Last Updated on January 2, 2023 by Mike Robinson
Does not your son obey you? Do you resort to tantrums when you do not get what you want? Does it test you day by day?
Perhaps these are the most common problems that can find you being a father or mother and the ones you listen to most when you meet with others for support and advice. However, there are a number of psychology tips that you can follow to raise children, have a better quality of life and prepare them for the future.
Educating children is a tremendously complicated task that requires the full involvement of all caregivers, time and patience. Remember that “Zamora was not conquered in an hour”.
Therefore, if you follow the guidelines that I explain in this article and maintain a routine, such an arduous task will be much easier for you and your son will get the reward.
1- Do not give everything you ask
This is something quite frequent because children as they grow acquire more knowledge to get what they want from you. Not only toys, sweets or other material things, but also attention and solving problems.
As a parent you think that you are for that, to make your child live an easy life, without pain or suffering. However, you must realize that these difficulties are as necessary for life as happiness itself.
A very common situation is to be with your child in the supermarket and ask you to buy a bag of sweets. You, who have already heard about it that you do not have to give them all the whims, you say no.
But the child insists and insists until, at your repeated refusal, he has a tantrum. It is at that moment when he catches you, and you give in as long as he stops embarrassing you and you buy him his craved bag of sweets.
And so, your son just learned that, even if you say no, if he insists, cries and kicks, he will get what he wants.
Not only does this happen when they want to get material things, they also learn the same mechanism when they can not solve something, such as sleeping alone.
For these situations, it is important to be clear that what your child needs from you is your guide, your support to help you solve things, to know the rules and limits, in short, to grow and learn to move around the world. If you do everything for him, you are depriving him of that opportunity.
2- Allow him to experiment
Naturally as a parent you want to keep your child safe from any danger and risk. Without realizing that eliminating all the dangers of your life deprives you of learning to face the problems that will arise in your life.
The key is to let them take risks according to their age and teach them how to deal with them.
It’s no use telling a child not to run because he’s going to fall. First because he is a child and has to run, second because he has to learn that, if he runs and falls, it is not the end of the world, he can get up and follow his path.
By giving the child the proper freedom, you are helping him to know himself and know what his own limits are.
3- Teach him to solve his problems
Imagine that your son wants to leave a week camp in summer, but he is afraid to be away from home for so long and he gets very nervous. What do you do?
The most anxious parents will want their child to be safe and will surely advise them not to go (“total, to have a bad time”).
However, this situation is a great opportunity for your child to learn to manage their emotions and face what most scares them.
If you invite him to avoid going to the camp, you are teaching him to get carried away by emotions because he can avoid any situation that he does not like.
The most appropriate thing would be to make him see that those nerves he feels are normal in unfamiliar situations, but that they will happen as soon as he is there having a good time with his friends.
You can also search together strategies that you can carry out in case you become nervous again when you are there and make it clear that, anyway, if you are not comfortable, you can always go home.
The goal of this is to encourage your child to find their own ways to face the challenges that come their way.
4- Speak clearly and show him what he has to do.
Many of the parents’ complaints are related to the disobedience of the children. The most common is to be told things like: “I just do not know how to tell him to behave well”.
They do not stop to think that, perhaps, the problem is that the child does not know what it is to behave well.
When you ask your child to do something, it is important that the order is clear and concrete and that the first times you teach him how to do it. Since that of behaving well or badly can be too ambiguous for the understanding of the little ones.
Your child will learn that a behavior is right or wrong depending on the consequences, but for that you have to know what you have done. If you ask him to stay seated until he finishes his meal and sees that he gets your approval, he will continue to do so.
On the other hand, if what you ask is that “be well behaved at the table”, it is very likely that you do not have clear what you have to do and that, in addition, the consequence of this is your anger.
5- Do not forget to reinforce their behavior
This point is one of those things that seem very simple but that most people forget to do: reward.
Punishing is something that usually comes out alone. When the child makes you nervous or does something that you do not like or that is wrong, the first thing that comes out is to scold him “so he can learn that that is not done”.
On the contrary, when he does something well many times he is not told anything and he is ignored because “it is what he has to do”.
Thus, the child what he learns is that there are certain behaviors (negative) with which he gets the attention of adults, which for him is his biggest reward, and there are others (positive) with which he does not pay attention to. If it were you, what would you continue doing?
