As a parent, you’ll often find yourself being the bearer of bad news to your kids. After all, somebody has to tell them that they can’t stay up until 2 or eat ice cream for breakfast, am I right? Sometimes you have to be the bad guy, and your kids aren’t going to like it. But if every area of disagreement turns into a battle, it will be exhausting for all of you. Read more for my tips on parenting and picking your battles.
Pick Your Battles Carefully
If you try to correct your child every single time they misbehave, you’ll wear yourself out quickly. And not only that, but constantly correcting a toddler or young child while they’re trying to learn for themselves how the world works can be challenging for all of you.
Take a minute to decide if your child’s behavior is really in need of correcting or if it’s just a harmless phase. Is it worth getting excited about?
Teach Your Child to Listen
If all your child hears is the word NO, they’ll eventually start to tune you out. They’ll get so used to being told that they can’t have things, they’ll develop a habit of coming up with ways to circumvent you to to get them anyway.
Instead of just saying no, try suggesting alternatives to the issue you’re handling. If you can’t get them to stop coloring on your walls, try giving them some paper to color on instead. This might be the solution to get what they’re doing out of their system. Parents often devote too much time and energy to the short-term goal of stopping bad behavior and wind up raising kids that simply obey the rules rather than making wise decisions.
Knowing Which Battles to Choose
Unless you want to spend every moment in high alert for misbehavior, it’s important to prioritize which issues you want to stand your ground on. As far as most parents are concerned, safety and health are the two biggest issues in which they hold firm. Your child may mean well, but they don’t have the life experience to keep their own wellbeing in mind when they make decisions.
Beyond that, it is up to you to determine which behaviors pose a problem and which are simply bothersome. Try to imagine your child as an adult. Think about their behavior now. Which behaviors are not acceptable for adults? Obviously, you’ll want to steer your child away from those. Focus on what’s most important.
Keep Things Consistent
The best way to make sure that your child follows the rules and routines that you lay out for them is to consistently enforce them. If they aren’t allowed up past 9 pm on a school night, make sure to stick with it. Even one night of bending the rules lets your child know that your rules are optional. No matter how small the issue, make sure that the rules of the house are always the rules.
The good news is, even if you’ve been inconsistent in dealing with an issue in the past, it’s not too late to improve the situation. Come up with a set of rules, go over them with your child and adhere to them.
When a parent argues with their children, they’re teaching them to fight for control of the situation. By choosing when to put your foot down, and by keeping these battles from becoming hostile in the first place, you’re making sure that a disagreement with your child is something that they learn from rather than resent.