Being a parent is hard. We hear all sorts of complex advice that seems contradictory. For most youth, this is what I recommend to parents to help guide them. Some youth require extra layers on top of this – for that, check with your or your children’s therapist.
1) Let your children know you love them, even if you don’t always support their actions.
- Sometimes parents need to say “no” and sometimes they need to say “that is not acceptable”
2) Provide for their needs regardless of their actions, but wants are earned.
- Basic good behaviour earns basic wants, the greater the want, the more the child needs to do to earn it
3) Have a clear set of consistent rules that evolves as they age and mature
- Age appropriate starts with chronology (physical age) but is better guided by maturity (mental age)
- Where possible negotiate changes, but sometimes parents have to overrule for the sake of safety
4) Allow children to encounter and manage risk
- Teaching age appropriate risk evaluation, planning to mitigate that risk, and safe practice creates independent adults
- If the identification or risk, plan to mitigate the risk, or ability to do the plan fail, the parent needs to say “no”
5) Choices have consequences
- Good behaviour gets good consequences, great behaviour gets great consequences
- Bad behaviour gets bad consequences, awful behaviour only gets bad consequences
- Children respond better to rewards than they do to punishments
- Remember to explain to their ability to understand
- Sometimes the answer is just “no”
