Worldwide, parents always try their best to discipline their children and ensure they are following good behavior. This helps the children learn what behavior they should adopt and what to suppress. While all parents have different ideologies and different modes of conduct when it comes to dealing with their child, as every child has a different set of needs in addition to the unique system of belief that the parents themselves have, one thing that we find to be the most common in all kinds of scenarios is implementing a system of reward and punishment for the type of behavior they expect their child to show.
The process of reward and punishment helps facilitate desired and good behavior such that the children understand what is expected of them and also ensure they know what behavior will lead to punishment. A system of reward for good behavior is one of the most accepted forms of disciplinary methods that parents use. It is also proven to be one of the most effective forms of teaching that parents can give their children.
In this post, we intend to show you how to understand if your child is well-behaved. Further, this post will also help you understand the various kinds of rewards that you can offer your child for their good behavior at home. Finally, we will highlight why such rewards are helpful in parenting.
What should you consider as good behavior?
The concept of good behavior is a very vast topic, and when you read or research about it, keep in mind that every household is different in terms of its values, ideas, and mindset. Thus, what you might find to be good behavior shown by your child, might be offensive and considered bad behavior by someone else. Therefore, the entire topic is based on individual perspectives. However, we have managed to gather a few examples of good behaviors most commonly accepted and found all around the world. Some of these are:
- Greeting everyone who comes to your home is one of the primary examples of good behavior or manner your child might display. Greeting them with a smile on their face and then greeting them when they are leaving is important as it indicates good hospitality from you. As a parent, you need to teach your children to greet everyone. This forms a crucial part of developing social skills.
- If you have taught your child to say ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ and other pleasantries while dealing with people (of their age, elders, or younger irrespectively), you have undoubtedly done an excellent job and instilled good behavior habits in them. Being polite is one of the most important characteristics of a well-behaved child.
- If you have taught your child to knock on any door before they enter, they are well-behaved and portray good behavior.
Other good behaviors that you need to look out for are:
How they speak with others
Whether they are cleaning up or managing their toys after they are done playing with them, whether they are trying to help you with your household work and offering you help to the best of their abilities, Such activities and gestures reflect good behavior in little kids.
- If they are eating nicely and sitting at the dinner table properly
- Whether they are displaying politeness instead of anger or throwing tantrums, etc.
These are some of the most common examples of good behavior that we could find. But as a parent, you need to understand these good behaviors and manners will only develop if you teach your child thoroughly and act as a good example.
Examples of rewards for good behavior at home
As a parent, it is important to know what kind of rewards you need to give your children when they show good behavior. However, it would help if you keep in mind that these are some of the most common ideas for rewards and that every household is different in various ways. So, you need to find what works best for your child. That being said, some examples of rewards for good behavior at home are as follow:
1. Praising
The most common yet, effective form of reward you can give to your child is simply praising them for a task well done or for their efforts. Suppose your child is displaying good behavior and manners, like greeting everyone, saying please and thank you to others, or completing their homework, for example. In that case, simply acknowledging their efforts and achievements by praising and giving feedback goes a long way. Your child will feel loved and understand that you care for them. Even if your child has failed to do a task but has tried his best, praising the efforts will motivate them to keep up the good behavior.
2. Treat time
Similar to the first one, this one is also very common across the world. When you see your child behaving in a manner you appreciate, treat them with their favorite candy or hot drink, like hot chocolate or something. This will help the child develop good manners faster as they have something to look forward to. For example, if they complete their homework within the assigned time, they get a treat that they enjoy. Such a reward will encourage them to work more on completing their task or some other work and make themselves happy as well in the process. However, you also need to ensure that your child does not get too many candies or sweets as it is bad for their health. So ensure that you have set a limit to how much they will get, like twice or thrice a week.
3. Stay up longer than usual
It is common for children to be given bedtime by their parents. If the child displays a good behavior, then as a parent, you can reward them by letting them stay up late for a couple of extra minutes. These additional minutes will be treasured by your child for a task well done and will motivate them to keep on showing good behavior. However, do not let this become a habit, or their sleep schedule will be disturbed.
4. Allow choosing dinner
Further, as a parent, you can reward your children for their good behavior by letting them choose what to have for dinner. Not just for themselves but the entire family. What this will do is make them feel loved and appreciated. They will see that due to their efforts to be a good child, their opinions are taken into consideration by adults. This will motivate them to keep portraying good manners to win your approval.
5. Engage in fun activities
Simple and fun activities are also an excellent method of rewarding your child. When your child does something right, praise them and give them a hi-5. Actions such as these make the child very happy as they can engage in fun activities with the parent. In addition, you can also lay small games such as hide and seek or play with them on a custom-built obstacle course made with pillows and carpet. This will make your child motivated to keep behaving well and also keep them physically active.
6. Allow longer screen time
Similar to giving them an extension when it comes to their bedtime, as a parent you can also provide them with an extension of screen time. Maybe 15-20 minutes of extra time will do the trick, as the child will be beyond happy watching their favorite shows and cherishing that extra screen time that they would not have gotten if they did not behave well.
7. Sleepover party
Finally, as a big reward, you can allow your child to have a sleepover with their best friend or a close friend. Letting them sleep over for a night would mean that they would have increased screen time, candies, and even a late bedtime. This means that they will be getting a lot of rewards at the same time. This should only be used as a reward when your child is extra well-behaved. For example, if they fold their clothes for the entire month, clean their toys for the whole month, or score excellent grades on their final exams.
Why is rewarding beneficial?
- As mentioned above, rewarding your child as a parent will encourage them to be well-mannered as well as promote a wide range of good behaviors.
- In addition, the child will also be motivated and happy for the recognition you give them for their hard work and stay motivated to work harder to win your approval. This will create a healthy parent-child relationship which will be very positive in the long run.
- Finally, this will also shape their personality into a loving and caring manner, turning them into responsible adults.
Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that as a parent, it is essential for you to facilitate good behavior by implementing a system of rewards. This will encourage your child as they feel you notice them more and love them too. A system of rewards is one of the primary building blocks of your child’s personality and will help towards making them responsible adults.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,