There is a more than a grain of truth when people say that children will model their behavior on that of their parents. After all, the parents are watched and copied all the time. Parents are the role model for the children and often child behavior problems can have their origin in how parents behave themselves in certain difficult situations.
Observing child anger and violent behavior may alert the parent to what is happening and should start ringing alarm bells and force the parent to take action rather than burying one’s head in the sand. Sometimes parents are alarmed to find their children involved in hitting other children and siblings, cruelty to animals and maybe distancing from peers and figures in authority.
Let us take anger as an example.
How do parents behave when they have an argument or are involved in a very tense aggressive moment themselves. Very often, there is a moment when control is lost and results in violent action such as door slamming. This is sometimes accompanied by name calling and sometimes physically attacking the spouse.
The first tip in dealing with child anger is for parents to try to set the example for their children to follow. Ideally, the argument should take place in a place where children are not present at all but that is not always possible. We cannot program our fights to happen at a certain place and time! However, strategies such as agreeing to talk about it in a calmer moment, listening to each other and learning to negotiate are key elements to follow so that the child is not accustomed to shouting and aggression.
The second tip is to try to reduce the amount of violence coming into your home in the form of violent media, TV, video and computer games. The list is long and sometimes the violence and the way it is glorified on these shows is frightening to say the least. Child behavior problems have been linked to overexposure of this type of media.
The third tip is for parents to get help from various sources and it is always great to talk to the figures your child has everyday contact with, for example his teachers and counsellors. There could be common patterns of behavior which the parent and the teacher have noted are common both at school and at home. If you both agree on how they should be dealt with then that is a great way to start because it avoids a two tier system where certain behaviours are allowed at either school and/or at home.
These are just the first steps in learning some techniques and strategies in family therapy. Find out some more by clicking on the link below. Child behavior problems left unchecked can often lead to ruined adult lives, drug abuse and delinquency.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I find the tips quite effective, it is a sensitive stage of growing which though transitory but as parents the discipline imparted to them stands most valuable and I feel it is very important that both of us think on similar grounds to work this out. As you should know the culture & traditions of Asians differ from Western , it often interferes if we as parents have biased opinions.
Thanks for your help & support, it is definitely working & i shall recommend to all my friends & colleagues who go through similar issues.
It is, indeed a vicious cycle – the parents of today are modeling their parents – they actually don’t know any other way to behave. And more than likely most of them will not go into counseling. I am appalled at the way parents behave and honestly expect their children to behave better than they do
These tips are really great and helped me a lot .. Thank you very much .
It’s the children’s world you know. Having worked as a children teacher for some years now, I think children need people of integrity (of which parent is suppose to be in the fore) that they can trust and that can set examples for them to follow. They are easy to correct and tame compare to a young adult or an adolescent who has become a dry fish and difficult to bend. These materials are very good to instruct parents and also to help me in writing a book on ‘child anger and youthful exuberant’, a project that I have embark upon for some time now.