I wrote earlier about how I have been reading a book about raising and training a puppy in preparation for taking on a new household member. There are so many things about this anticipated endeavor that remind me of raising kids! No offense to my kids, of course, but I am seeing a lot of similarities in raising the well-behaved puppy and attempting to raise the well-behaved child (I confess that I anticipate it will go a little more predictably with the dog than it has with my kids). One thing that struck me was the reminder of the need to repeat rules. We think that our brilliant children will be able to grasp things the first time, but that just isn’t the case. They often have to be reminded and reminded and we have to be prepared to repeat and repeat.
My sister-in-law once told me that if one can achieve a sense of calmness in the repeating of rules and reminders, she thinks it goes better. She says the calmer and monotonous the better—kids will get so bored and tired of hearing us repeat ourselves that the message will finally sink in! I don’t know if this is true or not since I have a tendency to be a bit, uh, expressive, but I do know that I have had to issue reminders for some of the most basic rules.
This doesn’t mean that after a while there shouldn’t be consequences for breaking the rules. As the puppy training book says, you calmly repeat and remind and then reward them when they get it right. I think with my kids, I also do the “consequences when they get it wrong” but supposedly the more we are able to provide the positive reinforcement when they DO remember, the less likely we will find ourselves doling out the discipline when they don’t.
Also: When Does the Child-proofing End?
If I Could Only Stop Lecturing