Grandpa Richard's Kids

Guideline # 2 for Positive Parenting
Be Consistent

Your behavior with your children should be consistent and predictable. Set limits and expectations your children can understand and are aware of.

For example, bedtimes should always be the same. If you let your child stay up late a few nights and then you expect them in bed early the next night, you’ll run into problems. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a special stay up late night now and then, but expect there to be some adjustment to an earlier bedtime after.

If your child misbehaves, consequences should always be related to the behavior. For example, if your child is coloring and proceeds to draw on the walls, coloring time is over. Taking away another privilege, unrelated to coloring just doesn’t make sense. The consequence should be employed each and every time they behave that way. Sometimes it’s easier as a parent not to go through with the consequences, but with consistency it’s easier to get the behavior to cease.

What’s better – not dealing with the situation or dealing with it a few times to get it to stop? You’ll probably agree it’s the latter.

Allow room for change. Sometimes, we as parents, make decisions that we might discover are too strict or are no longer age-appropriate. It’s okay to re-adjust and then reinstate consistency.