Practice Makes Perfect: How to help parents manage difficult behaviors
by Ron Huxley

This is something my mother used to tell me over and over again, when I was a child. At that time, I hated it. But now, as a parent myself, I find it be full of wisdom and instruction on how to raise a family. Here are some parenting tools that will help you use the power of practice in forming strong habits for children, disciplining through overcorrection, and using rituals to build family strength.

Habits are a parenting tool that parents can use to teach children positive behaviors. Children and parents are creatures of habit. Everything they do is a habit or becomes one, if repeated. In addition, how parents and children interact together, positively or negatively, is a habit. All of these habits are fashioned out of the repetition of common, daily routines. For example, what a person eats, when they eat, and how they eat, is all based on daily repetition. This is why certain behaviors seem so difficult to break or change. The good news, for parents, is that if a behavior has been learned it can be unlearned. New habits can be learned that will replace old ones and create more appropriate ways of interacting in parent and child.

For example, parents and child habitually engage in the same arguments around the doing (or not doing) of chores. When parents state: "How many times have I told you to do your chores" to a child, they are engaging in a dysfunctional game with no winners. The parent's ends up feeling angry and children dig in and resist the parent's commands. Or they ignore you as they have heard that statement a gazillion times, as well. This game has become a habit takes a life of its own, making change and completed chores difficult.

Create new habits by introducing new behaviors, repeated over time. It will fail at first due to the strength of the prior habits. But, with persistence, it will weaken under the new, more positive habits. Using the example above, a new habit might include setting up a chore chart, reinforcing children for doing chores without reminders, and ignoring lack of compliance (i.e., the habit of refusing to cooperate). Each day the parent reinforces any and all effort to do chores. Pay attention to those subtle, negative reinforcers like yelling, nagging, or pleading. If the parents must engage in these activities, to get the job done, then no rewards are given. The child will soon adapt to the new system of rewards and form a new habit that is satisfying to both parent and child. The same procedure can be used for improving study skills, displaying desirable social skills, or any other behavior than can be defined in habitual terms. So, if you catch yourself saying, "How many times have I told you..." you are probably in the middle of a bad habit.

Overcorrection is a parenting tool that requires a child to eliminate an inappropriate behavior and practice its opposite, more appropriate behavior by repeatedly performing that task. A child who writes on the wall with crayons is required to not only clean their mess but all the walls in their room. Children who slam the door practice closing the door correctly, ten times. Running through the house requires walking slowly through the house until performed to a parent's satisfaction.

While many parents will find this "abusive" most often it only has to be done once. The idea of repeatedly opening and closing a door ten times is enough to prevent most children from slamming it again. Another to look at this tool is to describe it as positive practice. A child practices a behavior in a positive manner until learned. The boredom factor only increases the likelihood that the inappropriate behavior doesn't occur.

There are other applications for this parenting tool: Parents can use it increase social skills. Children who will not share can be asked to repeat two or three trials of practice sharing where one child asks for a toy and the other child responds appropriately. It can also be used for homework problems, such as misspelled words and incorrect arithmetic problems. Writing a problem or word over and over again increases retention and improves learning. Parents can use it with aggressive displays, such as door slamming or property destruction. Performing a task correctly and calmly reinforces house rules and emotional control. Regardless of the application, overcorrection is an efficient tool for decreasing unwanted behaviors.

Rituals are parenting tools that allow nontraditional and traditional families to form collective identities, facilitate healing, celebrate life changes, and pass on expressions of beliefs. Rituals include daily activities, such as, getting ready for bed, eating at the table, and watching a television program. They can also be much more elaborate and symbolic, such as, weddings, funerals, bar mitzvah's, graduations, and religious ceremonies. Regardless of their form, rituals are an important aspect of our social lives. Parents can utilize this hidden resource to develop more intimate families. Family therapists have used the concept of rituals to help families that have been hurt by past actions toward one another or by an unexpected traumatic situation. Wedding vows have been restated by stepfamilies and have included all members of the family, including the children. Letters of anger and sadness have been written to unknown mothers and fathers and then ceremonially burned or destroyed as an act of saying goodbye. Marriage bands have been melted down or thrown into the middle of lakes to break emotional ties and symbolize the need for an emotional divorce, even after, families have already been physically divorced. Again, how one performs these valuable tools is not as important as finding a way to signify a gain, loss, or both in the lives of families.

Practicing a task is how we learn. The job of parenting, stated simply, is to teach and guide our children on how to become responsible, productive adults. We have approximately two decades to practice this. These tools will help parents perform their roles as educators of life and allow children to learn how to live it.

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Ron Huxley is the founder of the ParentingToolbox and AngerToolbox websites, author, speaker, and father of four! Get more power parenting tools at http://parentingtoolbox.com
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