How to Help>Confident Parenting

Rules for Confident Parenting

Basic Rules

  • You, the parent/ adult, must be in charge (not the child)
  • Every child has a right to feel their feelings and needs help to learn to manage these feelings appropriately, rather than acting them out by screaming or being endulged.
  • It is not the parent’s job to make the child happy. It’s the parent’s job to enable to child to make him/herself happy and to support the child’s efforts in this.

Be Pro-active! Make sure that

  • child does as much her/himself as s/he possibly can, don’t do for her/him what s/he can do her/himself, e.g. dressing, getting/ eating food, tidy up, hang up coat
  • you spend time every day playing with your child (at least 30 minutes), e.g. turn taking, action songs, looking at books together
  • child has daily physical exercise and fresh air to feed his brain and burn off energy, e.g. playground, swimming, running/ skipping around block of flats, small trampoline + provide warm clothes when cold, wellies/ raincoat when raining, so he can go out safely

Positive Communication

  • Stay calm, be patient and don’t shout (i.e. speak slowly, give clear instructions)
  • Tell him what to do, not what not to do: make sure child knows what is expected of him/her and in which order to do it: ‘First this, then that’
  • Reward good behaviour e.g. praise, a warm and appreciative look or hug, a reward

 Safe and Clear Boundaries

  • Hurting someone (self or other) or damaging the environment is never ok, as it makes the child feel unsafe, frightened and insecure.
  • Aim for Prevention whenever possible: Don’t wait for child ‘not to do it’, or expect him to change his behaviour first - but remove things that he may throw/ bite/ pull
  • It is the Adult’s Responsibility to protect child/ themselves/ other people/ environment from being hurt or damaged.
    (It can be helpful to think/say to child/yourself calmly: ‘I can see that you are angry/upset. But I cannot let you hurt me/ yourself/ others/ damage things. I will help you manage your feelings e.g. I will hold your hands, feet, head, put the toys away... until you calm down.’)

Responding to Tantrums/ Inappropriate/ Challenging behaviours

  • Be Boring: avoid exciting responses, ignore it, i.e. don’t shout when he has thrown something, but silently and boringly give him something else to do
  • Be Consistent (behaviour gets worse if you sometimes shout, sometimes ignore, sometimes give something nice to eat)
  • Never undermine another adult who is dealing with the child and a difficult behaviour (discuss different views afterwards and not in front of the child)

Create a Supportive Environment

  • Storage and Structure: provide storage boxes, drawers, shelves,... so child knows where things are and where to tidy them up
  • encourage Purposeful Activity to ensure s/he is not bored and knows what to do next, i.e. give him things to do, involve him in everyday tasks (e.g. put away shopping, cooking),
  • provide sufficient Toys and Play Activities for all areas of development: fine-motor, perception, language, memory, imaginative play, singing, cognitive, gross-motor
  • Avoid machines/ battery-operated/ electrical/ other ‘Lazy’ Toys, i.e. limit TV, videos, computer to no more than 1 hour a day (e.g. by using wall chart, clock, egg timer)

Observe and Think about the underlying reasons/ triggers for the inappropriate behaviour:

behaviour: what happens? (describe what actually happens, not what you think happens) time: when does it happen?
people : who is present? Who does it happen with or to? How do others respond?
place: where does it happen?
situation : what is/was going on at the time and just before? Who or what triggers it?
manner : how does s/he do it? What feelings can you identify in child and in yourself?

Possible reasons:

  • changes in child’s daily routine/ habitual activities
  • confusion or fear because of unexpected changes
  • child cannot understand what adults say (explanations, instructions, reassurance),
  • child cannot communicate what he wants/needs/feels
  • child do not like being forced to do something that is too difficult, goes on for too long, is boring