THE PARENTING SERIES: A SIMPLE FRAMEWORK FOR BEHAVIOUR

Children may be a blank canvas, but over time they also become a mirror of what they're exposed to. A canvas that is a unique reflection of all the things that it has seen and experienced.

This highlights the importance of role modelling and the awareness of our behaviours around children, but also what we are exposing them to, from an environmental and social context. In a sense, during early childhood, it is very much monkey see, monkey do.

That's why before we examine and become critical of our child's behaviour, we first must reflect and examine ourselves and our behaviours and consider the environments and people that we are exposing our children to.

Are we the role models that we want our children to see?

Are the environments that we expose our children to modelling the values and behaviours that we want?

Show them what you want them to learn and become. Demonstrate the values and behaviours that you want to instill. Surround them with people and things that will support and reinforce these things.

INCENTIVISE DESIRED BEHAVIOUR

INSPIRE AND MODEL DESIRED BEHAVIOUR

Children are very simple creatures. They love and seek attention, affection, play and exploration. In fact, they will often ignore or even move into the path of danger for the aforementioned. Children are emotional but also blindly logical when it comes down to these things. Which is why they will often willingly make bad but logical decisions to acquire and sate whatever is in their heart's desire.

If they want to play more during lunch, they will often choose not to eat their lunch.

If they want to play more at home, they will throw out that very lunch at school to avoid getting into trouble.

If they want to play more soccer, they will jump in front of a busy road to retrieve a ball.

They don't yet comprehend what is right and wrong, safe or unsafe, what is socially acceptable and/or healthy and unhealthy. To children, all that matters is what their current selfish desire is. They only care about the incentive.

So use this knowledge to your advantage. Provide the incentive and link it to your desired values and behaviours that you wish for your child to learn. If you want them to learn how to use appropriate eye contact, names and speak polite/nicely, communicate such and reward it with all the praise, attention and affection when they do so. If they do not, you can simply prompt them to do so before rewarding them.

However, there are 3 key concepts and considerations to this:

1. Never reward undesirable and unhealthy behaviour - Children are incentive driven, so if you reward undesirable and unhealthy behaviour, you are contributing to the reinforcement and increasing occurance of such. For example, if a child cries and has a tantrum but is rewarded with attention, affection and a sweet treat, this only incentivises the behaviour to continue, but also increase in frequency and intensity.

2. Never punish desired and healthy behaviour - If your child has the intrinsic motivation to already be demonstrating a desired and healthy behaviour, we want to do our best to acknowledge/reinforce this and not provide reinforcement and/or motivation for this behaviour to stop. For example, if your child wants to talk to you about their day after school (a great, positive and healthy behaviour), do not get annoyed, frustrated or distracted, because otherwise they will stop wanting to do so in the future.

3. Be consistent with your reinforcement - To put it simply, inconsistent incentives and rules leads to inconsistent behaviours. In fact, it becomes incredibly confusing to children when different people and environments are reinforcing and rewarding different values and behaviours. This can often lead to anxiety and distrust because they are unsure how to act and behave and are also unsure if they will be rewarded.

CULTIVATE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Children are incentive driven and motivated by external approval. Part of the process of growing up and maturing is to be able to develop and build a sense of self and to have our own intrinsic motivation. To be able to make our own informed decisions and demonstrate the courage, discipline and self-confidence to chase our own dreams, rather than the dreams of others.

We will not always be around as parents to provide the incentives, love and support to our children. As a result, we must always be aware that our goal is not to always protect and make decisions for our children. Our role is to raise good, independent and healthy people that can stand up and make decisions for themselves when we're no longer around.

We can educate them, send them to tutoring and the best schools, but we cannot give them the intrinsic passion and joy of learning. I've seen so many talented and intelligent children burn out and/or live a completely different lifestyle once they had their independence.

That's why it's important to cultivate intrinsic motivation and to provide our children with the opportunities to develop their independence and decision making skills.

What are your child's interests and passions?

What type of person do they want to become when they grow up?

What do they want to do when they grow up?

They started off as a blank canvas. A blank canvas that was painted on by ourselves and all the things, people and environments that we've exposed them to. They've become an abstract reflection of these experiences. Now it's time for them to learn how to paint their own canvas themselves, to paint a unique picture of their own design.

PREVENTION OVER PRESCRIPTION

Education and prevention is the most important aspect in the context of managing unhealthy and undesirable behaviours. The reason being that the task of establishing and instilling healthy values, systems and behaviours becomes exponentially harder, if there are already values, systems and behaviours that contradict and are resisting.

In this case, we have to work on eliminating the unhealthy and undesirable, while also working to establish something new. Taking away from our resources and time to focus on the new and the healthy, due to this split focus. After all, it is in human nature to resist change and fear the unknown/new.

Ideally, we would want to simply be able to focus on the singular goal of establishing the new and the healthy. To be able to have and work on a blank canvas, which children are!

Children are a blank canvas when born. Neither innately good or evil. It is up to us as parents and members of society to raise and nuture them into good, independent and healthy people. This process/journey starts from the moment they're born. With the key moments during the youngest period of their lives. Before the chaos, temptations and distractions of the world set in.

Which makes it vital that we put in the effort to be present and available in our children's lives. To educate, model and guide them towards being good, independent and healthy people.

After all, prevention is better than prescription.