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Preventing Misbehavior in Children when Homeschooling

By Stephen Moser posted 04-06-2021 09:50 PM

  

Children with a healthy respect for themselves and their parents cooperate more and make better choices. It is always better for parents to be proactive than reactive. This is why encouraging positive behaviour rather than punishing negative behaviour is so important when homeschooling children. 

Positive strategies can prevent misbehaviour and help you to connect with your children in a way that increases their self-respect, confidence and respect for you. 

Accept that you will experience some behaviour problems

You may have weeks where everything proceeds perfectly but there will always be times where you have to deal with issues. It is simply part of the job description when you’re homeschooling children. 

You may even find that a child who had no issues when attending public school seems to have issues with you as the teacher. This is perfectly normal as children are often more relaxed in their home setting and apt to let down their guard. If you aren’t surprised when you encounter a few bumps in the road, you will be better able to deal with them. 

Homeschooling children can be exhausting and draining. Counselling can help parents to cope with this 24/7 responsibility. Counsellors at Interactive Counselling in Vernon can help you to work through any issues you have while homeschooling your children. 

Consistently keep promises and avoid empty threats

When you are consistent in keeping rules and rewarding good behaviour, it teaches your children how to stick to their end of the bargain. It may help to write down a list of common behaviour problems, appropriate consequences and rewards you know they will appreciate. Sticker charts may work with younger children and an older child may enjoy the reward of a family movie night. 

If you promise a child a reward, you must follow through. For example, if you said the child could pick a book to read or play a game on the computer, you need to stick to this. If you’re not consistent, you will send mixed messages to your children. 

Avoid empty threats like saying, “I will donate all your toys to an orphanage if you don’t tidy up.” In all probability, you won’t do this and it could result in crying and tantrums from your children. 

Verbally acknowledge their efforts

When children receive positive feedback for doing the right thing, they want to do more of it. Say to your daughter, “I am proud of you that you helped your brother with his homework today,” and she will want to keep helping. 

Specific praise will have an impact and is also an easy way to give a child some attention which all children crave. Do you want your children to always have a voice in their heads correcting them? It’s much better for you to encourage them to behave to praising their good behaviour. 

Try to identify when misbehaviour occurs

There will be times when a child doesn’t appear to want to learn. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can take a break and try again later. You can do this when you observe that the child is becoming frustrated or irritated. Try to figure out if the child is having difficulties with the time of day, the specific activity, being hungry or thirsty, or not feeling well. 

If you keep a log of when your child starts misbehaving, you may identify patterns so you can make adjustments. Perhaps the learning style doesn’t suit the child and you can adjust your teaching strategies to be more visual than verbal or more hands-on than auditory. Just changing your teaching strategy could help you to avoid misbehaviour due to frustration. 

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