value parental love. As far as parents are concerned, watching motivational videos help them improve their approach toward parenting children, and tackle behavior problems in children.