When nothing else seems to work to get your kids to listen and behave, you need to turn to positive parenting. You can easily create a home with less negative attitudes by learning how to use Positive Parenting in your everyday life.
How to Use Positive Parenting to Tame Tantrums and Outbursts
If you’re ready to put an end to the difficulties of raising a strong-willed child then you need to listen up and learn how to use positive parenting in your every day life!
Parenting is hard. And that’s even when you have well-behaved kids.
But then throw a ‘difficult’ child into the mix and it almost seems like an impossible task.
How do people do this? Day after day, year after year. 18 years suddenly seems like an eternity.
And that’s just their toddler years… imagine what they will be like as teenagers!
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that bad. All you need is a little positive parenting in your life.
Not sure what positive parenting is? Let me give you some quick highlights on it…
What is Positive Parenting?
To make it easy, here is a brief list of what postitive parenting is:
- Focusing on a childs good behavior
- Praising the good behavior so the child is more inclined to exhibit that
- Parents become active listeners to figure out what triggers kids
- Focus on discipline over punishment
- Changes the focus of bad behavior rather than punishing for it
I remember that first time I read about positive parenting and thought about using it with my daughter.
I was supposed to reward her good behavior (easy enough to do) and ignore the bad behavior (say what?).
Immeditialy my concern was that it felt like my daughter was going to be able to walk all over me. She has bad behavior and I’m supposed to just ignore it?
Stick with me here.
The point of positive parenting is that you reward and praise the good beahvior SO OFTEN that your child starts using good behavior to get your attention. And since they don’t get your attention with their bad behavior, they stop.
Making sense so far?
Get my FREE list of 50 Positive Sayings you can use with your kids as a great starting point to using positive discipline in your home!
Some Examples of Positive Parenting in Real Life
Let’s get into some real life examples of positive parenting so you can understand how it really works.
Focus on the good!
Every time your kid does something good, you praise them. And not just like “Good Job” but really praise them.
Example: You see your kid putting their dinner dishes in the sink without being asked. So you say “Thanks so much for cleaning up your dinner dishes. That really helps me out and shows me how responsible you are.”
Here’s another situation on how to use positive parenting:
Example: You tell your child it’s bedtime and to go get ready for bed. They brush their teeth and get pajamas on. So you say “I really appreciate you getting ready for bed without me having to ask several times. It makes me so happy that you know what to do and can do it on your own.”
It may seem silly to focus on such small behaviors. But what you are doing is showing your kid that they are getting a lot of attention from you by doing good things.
Which will in turn, make them want to do more nice things to get that attention.
Ignore The Bad Behavior
Now, when I say ignore the bad behavior, I don’t mean totally ignore it. What I mean is… resist the urge to yell at your kids, scream at your kids, or even scold them.
Believe it or not, but bad attention is still attention to your child.
So the more you feed into the bad behavior, the more they are going to do it.
So instead, when your child breaks the rules… redirect them.
Telling a child that they are breaking a rule, or going over what they did wrong is pointless. Your child should know the rules by now and they know what they did wrong.
Reminding them just reminds them that they were naughty. And no child is going to respond in a positive way when they feel like you are just pointing out how bad they are.
With positive parenting, you offer the child choices. This helps them feel like they have some power and resist the urge to fight you back. The choices you give them are what you control.
Example: Your child got mad and hit his sister. Instead of scolding him and punishing him, you offer him two choices. “You know hitting your sister is against the rules. So you have two choices. You con continue your behavior and lose your toys for the rest of the day. Or you can say sorry to her, and stop hitting. Which choice would you like to make?”
For those times when your kid just can’t calm down and offering choices seem futile, you need to remove them from the situation until they are calm enough to make a good deicision.
Don’t refer to it as a time out. Tell your child they are going to go to their room and take a few minutes to calm down. When they are calm and being nice, they can come out.
After they come out, start the choice all over again.
Remember! When your child calms down or goes back to behaving, use this as an opportunity to praise them!
Example: I know you got really mad at your sister, but I think it’s a great idea to calm down and be nice to her again. I’m really proud of you for making that decision.”
My daughter can throw some pretty extreme temper tantrums. But when she calms down and I praise her for her ability to do that, her face lights up. And I can tell she’ll be more likely to calm even quicker the next time. Because she soaks up that positive praise.
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Use Discipline Over Punishment
Are you crinkling your eyes and wondering what the heck I mean? Those are the same right? WRONG!
Discipline and punishment are very very different and positive parenting focuses on the discipline and staying away from punishment.
You can read more about the differences between discipline and punishment by checking out this article: Why Discipline is Better Than Punishment
Punishment instills fear in kids and can often make behavior even worse. It focuses on the bad behavior and can often grow resentment and revenge from your child.
Discipline teaches the child what they did wrong and how to fix it. It focuses on the positive outcomes and helps kids to see that just because their actions were bad, they themselves are not bad.
And when your child realizes that THEY are not the bad kid they think they are, it’s easier for them to correct bad behavior. But if your child believes they are bad, they will be less inclined to improve their behavior.
Become An Active Listener
It’s our jobs as parents to be an advocate for your kids. In school, with friends, at the doctors office. No matter where you go… you always do what’s in the best interest of your child.
So why would it be any different at home?
Instead of ragging on your kids the second they do soemthing wrong, try being their advocate.
Find out WHY they did something wrong. Are they tired? Hungry? Under stress? There are so many reasons why kids act out and doing it “just because” is never usually one of them.
Take time to find out the reason behind your kids behavior and I guarantee you it will be much easier to calm them down and behave better in the future.
Positive Parenting Teaches Kids Self-Control
Think about it. You praise your kid constantly for having good behavior. When they have bad baheavior, you ignore it.
What do YOU think they are going to start doing more often? Duh! The Good behavior.
But having good behavior can be really tough sometimes. Even as an adult, it can be hard not to fight back with someone or hold my tongue when someone is being rude to me.
It takes a lot of restraint and self-control to exhibit good behavior when faced with times the bad behavior is just dying to come out.
When kids have a desire to have better behavior around their parents, they have to really learn self-control.
And what better trait to teach a kid before they get into adulthood?
A Few Things to keep in mind about Positive Parenting
Disciplining a child takes a lot of self-control from a parent too. It’s tempting to just lose our cool and scream our heads off when we get mad and frustrated.
But discipline should be a teaching process for kids. Don’t ever attempt discipling your child if you are not calm or in control of your emotions.
Keep reading: How to Discipline a Child Without Yelling
A negative environment breeds negativity.
But a loving, positive, and supportive environment can lead your kids down the right path to controlling their own emotions and being a more calm adult.
When using positive parenting in your home:
- Be consistent with the rules and consequences
- Model good behavior
- Avoid harsh discipline
- Give positive feedback
- Praise is better than rewards
The last tip is especially important. Praise is better than rewards. You don’t need to bribe your kids to be good at home. With enough praise, they will want to be good just to get your attention.
You might also be interested in:
- What Exactly is a Strong-Willed Child?
- How to Get Angry Kids To Calm Down
- 12 Factors That Influence a Child’s Bad Behavior
- Raise Happier Kids By Creating a Positive Home
- 55 Conversation Starters to Bond with Your Kids
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Wow I never thought I would actually read a guide on positive parenting…i mean it’s very hard(parenting), every day I challenge different unusual behavior from both kids , it frustrated, I over react on them get angry at them , I yelled on dem etc.But this article give me some good positive feed back can’t wait to start instilled ing good habits in my home , my kids, and my self thanks for this