BY MARIA LUISA SALCINES
When adults punish children by making them feel guilty or without a positive lesson, they are not encouraging improved behavior.
Children should always feel loved regardless of their behavior.
Studies show the human brain responds and remembers negative remarks and criticism much more than positive ones.
This is why parents need to think about the way they discipline and criticize their children. The words you use influences the way your child feels about himself and the attitude he will have about life.
When you yell and spank your child, he or she will remember getting hit, and how the hurtful words made them feel, but more than likely will not remember why.
The purpose of discipline is not to hurt the child, but to help the child understand why he should change his behavior or attitude.
In “How Full is Your Bucket?” Written by psychologies Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath, they explain that we should look at the interactions we have with others by imagining we have a bucket within us that needs to be filled with positive experiences.
When you are negative toward others you are dipping a dipper into their bucket and decreasing their positive outlook. When you treat others in a positive manner, not only do you fill their bucket, but yours as well.
Clifton and Rath point out the study done by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman that showed we experience approximately 20,000 moments each day.
The brain defines these experiences and categorizes them as positive, negative or neutral. Most of us never remember the neutral moments.
The moments we remember are the positive and the negative ones. The negatives experience can define how your life will unfold.
One great experience can change a person’s life, and recent studies show that positive emotions are essential for our physical and mental health.
Parents pay attention to how often you use negative comments. Make sure that when you instruct your children you use positive words that will encourage them to do better.
Make it a habit to point out what your children do right, instead of just what they are doing wrong.
The daily interactions you have with your child can determine his outlook on life and how well he will do in the future.
You want your children to remember that even when you were going through difficult parent-child issues with them, your intent was always to encourage them, and criticize them sparingly and lovingly.
Maria Luisa Salcines is a freelance writer, and certified parent educator with The International Network for Children and Families in Redirecting Children’s Behavior and Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom. Follow her on Twitter @PowerOfFamily, Instagram at mlsalcines or contact her on her blog FamilyLifeandFindingHappy.com.
