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My Kid Won’t Behave

Nothing can be more stressful than the feeling you get when you say to yourself, “my kid won’t behave.”  When I’m told this by parents, I understand that the question they need to be asking themselves is, “Why My Kid Won’t Behave.”  Because if by “behave” they mean follow instructions and do what they are asked, there is always going to be a reason. Nobody behaves or misbehaves for no reason at all.  So, answering the question, “why my kid won’t behave”, IS the path toward getting them to start.

 

Behavior is any measurable change in a person. So technically, anything you do, is a form of behavior.  So, saying a child won’t behave technically means they are laying still and not even breathing.  Rather than say, my kid won’t behave, I’d prefer to say something like, my child isn’t motivated to make the choices I want them to make. Or I can’t get my child to want to do the things I need them to do. Regardless of what language you use, the issue is, you are currently not happy with the choices your child is making related to your instructions and you would like to fix that. 

4 Tips for Kids Who Won’t Behave

So, how do we get a child to start to behave?  Again, I go back to the reasons… If your child is actively avoiding an instruction it means they have no reason to engage with it the way that you want.  This becomes your task.  How do you make sure they always have reasons to cooperate with your important instructions when you give them? 

So here are my 4 most important tips for anyone thinking “my kid won’t behave.”

Tip #1: Be Someone Your Child Wants to Be Around

First, become someone worth listening to and working for.  Be the kind of influence in your child’s life that makes them happy to want to be around you.  In turn, then they want to please you to have even more of this time together.  If your main form of interaction with your child is to bark orders at them, they will see you as an aversive, someone to be avoided and you are not likely to build up much good will toward your goals. 

On the other hand, if you focus on making sure you are at least 75% fun and positive and never more than 25% work your child will see you as a positive in their lives, and someone they will want to cooperate with. So, work hard not to only focus on the negatives of your child’s behavior. 

Find ways to bring fun and joy into their lives as much as possible so that you can build up the goodwill and overall relationship necessary to get your important needs met when you do give them instructions you need them to follow. 

Tip #2: Give Instructions the Right Way at the Right Time

Second, to be able to stop saying, “my kid won’t behave,” is to give instructions the right way at the right time. Try not to give your instructions at times your child is not likely to want to engage with you.  If they are in the middle of a game or focused on an important activity, this is not the best time to walk in and start asking for things. 

The chances of them stopping and listening and cooperating at this time are currently smaller than they would be if they aren’t engaged in something important.  You know what it is like when you are engrossed in a tv show or writing an email and someone walks up to you and tries to talk to you about something important to them, but not you.

The best way to get your kids to start behaving is to practice giving your instructions at times that they are actually most likely to attend and cooperate. Wait for when they are not engaged in something important or, at very least, stop the thing they are doing.  Then get their full attention and then give the instruction in a way they know you will follow through with consequences depending on how they respond.

Tip #3: Give Good Reasons for Cooperation

The third tip to be able to stop saying, “my kid won’t’ behave,” is to give good reasons for cooperation. When they have done things for you and cooperated with your instructions, have you made sure that it was an experience they would want to repeat? Do you find ways to reward them, or better yet, reinforce the behavior by giving it good reasons to happen again? The best way to reinforce good behavior is to find a way to offer some benefit to your child after they cooperate with you. 

Rather than just insisting on cooperation and only getting angry when it doesn’t happen, do you have the ability to remember to make their lives better, even in small ways, after they have cooperated with you? This is likely the most important aspect involved in getting continued cooperation over time. So, don’t let this tip slide. Whenever your child has made a good choice, go out of your way to show them why they would want to make that choice again in the future.

Tip #4: Stop Reinforcing Refusals to Cooperate with Attention

My 4th tip is to stop offering value and reinforcement after your child has refused to cooperate with you. Stop reinforcing refusals with tons of attention (either positive or negative attention).  Don’t get angry, but then let them continue to have the same positive outcomes that would have been available if they made a better choice.  

For a child to start behaving better, they are going to need reasons.  Those reasons are a consistent experience with a more positive outcome when they cooperate than when they don’t.  This will only happen if you make sure it happens with both tips 3 (reinforcing good behavior) and tip 4, not allowing too much reinforcement to follow refusals or ignoring of your instructions.

If I am playing a game and you give me an instruction and I know that following it will get me more game time and not following it will get me less game time, I am much more likely to choose to behave in that setting, and your kids will be too.

If your goals are to give your child good reasons to behave positively, these four tips are a great place to start.  However, if you struggle with any of these tips, or don’t understand how you can begin to use them consistently in your daily interactions, you can click here to take a free nearly hour long workshop called, “How to Get your Kids to Listen without Raising your Voice or Nagging”.  It’s easy to view and will be super helpful in moving you towards a better understanding of how to get your kids to behave more consistently.

Let’s Recap the 4 Tips:

So, remember, if you are tired of thinking, “my kids won’t behave,” consider these following 4 tips to help you start to get higher levels of cooperation and good behavior. 

  1. Become someone worth listening to.  Give your child a reason to see you as a positive and not just someone who demands compliance from them.
  1. Give your instructions the right way at the right time when your child is most likely to be able to attend and desire cooperating with you.  
  1. Find ways to positively reinforce cooperation when you do get it and finally 
  1. Don’t allow too much reinforcement to follow when they don’t cooperate.

All four of these tips will help you get better behavior from your kids, but if you really want to know more and even start to understand all the principles that can completely revolutionize the way your child responds to you, check out my free workshop, “How to get your kids to listen without raising your voice or nagging. I don’t know anywhere you will get better information for free.