Parents |
Teachers | Professionals
Medical and Mental Health Professionals
Encourage parents to learn the basic behavioral principles
of positive and negative reinforcement, extinction and
punishment. Encourage them to think about their discipline
techniques in these terms; they may discover why some work
and others don’t. (“The Four Behavioral Principles of
Discipline” is the subject of Chapter 4 in Four Weeks to a
Better-Behaved Child)
Young children’s ability to follow rules corresponds
directly to their language development. Repeating rules
clearly and often helps children under four, but doing so
provides no guarantee that they will be able to control
their behavior. Parents will be more successful
disciplinarians if they repeat clear rules and have
reasonable expectations about their children’s
ability to regulate their behavior.
Help parents understand why anger is never an effective
discipline technique. (See explanation in Chapter 2.)
A child's developmental level influences his ability to
manage his behavior more than his chronological age. For
instance, a child who is socially immature will find it
hard to follow playtime rules, even if he appears old
enough to understand them.
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