Our full time learning catalyst is always happy to meet you for a cup of tea and a chat.
Don't let a small problem become a big one. Like we say to the children - 'Talk and we'll listen'.
At Bishop's CE Primary Academy we regularly host
The Solihull Approach to Parenting
Understanding Your Child's Behaviour
This is a free 10 week course run in The Hub covering
It also gives you a chance to meet other parents
and share experiences
Keep a look out for details of the next course.
If you are interested contact Sarah, Shirley or
leave a message in the school office.
· Follow your child’s suggestions and interests
· Praise and encourage your child’s ideas and creativity. Don’t criticize.
· Be an attentive and appreciative audience
· Notice their accomplishments and help them feel important.
· Encourage your child to problem solve. Curb your desire to offer too much help.
· Show enthusiasm for special time that you spend with your child
· Don’t make too many demands
· Don’t compete with your child
· Have fun and laugh (a lot!)
· Look out for times that you can coach your child
· Remember to offer comments about their efforts at sharing and getting along with others
· Be an attentive and appreciative audience
· Model and talk about your own feelings and emotions
· Encourage your child to understand their feelings by naming them.
· Help your child to keep going with tasks, even when they seem hard. Help them if needed.
· Don’t ask them to do things that are very difficult
· Catch your child being good—don’t save praise for perfect behaviour—it’s the effort not the outcome
· Don’t worry that you will spoil your children with praise
· The more difficult the child—the more praise they need
· Give labelled and specific praise
· Praise with smiles, eye-contact and enthusiasm, high-fives, hugs etc
· Praise immediately, consistently and positively
· Praise in front of others
· Don’t forget to praise others and yourself!
· Tell the child clearly what is appropriate behaviour
· Make the steps small and achievable
· Don’t make reward charts too complex—only one or two behaviours to start
· Focus on positive behaviours—don’t mix with punishments
· Choose free or inexpensive rewards and reward every few days
· Involve your child in choosing the rewards
· Get the behaviour first and then reward!
· Gradually replace rewards with praise
· Be clear and specific about rewards
· Reward everyday achievements
· Show that you expect success
· Children thrive on clear expectations
· Rules make life easier—but where possible make positive rules
· All children can be responsible for chores—but they must be age/development appropriate
· We all need predictability—routines help this
· Involve your child setting rules—they will feel that they own them
· Negotiate what chores you would like your child to do—but don’t let them walk over you!
· Be firm—but not overbearing
· Show that you expect compliance
· Don’t give unnecessary commands
· Make one request at a time
· Be realistic in your expectations
· Use ‘do’ requests
· Make requests positive, polite & to the point
· Don’t use ‘stop’ commands
· Give children ample opportunity to comply
· Give warnings & helpful reminders
· Don’t threaten children—use ‘when...then’ commands
· Give options where possible
· Support your partner’s requests
· Praise compliance
· Encourage problem-solving
· Avoid eye contact and discussion
· Physically move away from the child, but stay near enough to see them
· Be subtle in the way you ignore
· Be prepared for testing
· Be consistent
· Return attention as soon as misbehaviour stops
· Combine distractions with ignoring
· Choose specific behaviours to ignore and make sure they are ones you CAN ignore
· Limit the number of behaviours to ignore
· Give lots of attention to positive behaviours
· Notice when your child is starting to get angry or frustrated
· Encourage them to talk about their feelings
· Model how to manage ‘Tell yourself to STOP, calm down and take 3 big breaths’
· Encourage your child to use positive thoughts ‘I can handle this,’ ‘everyone makes mistakes’
· Praise your child’s self-control and appropriate expressions of feelings when they do manage
· Model how you manage your anger so the child learns
· Scan your body for tension, breathe and relax
· Notice any negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones
· Ask yourself if what is making you tense is really that important. Will it make a difference a week from now? A year?
· Visualise something special from the past or a dream for the future
· In the middle of a conflict, breathe deeply and try to cool off.
· Take a break (go for a walk ,have a bath, read a book)
· Regularly plan things that are just for you (or with your partner)
· Use when behaviours cannot be ignored
· Be prepared for testing
· Expect repeated learning trials
· Ignore the child while in time out
· Support a partner’s use of time out
· Ensure you complete time out
· Use consistently for chosen misbehaviours
· Give warnings that time out is coming
· Aim for 2 minutes calm at the end
· Make child responsible for messes caused during time out
· Ignore screaming, whining etc while in time out
· Praise positive behaviour as soon as possible after
· When your child is calm practice taking deep breaths and praise your child by telling him he is very strong at calming down
· Notice times when your child stays calm in frustrating situations and praise her for her patience and calmness
· Use emotion coaching and comment on times you child is happy, excited, curious, calm, angry and frustrated. Try to comment on more happy feelings than sad ones.
· Model staying calm yourself in frustrating situations—take a deep breath and say ‘I can calm down’ in front of your child
· Make consequences age-appropriate and fair
· Be sure that you can live with the consequences you set up
· Make consequences immediate
· Discuss consequences ahead of time and give child choices if possible
· Make consequences natural and non-vengeful
· Be calm and positive
· Use consequences that are short and to the point
· Quickly offer new learning experiences to be successful
· Once the consequence is over start again with a clean slate
Points to Remember When You Feel Like You’re Out Of Control
Step back & ask
· What is my goal?
· What am I doing now?
· Is it helping me reach my goal?
· Do I need to do things differently?
Practice this relaxation technique
· Slow down your breathing
· Count from 1 to 10 as far as you are able in a single breath
· Repeat deep slow breathing & counting until you feel relaxed
Recognise your upsetting thoughts & re-phrase them into calm ones
· Remember they are normal as the child wants independence
· They happen because the child does not have enough language to communicate
· Stay calm while your child storms
· Don’t try to reason or distract them—it will make it worse
· Stay near your child—but ignore them
· Wait until they calm and then return your attention immediately
· No matter how long it lasts don't give in
· If they begin to hurt someone pick them up and move them without comment
· Think about why they are having a tantrum