Disciplining Your Child – How To Use Praise Effectively
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Parents, be aware. If you belong to any of these categories–working in high-stress jobs, stay-at-home parents, or engaged in low-income jobs–chances are high you feel frustrated and isolated. Experts also think that such a condition makes it easier for you to apply harsh methods of imposing discipline on you children.
Recent studies have shown that parents working in high stress jobs, staying at home, or belonging to the low-income group, are more vulnerable to stress and tend to react disproportionately to their children’s behavior. As a consequence they are wont to use harsher means of checking their children’s wayward behavior, such as ******** and yelling.
If you feel you are punishing your child a bit too severely, you need to step back and consider outside assistance to curb this tendency. You need to learn alternative strategies of imposing discipline that are less harsh and more appropriate to your child’s temperament, age or maturity level.
What are these alternative discipline strategies? These are disciplinary measures that emphasize praise and positive reinforcement. We all know that children instinctively react favorably to praise. They thrive on it. Children by nature want to impress and make their parents proud of them. They are likely to do things that they know are pleasing to, or have elicited positive response from, their parents.
It therefore helps to focus on the positive things that a child does. Praise him or her with kind and re-assuring words. Reward your child with hugs, kisses, appreciative gestures, privileges, or even material things. Let him or her feel just how pleased and happy you are with his good deeds, behavior or traits. Make your child realize that being nice and well-bahaved is such a wonderful achievement on his or her part such that being consistent with that kind of behavior becomes second nature to him or her.
By emphasizing positive behavior, you most likely will keep your children from acting in ways that in the past drove you to impose too harsh a punishment. There is always something good, something praise-worthy, something lovable even in the most obnoxious of toddlers. Find that special thing. Nurture it and make it grow. Praise his or her good deeds and the child will likely respond with appropriate and positive behavior to earn more of your praises.
At the end of the day, never forget that a child is a child. Do not take away that playfulness or even some amount of mischievousness away from him or her. It is up to the parents to enforce appropriate disciplinary measures that are geared towards their child’s optimal physical, mental and emotional well-being. Here, do consider praise and positive reinforcement as an alternative to harsh forms of discipline.
