Promote positive behavior and self-responsibility in your child

Effective parenting requires that you work to strengthen your children’s self-esteem, build and maintain positive relationships with them, and encourage them to take appropriate risks, make decisions, and solve problems.

Parenting tips

Allow your children to solve as many of their own problems as they can.
Let your children answer some of their own questions.
Do not do things for your children that they can do for themselves .
Encourage your child to take risks.
Let your children have the satisfaction and pride that comes as a result of growing independence and self-sufficiency.
Praise accomplishments.
Invite and consider your child’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions on a topic of discussion.
Allow your child to make mistakes.

Activities

Assist your child in weighing choices and examining consequences.
Communicate your support to your child.
Increase your child’s responsibilities.
Provide encouragement to your child that focuses on effort and improvement, not winning or competition.
Help your children become effective decisionmakers.
Praise your child without words by using smiles and hugs.
Reinforce positive behavior.
Review safety and rules BEFORE starting out for the store.
Give each child daily jobs that are critical to the family.
Start even two-year-olds on the “1/3” plan—1/3 each of their allowance to gifts, savings, and self.
Develop a “safety checklist” for your home and have everyone do an “inspection.”
Have regular family discussions to make decisions.
Put each child in charge of some area—a dresser or toychest, one drawer, a corner, or a box where they keep and organize their “things.”