Top 3 Reasons Your Child Will Not Behave

As a parent, have you ever been frustrated with your child because he/she will not behave like you would like them to? You are suddenly in a position when you feel powerless and do not know what to do next. I am here to provide you with some information to help you understand why your child is not behaving.

1. You are not following through with consequences.

If your child is not behaving, the absolute bottom line is that there are consequences that the child has to face for the misbehavior. The rules shall be clearly stated, no matter what age of the child! If the rules are CLEARLY understood then you have done the first part of your job in getting your child to behave. The consequences also need to be CLEARLY understood. Lastly, you have got to follow through with the consequences. There is no room for leniency when giving consequences. If you fail to follow through with consequences then you are teaching your child to walk all over and that it is okay to do so. Your child learns (from you) that you are not serious, that they cannot trust you, and that you are not providing them with the proper security that they need. Children thrive off of boundaries and if you break those boundaries for the child by failing to follow through with consequences, your child begins to lose trust in you. Follow through with consequences EVERY TIME and you will see a change in your child's behavior.

2. You make an assumption that your child knows you love them.

Never ever ever assume that your child automatically knows that they are loved by you. This is something that, as a parent, you need to consistently reinforce to the child. For some parents this is not a difficult job but for others it just does not come naturally. Of course you love your child but when was the last time you told them? You need to tell them you love them everyday and preferably several times a day. If this is difficult for you start with telling your child at night before they go to bed and attempt to increase the times of day that you tell your child you love them. Love is such a strong and necessary emotion for humans in general but especially for children. Love grows confidence, trust, security, and well behaved children. Show love in your actions as well. Your child wants nothing more than for you to pay attention to them. Listen to your child, take time out of your day to enjoy an activity with your child, sit down to dinner with your child, etc. All of these are great examples of showing your child that you love them and care about them enough to include them in your day.

3. You back down from your child.

No matter what, you are the authority figure to your child and this should never be compromised. I don't care how much yelling, screaming, kicking, yelling, etc. that your child wants to do, you are there to establish and follow through with the rules. This is not easy. As a matter of fact, nobody ever said parenting was easy. By establishing and following through with rules on a consistent basis you are, again, providing boundaries and security for your child. Your child should never get the upper hand because you have the upper hand as the parent. You are there to provide your child with discipline (a.k.a. trust). If you back down from disciplining your child, you will automatically lose trust and your child's behavior will spiral out of control.

When you step back and evaluate your parenting skills, what do you think? Do these three things apply to you? Do you have the capacity to change it? Of course you do and it is never too late to start!

Until next time,

Is There a Right Way?

Let's answer an old age question--is there a right way to parent? This is certainly a multi-faceted question and there is no easy answer. Technically, there is no ONE right way to parent but it is your job to determine what the right way is for you. There certainly seems to be a lot of criticisms out there about parenting which can give parents an uneasy feeling that they are parenting the wrong way. I would prefer to cover what we can do to move toward doing things RIGHT for our individual parenting needs.

It is very important to be consistent and positive in your relationship with your child/children. After all, you are the one and most important role model for your child. He/she interacts with you the most on a regular basis and will continue to do so into adulthood. Therefore, the most that the child learns about life in general comes from you! Scary, huh? It certainly does not have to be. Parenting is a choice made by you regardless of your situation so there should be a commitment to that child for the rest of your life. Your child shall never be seen an an inconvenience, nuisance, or problem for you. Keep your feelings about your child positive regardless of their behaviors or actions. This is probably the number one issue I see in families--parents start to resent their children which creates the opposite of a positive atmosphere for the parent and the child.

Do what works for you to keep a positive atmosphere for the parent and child relationship. Do daily affirmations work for you? Mediation? Yoga? Journaling? Exercise? Whatever it is that works for you, do it. Your child will not thrive without a positive relationship with you. Appreciate your child and show him/her that you have this appreciation and love. This positive relationship with your child will maintain security for you and him/her. Security and safety is the number one thing that children crave and it is not ever something they are going to ask you for verbally. They will always ask you for security and safety with their actions and behaviors. This brings me to my next point: THE BEHAVIOR THAT GETS THE MOST ATTENTION WILL BE REPEATED!

Maintaining consistency along with a positive relationship with your child is vital to your success as a parent. Consistency provides the feelings of safety and security for your child. If you do the same things in the same situation every time, your child will learn what to expect from you. When your child does not know what to expect all hell can break loose with behaviors. So, when you are doubting yourself and asking yourself if there is a right way to parent step back and ask yourself if you are providing a positive and consistent environment for you and your child. If you are, you will find that yours and your child's behaviors become positive and consistent and life sure is much easier for the family as a whole.

Until next time,

New Mama

Well, this is my very first blog and I could not be more excited about it! I currently work in the Early Childhood field and I feel like I help so many parents everyday but giving them some wonderful and useful information to make their job as parents better, easier, and more fun! Now that I am going to be a parent myself I have really been motivated to pass the word along to more and more parents and I thought, what better way than to blog about it? In my blog I hope to provide parents with some serious parenting power and by power I mean information, education, and preparation.

When I first entered the Early Childhood field I was worried about parents questioning my ability to provide them with quality parenting information since I was not a parent myself. Surprisingly, I got the opposite response from parents. I found that an overwhelming amount of parents were starving for information about parenting and how to do it right. Thankfully, my career had provided me with some wonderful training opportunities and information available that has prepared me to be able to inform, educate, and prepare parents for the most important job of their life! I have found so much joy in partnering with parents to help them along their parenting journey.

Now, I am expecting to be a new mama in August! I utilize my own advice and information and plan to do so for a long time to come. I will never stop learning more about the parenting field and I continue to grow my passion for this field everyday, especially now that I get to share the joy of being a parent now.

I hope you have enjoyed my introduction to my blog and I cannot wait to start writing information for parents out there! Talk to you all very soon! :)