From Boystown:
Children are great learning machines, but they learn more through experience than they do from their parents talking. Below are five strategies for teaching your children how to behave.
- Teach children acceptable and unacceptable behavior immediately after the act. Don’t wait.
- For important matters such as commands or instructions speak less; one or two words for every year the child has been alive is more effective than an elaborate rationale.
- Be very clear. “Would or could you,” is not as clear as “you have to.”
- Use positive motivation way more than punishment.
- Create a positive learning environment. Four to five pleasant interactions to one unpleasant direction.