Childhood is a stage where a child needs more attention, care, love and most importantly discipline to help him/her grow into a better person of tomorrow. But if it is not well managed, it becomes the most awful moment which ruin everything in the growth of a child.
According to UNICEF there are some effective ways to raise a child with positive discipline and good mental health, here are some steps you can take.
1.Plan 1 on 1 time
Building a good relationship with your children is important ,by spending time with them will help them grow well .For instance you can between 5 to 10 minutes alone with your children without any distractions like, toys, telephone ,only you and your children having a conversation ,you can even choose to do chores together like washing dishes ,cooking food or any other thing that you know they like to do ,this increase the love between you and the communication becomes smooth.
2.Praise positives
Children make mistakes as part of their growth, but parents always tend to focus on mistakes and ignore good deeds. Parents find themselves shouting at children, beating them which most of the times doesn’t change their bad behaviors but instead damage their mental health. Focusing on praising good deeds of a child can help him grow well with discipline and empathy.
3.Set clear expectations
Parents are always proud to see their children behaving well, but setting a clear expectation by telling them what you want them to do, can be better than telling them what you want them not to do.
4.Distract creatively
There can be moments when parenting becomes hard, when you are correcting but he doesn’t want to listen, distracting them with things like game, going to walk together can be better than yelling at them. While you are spending that time with them, it can be the best opportunity to tell them what they did wrong and how you want them to correct it. So, you will be at the same time having fun and teaching them good manners.
5. Use calm consequences
While growing, children have to know that if you do something wrong, there will some consequences of it. This encourages them to be responsible and change their behaviors.
children need parent’s direction, by showing them that everything they do, has a good or bad impact, can be part of their growth. For example, a child beats others for no reason, you can tell him that if he keeps on doing that, he will never visit his grandparents again, with the fear of losing that moments he loves so much he will stop beating others again.
6.Engage with younger and older children
Children always love to play; he may be young or old but playing comes first. As parents involving yourself in their play can be an effective way of building a good relationship. From that relationship, you also involve children in making their own rules and regulations to follow, this enhances their maturity and good manners.
The study of RBC published in 2015, conducted in 7 districts shows that adolescence and adulthood remain the period where drug abuse is at high, alcohol, cigarette and cannabis reported to be the most used.
This kind of behaviors are sometimes due to poor parenting, that is why parents have to be careful about the type of parenting they choose if it may not lead to drug abuse.
BY Domina Ntakirutimana