Children often express themselves through their behaviors. To maintain a healthy relationship with them, understanding their behavior will help us respond.
It’s also important to have consequences for unwanted behavior. A consequence isn’t always punishment; consequences are tools for communicating and teaching.
Selecting, communicating and administering consequences can help reduce conflict and it helps children learn and grow.
When Unpleasant Behavior Happens
Even with praising positive behavior and setting clear expectations, sometimes, unwanted behavior will still happen. If your child starts acting out, try ignoring it first. Remember, children thrive on attention. Taking our attention away is a powerful consequence that sends the message this behavior is not acceptable.
- Keep your cool
- Turn away
- Break eye contact
- Give your attention to something else
Ignoring works best for attention seeking, annoying behavior or just silliness.
Ignoring is not good for aggressive or hurtful behaviors. It’s also not effective when a child is refusing to follow instructions. And it shouldn’t be used for behavior that is dangerous – to your child or to others (such as punching a wall, hitting you or kicking a pet). These types of behaviors should be addressed immediately with consequences.
Communicating Consequences
If ignoring doesn’t work or isn’t appropriate for the behavior and you need to go to consequences, you’ll want to make sure you communicate them clearly. How?
- First, you’ll want to state what the expected behavior is.
“I want you to take turns playing this new game.” - Then match the consequence with the behavior. The closer they match, the more powerful it will be.
“If you can’t share quietly, I’ll put the game away.” - Include a specific timeframe. Try to avoid extended periods of time.
“If you can’t share quietly, I’ll put the game away for 30 minutes.”
It can be hard to think of consequences in the moment, so planning ahead can be helpful. Think through what kinds of events seem to be causing unwanted behavior and plan for some consequences and timeframes that might match.
Enforcing Consequences
If consequences aren’t enforced, children will learn to negotiate or ignore them. They learn that disruptive behavior works. Instead:
- State your expectations and consequences confidently (“ I want you to take turns playing this new game. If you can’t share quietly, I’ll put the game away for 30 minutes.”).
- Wait 5 to 10 seconds.
- Give one reminder (“I’ve told you to take turns nicely or I will take the game away.”).
- Calmly and quietly, follow through with what you’ve said. Always pick a consequence you know you can follow through on.
Make sure you offer praise when you get a positive response to your stated consequences. That reinforces that kids can make choices that lead to a better outcome.
Kids will be kids. Sometimes they make choices we don’t agree with. Unwanted behavior will never be zero, so keep your goals realistic and don’t forget to take care of yourself.