If your child has done what you asked for or has done positive behavior on his / her own, it is very important that he / she knows he / she has done it well so that he / she repeats that action.
To let them know it is not necessary either to make a party, the children are not so demanding, they are demanding.
For your child the most precious thing is your attention and your approval. With that you tell him how well he has done and show him your love will be more than satisfied.
6- Avoid the “why?”
Asking why a behavior that has caused a problem rarely has a satisfactory answer, the most common is to be answered: “I do not know”.
If your 8 year old child leaves the toys scattered all over the house and has lost his favorite and you ask him why he has done it, what do you think he will answer you? What is it because it is messy?
Instead of asking “why”, maybe you should ask what he can do to solve his problem and not repeat it again. For example:
“You have left your toys all over the house and you have lost the one you like most. What can you do to find it and not lose it again? “
It is more than likely that your child will tie up and deduce what has happened so that his toy is lost and the next time it is something more orderly.
7- Do not give all the answers
It is very tempting, whenever your child has any questions, to give the answer automatically because we think that we are helping him and that he will learn.
However, children need to learn to learn, that is, have resources to get the information they need and what better to do it through discovery.
Every time your child asks you a question, start by using the phrase “I do not know” and suggest your child find the solution to their problem, either together or on their own.
With this simple phrase you will teach your child to tolerate uncertainty, to be patient and to handle frustration. In addition, it will increase your motivation to face the challenges that arise.
8- Avoid being dramatic
Many times to prevent children from doing something that could harm them, some parents become very anxious and tend to be catastrophic and scare their child.
If you see your son running away or climbing through some structure of the park, change that “do not do what you’re going to fall!”, For a “be careful”. This will encourage you to be cautious without inducing an irrational fear.
9- Let him make mistakes
Making a mistake is not the end of the world, in fact, thanks to mistakes you learn to do things right.
Letting your child be wrong and doing things wrong can be quite hard and painful. But it will help your child learn how to solve his problems and make better decisions next time.
It is important that your child knows what the consequences of his actions are and that he will not learn it if you are constantly protecting him and doing things for him to prevent him from making mistakes.
10- Help him manage his emotions
The management of emotions is essential to be a happy and emotionally healthy person.
Teach your child that all emotions are fine, nothing happens to feel them, none is objectionable. That it’s okay to feel angry if you’ve lost a game or if someone has eaten your ice cream, that you can cry when something bad happens to you.
Show him that it is just as necessary that this emotion does not get out of hand, that it is not the end of the world and that he must think what he can do to feel better.
It is true that in order to do this, parents have to know how to handle their emotions as well.
It is easy for your child to get you crazy when you get very angry about something that for you is probably nonsense. It is at this moment when you must gather all the patience of the world and show your support and empathy.
For example, imagine that you are playing patches and your child is very angry because he has lost. Instead of getting angry because he’s angry, it might be more appropriate to say something like: “I understand that you get angry, it also happens to me, but that way you will not win. Now you can wait for it to happen to you alone and, if you see that it does not, think about what you can do to be good again. “
11- Remember that you are his role model
The main source of children’s learning and information is the observation of the behavior of adults, especially parents. Therefore, it is useless for you to tell your son to do such a thing if you are the first one who does not do it.
Obviously as a parent you will commit many failures, as has already been said, it is not an easy task and you are human. Therefore, it is important that, if you make a mistake, you admit it and express it to your child.
There are many parents who never say sorry to their children because they think that is a sign of weakness. They forget that a child is also a person with feelings and, like an adult, needs an apology when someone hurts him, even unintentionally, for example, when you yell at him.
How can you ask your child to be educated and honest if you are the first one who is not capable of doing it with him?
Remember that your son, until he acquires his own identity, is a small version of you. What you see well, he will find the best. What you criticize, he will find most reprehensible.
If you want your child to be a good person, show him how to do it in the first person.
12- Love him a lot and respect him.
The last key and the most important of all. Love your child, show him your love and understanding every day and, above all, respect him.
You will not get him to respect you if you do not do the same to him. Love is demonstrated in many ways, not just by expressing it verbally. There are the gestures, the looks … For a child the smile of their parents is worth a lot.
Do not confuse love with overprotection or give it all done. That can be almost as damaging to him as being a negligent parent who does not meet any of his needs.
Allow your child to know the world under your guidance, but not through you, that is not the idea.
