Key points
- Behavior is communication and a chance to connect.
- Attention (positive or negative) reinforces behavior.
- Use praise and rewards to encourage desired behavior.
- Use clear, consistent consequences for misbehavior.
- Always follow through and briefly explain the reason for consequences.
Overview
Responding to children's behavior can be one of the most challenging tasks for parents and caregivers.
It's important to know that all behavior, good or bad, is a form of communication and can be an opportunity for connection.
Understand the impact of your attention
Attention from you and other caregivers is important to your child. Attention can be both positive and negative. Positive attention is used to show your child they have done something you like.
Positive attention includes things like praise, hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and high-fives. Negative attention lets your child know you do not like what they have done. Healthy ways to express negative attention include warnings, or removing your attention from, (or ignoring) minor misbehaviors that you don't want to encourage.
Unhealthy ways of using negative attention include things like spanking, yelling at, or embarrassing your child. Unhealthy negative attention can weaken your relationship with your child and lead to problems with managing emotions and behavior, mental health, and self-esteem as your child gets older.
It is important to understand that any attention, whether positive or negative, given to your child immediately after their behavior, increases the likelihood of that behavior happening again.
Understand positive and negative consequences
At this age, children are still learning and may not always behave appropriately. The consequence, or what happens right after your child's behaviors, makes the behavior more or less likely to happen again. Remember that consequences can be both positive and negative.
Positive consequences show your child they have done something you like. Your child is more likely to repeat the behavior when you use positive consequences. Positive consequences include things like rewards, praise, and positive attention. Use positive consequences as much as possible for behaviors you would like your child to do again. Keep reading about praise and rewards to understand more about how to use positive consequences.
Negative consequences let your child know you do not like what they have done. Your child is less likely to repeat the behavior when you use negative consequences. Negative consequences include removing your attention, delay or loss of privilege, and time-out. Use negative consequences for behaviors you would like your child to stop.
Respond to misbehavior with negative consequences
Your child is less likely to repeat a misbehavior when you use negative consequences. Learn the following steps to use negative consequences to respond to misbehavior.
Imagine a child playing with a toy car in an unsafe way as an example.
It is important that you and your child are clear about which behaviors are okay and which are not okay. Be specific when you tell your child what you expect. For example, while playing with a toy car, your child decides to throw it.
This behavior is not okay because it’s unsafe. Communicate this to your child by saying, “We can’t throw toys while playing. It’s not safe.”
Calmly give your child a warning that the behavior needs to change. Explain that there will be a consequence if the behavior doesn’t change. Using simple “if-then” statements are a good way to give a warning.
For example, “If you throw the toy car again, then I’m going to put it away.” Only use a warning if you are willing to follow through with the consequence.
Once a warning is given, you must always follow through with a consequence if your child repeats the behavior. If you don’t, your child will not take the warning (and future warnings) seriously. Give a positive consequence, like praise, if your child did what you asked. Give a negative consequence if your child didn’t do what you asked.
Consequences should occur immediately after the misbehavior, so your child understands what they did to get the consequence. Examples of negative consequences are explained below:
- Remove your attention: When you remove your attention (or ignore), you take all your attention away from your child and their behavior. Learn more about when it is appropriate to remove your attention and how.
- Loss of a privilege or logical consequences: When you remove privileges, you take away things or activities your child likes. For young children, the privileges you remove need to be directly related to and logically follow the misbehavior. For example, you might take away a toy your children are fighting over.
- Time-out: Time-out moves your child to a place free of anything or anyone that might provide attention. Learn more about time-out and how to do it.
Tell your child why the negative consequence is happening to further help them understand what they did to get the consequence. For example, you might say, “Because you threw the car again, I am putting it away for the evening." Then the toy car should be removed and placed out of the child’s reach.
Most children will have an emotional reaction to a consequence being used. Your child may beg, cry, tell you what you want to hear, or say things like they hate you. This should not affect your decision to follow through.
If your child throws a tantrum and you give in, they learn that crying loudly gets them what they want. This rewards their tantrum and makes it more likely for them to have tantrums in the future. Instead, you can try emotion coaching to help calm down emotional situations.
After you have applied the consequence, go back to being positive with your child. If a privilege was removed, you can remind your child of the good behavior you want to see.
For example, you might say, "You can play with the toy car again if you use it on the racetrack without throwing it." Watch for positive behaviors. Give praise and other rewards when your child does the right thing.