Encouraging Good Behaviour: 15 Tips | Sparklekidz

Children quickly learn how to behave when they get positive, consistent guidance from you. This means giving your child attention when they behave well, rather than just applying consequences when your child does something you don’t like.

 

Tips for good behaviour

 

Be a role model

Use your own behaviour to guide your child. Your child watches you to get clues on how to behave – and what you do is often much more important than what you say. 

Show your child how you feel

Telling your child honestly how their behaviour affects you helps your child see their own feelings in yours. And if you start sentences with ‘I’, it gives your child the chance to see things from your perspective. 

 

Catch your child being ‘good’

When your child is behaving in a way you like, give your child some positive feedback. For example, ‘Wow, you’re playing so nicely. I really like the way you’re keeping all the blocks on the table’. 

 

Get down to your child’s level

When you get close to your child, you can tune in to what they might be feeling or thinking. Being close also helps your child focus on what you’re saying about their behaviour. 

 

Listen actively

To listen actively, you can nod as your child talks, and repeat back what you think your child is feeling. It can help young children cope with tension and big emotions like frustration, which sometimes lead to unwanted behaviour. 

 

Keep promises

When you follow through on your promises, good or bad, your child learns to trust and respect you. Your child learns that you won’t let them down when you’ve promised something nice, and your child also learns not to try to change your mind when you’ve explained a consequence. 

 

Create an environment for good behaviour

The environment around your child can influence their behaviour, so you can shape the environment to help your child behave well. This can be as simple as making sure your child’s space has plenty of safe, stimulating things for your child to play with. 

 

Choose your battles

Before you get involved in anything your child is doing – especially to say ‘no’ or ‘stop’ – ask yourself if it really matters. By keeping instructions, requests and negative feedback to a minimum, you create fewer opportunities for conflict and bad feelings. 

 

Be firm about whining

If you give in when your child is whining for something, you can accidentally train your child to whine more. ‘No’ means ‘no’, not ‘maybe’, so don’t say it unless you mean it.

 

Keep things simple and positive

Instructions should be clear, short and appropriate for your child’s age, so your child can understand and remember them. And positive rules are usually better than negative ones, because they guide your child’s behaviour in a positive way. 

 

Give children responsibility – and consequences

As your child gets older, you can give your child more responsibility for their own behaviour. You can also give your child the chance to experience the natural consequences of that behaviour.

 

Say it once and move on

If you tell your child what to do – or what not to do – too often, your child might end up just tuning out. If you want to give your child one last chance to cooperate, remind your child of the consequences for not cooperating. 

 

Give your child the chance to succeed

Set your child up to behave well, and then praise them for it. For example, give your child some simple chores or things that your child can do to help the family. Praising your child’s behaviour and effort will encourage your child to continue. 

Prepare for challenging situations

There are times when meeting your child’s needs and doing things you need to do will be tricky. If you think about these challenging situations in advance, you can plan around your child’s needs. Give your child a five-minute warning before you need them to change activities. Talk to your child about why you need their cooperation. 

 

Maintain a sense of humour

It often helps to keep daily life with children light. You can do this by using songs, humour and fun. Humour that has you both laughing is great, but humour at your child’s expense won’t help. Young children are easily hurt by parental ‘teasing’.