All children, especially young children, have a goal in life: they want our attention.  As they grow up they experiment with every kind of behaviour they can think of, to see which give them the most attention.  The ones that work best are used over and over again and eventually become part of the child's character.

If we reward bad behaviour with our attention, they will grow up knowing only how to behave badly.  Over 90% of misbehaviour in children is aimed at getting our attention.  We therefore need to make sure that only the good, acceptable behaviours get our attention. 

That isn't easy until we can see what is going on.  The skill is to recognise all the different ways children can get our attention, and to ensure that we react the right way every time.  Once we apply this rigorously we find that our children quickly want to behave well all the time, and everyone is happy.

So if you find yourself shouting at your child AGAIN because they are doing that really annoying thing for the tenth time in a row, stand back, see that you are doing exactly what the child wants, count to ten, say nothing and carry on with what you were doing.  Pretend the child isn't there, even when he or she starts screaming.  Once they start behaving as you would like, spend time with them.  You'll be amazed at how quickly they give up that annoying habit.

Remember, if you keep shouting at them, they'll never give it up.  Only by ignoring them will they learn how to behave properly.

Links

Happy Children, Rudolf Dreikurs

Positive Discipline A-Z, Jane Nelson