Stay Positive!

While I do believe that a positive attitude will get you everywhere, some days it takes more than a positive attitude to get you through a day of parenting!

Positive reinforcement is the rewarding of behaviours that you want to see more of rather than punishing behaviours that you want to see less of. It can take some time to wrap your mind around the concept and learning to look for your child’s good behaviours rather than their blatant bad ones but once you give it a chance, I’m sure you’ll notice the difference in both you and your child (ren).

As parents we are often quick to criticize “your room is messy, turn down the TV, why isn’t your homework done, pick up your toys, and eat your veggies “when we should be noticing when they do what we want (even if it’s only partially what we want) “I like how your room looks you can have a sticker for your chart, thanks for keeping quiet while I was on the phone do you want to play a game now?, that’s great that your homework is done, let’s go out! Good job picking up your toys, you can play with the finger paints now, wow you ate some broccoli, you can have some ice cream for dessert.”

The difference will be that your child feels successful and supported by his/her parents rather than picked on.

If you are struggling with a difficult behaviour then determine what the opposite or desirable behaviour is that you want to reward. For example if your child is kicking other children at the park, then the desired behaviour is keeping his/her feet to herself, so you’re going to say “I love how you kept your feet to yourself when you were at the playground”. You also want to set your child up for success. This means, taking them to the park for a short amount of time or when there aren’t many children there so that you can reward them before they mess up.

I’m sometimes asked by parents what to do when their child is misbehaving and the short answer is to ignore it, however if it is a behaviour that is harming to themselves, property or others, then it must be addressed. Time outs, grounding and an old fashioned talking to still works just fine for misbehaving, but the focus should be on rewarding the child when they’re being good.

Positive reinforcement isn’t limited to young children it works with teens and even spouses! The key with older ‘children’ is to sound sincere. With my teens I like to let them know how their good behaviour is helpful to me. When my older daughter recently gave something of hers to her little sister without hesitation I let her know how good it made me feel to see them get along. When my son carries groceries in for me, I thank him for saving my back (and let him know that I bought his favourite chips).

Hopefully I have convinced you that rewarding positive behaviour is worth the effort because you will notice my use of it in articles to come where I will give more detailed examples of its use. Think positive!