Managing Childrens Behavior-Calmness, Consistency and Communication

One of the challenges parents have with children of all ages is managing their child's behavior. The key with dealing with behavior starts with the three C's, calmness, consistency and communication.

When a situation arises that a behavior problem is occurring staying calm is key. You need to keep your wits about you in order to solve the behavior in a way that makes your child understand that you are not mad at them, but you are upset with their specific behavior at that time. When parents lose their cool it communicates a degree of anger and can cause fear in the child. You do not want your relationship with your child based on fear. It is just as easy to put a child in time out calmly as it is to scream and yell when doing a time out. If you are about to lose it walk away and take a deep breath compose yourself them handle the situation. Think about how it would feel to have a 7' 350 pound massive lineman yelling in your face, that is how a small child feels when it is done to them.

Consistency is simple, say what you mean, mean what you say. Keep rules and expectations clear and don't change them every day. Teach what you expect and your kids will follow. If expectations keep changing what are the kids supposed to learn? If you say you will do something do it. Don't make a promise you can't keep. Don't threaten to give a consequence that you can't follow through on.

Communication between parents is key otherwise the kids wise up and start to play one against another. My wife didn't tell me she only wanted my 3 year old to have a certain amount of stuffed animals on the bed, so when my son asked for a few more I thought it was fine. When my wife came in she got upset because she had told my son something else and I got upset because I felt like she was undermining me in front of my child over something that was not a big deal. Had we communicated that situation would have gone a lot smoother.