Parenting any child requires setting limits for children. When parents adopt a child especially a toddler or older child it is easy to overlook some behavior issues early in the transition, placement, and honeymoon phases. Some behaviors may catch us off guard or we may hope go away with adjustment time and attachment. We want to be a “nice” mom and dad, and try hard to avoid reprimands and too much correction during these early stages. It would be nice if we were all able to live by the advice to start with clear and concise limit setting, the fact is in most cases we will eventually end up at a point where we have to address certain behaviors directly and set limits with a child.
A few tips for Successful Limit Setting With Children Are:
- Identify a few key behaviors to work on for a period of time. The environment will become too negative if parents attempt to address every single little behavior issue a child has at the same time. It’s best to focus on two or three specific behavior problems at a time.
- Speak in clear, simple and positive commands. Be sure your child understands the words you use and what you expect. Limit your instructions to single steps for the behaviors you working on. Use time to teach your child what is expected, and what kind of behavior is appropriate in your home.
- Plan to offer reminders and use warnings. Some children need to have help learning a new way of behavior and many children learn best with many reminders, over and over for a period of time. The key is to keep the reminders as positive as possible, and develop a warning system for transitions or when a behavior problem starts to show itself.
- Offer choices whenever possible and help your child understand the consequences which may naturally come as a result of a choice the child makes.
- Help your child label their own feelings, the specific behavior issue and the natural consequences that may result.
- Most of all remember to pay attention to the good behaviors as a way to decrease the need for consequences or discipline.
When teaching children behavior limits parents need to know their own limits and have a plan for consequences and discipline. These will be the topics of the next two Blogs in Attachment Parenting.
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For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.