Parenting Tips and Exercises - Sulakshana Sirur

• Spend at least an hour of quality time with your child. This will help in Open Communication between parents and children.

• Find an outlet to Channelize their energy either through sports, dance, music, play, learning a new skill. Children are a bundle of energy n if they don’t have the right outlet to channelize it. The energy transforms itself into destructive -aggressive behaviour

• Encourage and praise the child for every small accomplishment. This improves their self-esteem and motivates them to do better.

• Always talk well of the child in his/her presence. If at all u need to discuss his/her negatives with a 3rd person, do it in his/or her absence. For e.g., if a child happens to hear that he/she is a spoilt brat. The tendency is to internalize the quality and to live up to the expectations of the parents of being a ‘Spoilt Brat’.

• Treat your child as a young adult capable of logical-rational thinking. Have adult discussions with the child about what he/she appreciate in the parent and what he does not appreciate. Then commit to correct it. You then go ahead n share your opinion about what you appreciate and don’t appreciate about your child’s behaviour. And then ask them for a commitment to change.

• Setting RULES: Make a list of 3- 5 of the child’s behaviour not approved by you.
E.g. (i) Back-answering, (ii) misbehaving in front of others, (iii) misbehaving with people who provide service to you like the house-maid, watchman, school peons etc. (iv) not doing their daily tasks like brushing, bathing or changing after coming from school without being told to do so (v) Behavior that cause harm to people, things n other living being like plants n animals.

• Chart system: The child gets a star or smiling face on his behavioural chart for abiding by all the rules. If he happens to break any rule, he is reminded about the rule he is breaking and given a choice of either continuing it n losing his star or getting a sad face or stopping it n receiving his star.
1 star / 1 smiling face = 1 dhm.
No star/ sad face = no dhm

• Positive reinforcement.: Reward the child for every good behaviour.In the above case he gets a star or smiling face for his good behaviour which he accumulates as money. The child is allowed to buy things out of the money e.g. toys, stationary, chocolates, or even gifts for others. This will teach the child to value money and use it wisely. It also send them the message that rewards can be Earned by good behavior

• Its important for parents to pass on virtues to the children. But as parents we need to remember this important VICE
V – ‘VIEW’ the world from the child’s eyes while dealing with him/her.
I- ‘INFLUENCE” i.e. parents and children Influence each other. Just as you try to influence him/her into being a good son/daughter. Similarly your children too influence you into being good parents.
C- ‘CONTRL’ i.e. don’t let your child control you. Nor do you need to control your child. All you need is to control his/her behaviour so as to get acceptable response and shape them into being better individuals.
E-‘EARN’ i.e. don’t deprive the child of happiness. Instead teach them to be responsible and Earn their happiness.

To bring up a child the right way, travel the way yourself.