How To Educate Positively: 15 Examples And Practical Strategies
The objective of this article is to offer some guidelines that promote positive education involving parents, teachers and any professional who works with children, providing an education based on the establishment of norms, clarification of limits, affection, preserving the rights of the child and adults.
I will divide it into 3 blocks: how to encourage appropriate behaviors, how to reduce inappropriate behaviors and how to help him be a positive child.
How to reinforce appropriate or pro-social behaviors
Is about select the desired or appropriate behaviors to be performed by the minor (example: starting to do homework at a certain time, brushing your teeth, taking care of your brother, leaving the clothes in the hamper…). To do this we use two techniques:
1. Positive Reinforcement
They are praise while performing appropriate behavior, social, verbal or recreational rewards for doing something appropriate. For example: if she is calmly on the couch watching TV with her little sister, tell her “I love that you behave like this, you are a champion,” while we touch her on the shoulder.
These reinforcements must be done immediately, while you are doing them. We must use it both with behaviors that we consider correct and that the child performs (to encourage the fact that he continues doing it), and with new behaviors that do not exist in the child’s behavioral repertoire. This will favor the increase in the frequency of an already existing behavior, although at a low rate.
2. Points program
It consists of selecting the behaviors that we want to increase (doing homework, writing in the agenda, going out with friends, brushing your teeth…). Once selected We will choose a reinforcer for each of them The ideal is to dedicate some time to pleasant activities (watching TV, computer, eating something you like, playing something with your child that we know he or she loves…).
At first there must be immediacy between the performance of the desired behavior and the reward To do this we can make a table that is a schedule of tasks. In the rows we would indicate the behaviors to be carried out, in the columns the days.
Every time you do one of these behaviors you should put a point (it can be with a sticker, make a cross, color it…), if you don’t do it, that box remains blank (avoid sad faces, negative points, red…).
If he forgets any of the tasks, you can remind him: “there is something you could do to get another point and you forgot, look on the schedule to see what is due.” In the case of older children, instead of using a table, we could write it as a contract, with the behavior to be carried out and the corresponding bonus clause (prize) and sanction clause.
My advice is that if the child completes the task, he receives the reward and if he does not do it the sanction is the deprivation of said prize For example: “if you do your homework you will have free time to play; If you don’t make them you won’t have it”, “if you eat in 30 minutes you will have the dessert that you like the most; If you don’t eat in 30 minutes there will be no dessert.”
How to reduce the frequency of inappropriate behaviors?
Below you can find strategies that try to minimize or reduce all disruptive or dysfunctional behavior.
1. Extinction
Consists in “ignore” the child’s inappropriate behavior (tantrum, anger, threats, insults). Telling her “don’t do it anymore”, “be still”, “I’m going to get angry”… is a way of paying attention to her, so she will continue doing it.
We must remove the reinforcing consequence (attention) from the emission of inappropriate behavior, so that the child learns the association between doing something inappropriate – not paying attention to it. You have to ignore this type of verbalizations and behaviors not giving in at any time to them
2. Time Out
It consists of physically removing the child from the current space to move him to his room or another place, for a short period of time. It can also be the parents who leave the place where the child is if what I have said above is unfeasible.
It will be done immediately to the dysfunctional behavior so that the child associates it directly with said action, with a neutral attitude, using a tone of voice that is as objective as possible, avoiding any angry attitude, without scolding or yelling.
We will do it without establishing social interaction with him. In the event that the child asks why we do that to him, we will give him a concrete explanation, and without emotional charge, of the reason We can remove the child from the reinforcing situation (for example, instigate him to go to his room and leave the room where he is hitting his brother), or eliminate the stimulus that causes the bad behavior (for example, if the child begins to throw with a spoon the food he doesn’t want to eat, take away the spoon).
The application time will be approximately 5 minutes, never exceeding 10, and always with supervision. The child will be able to return to the place where she was, or we can return to the place where the conflict occurred when her behavior in the last minute has been appropriate, trying not to do so while manifesting inappropriate behaviors such as shouting, threats, hitting…
The boy “replaces” the damage caused You must practice the correct way to perform the task or whatever is asked of you. This technique is used in response to behaviors that cause damage or deterioration (for example: intentionally spilling milk on the table).
In these cases we must encourage the child to undo or repair the damage through positive behaviors (in this case collecting spilled milk with a cloth). This may not be easy, but it is essential that the child assumes his responsibility recognizing what he has done, solving it as soon as possible.
If the child resists practicing, you must help him to perform the correct actions with his hands (if he does not want to pick up, take his hands and guide them as if they were those of a robot, picking them up and depositing them in the correct place).
Crying, tantrums or resistance should be ignored, trying to stay calm but firm until the task is finished or the child begins to do it alone. Let’s not forget, once the task is finished, to praise and reinforce obedience.
How to make the child positive?
How to tell a child to do something? Instructions must be brief, clear and specific Give the commands one at a time, using positive “do” phrases (for example: “Throw out the trash before playing the Wii,” instead of “You haven’t taken out the trash yet, have you?”).
They are recommended positive “if-then” phrases For example: “if you do your homework you can go outside”, “if you clean up your room you can watch TV”. If possible we will provide options for you to choose from (for example: if you have to shower, you can choose whether to do it before or after studying, as long as you comply).
We must praise his obedience and, as we see throughout the article, establish consequences for it. It is useful to give useful warnings and reminders (for example: “when the news song comes on, you know you have to go to bed”). Parents, teachers or adults around the child must agree with each other, avoiding giving unnecessary or contradictory orders, without threatening the child (for example, an incorrect way would be: “Pablo, when are you going to throw out the trash?” “If you don’t behave well, I will have to punish you”, “Is it so difficult to tidy up your room?”…)
Using the guidelines seen in previous lines we could say something like: “Pablo, go throw out the trash before playing the Wii”, “if you play with your sister without making her cry, I will take you to the swing park”, “if you tidy up your room you can take the tablet”). Let’s practice the “where I said cost I say reward” (for example: instead of “if you forget to brush your teeth, I will forget to give you candy,” we will say “if you brush your teeth after eating, you will be able to eat candy this afternoon”).
You may be interested: “Are negative emotions as bad as they seem?”
negative thoughts (“it’s going to turn out bad”) produce a negative view of the child (“I’m bad”). For this reason we should try to avoid generalizations (“this time it didn’t go as well as yesterday” instead of “it went wrong”).
When we generalize (we use the whole, never, never, always…), we create a label. Thought distortion is an inadequate way of thinking that gives children a distorted view of who they are, preventing them from seeing reality. negatively affecting your mood and in maladjusted behavior.
One way to help you is offer you an alternative instead of judging (for example: If he makes a mistake in a game, we could tell him “see if you do it this way it will turn out better”, instead of telling him “you did it wrong”, and not giving him the option to improve).
How to tell him what makes us feel bad
it implies emit a positive expression before and after a negative expression, a complaint, rejection or a request. By doing so, we soften the negative expression, and increase the likelihood that the recipient will hear the negative message clearly and with less discomfort.
Example: a student has done work that is below their usual performance, and you would not like them to slow down. According to this technique we could say something like: “the truth is that I am very happy with all your work, although I think this one came out a bit weak, but I am sure that the next one will be in line with the rest of the work! of the entire course!
Children need to feel loved, and they also need to have limits in order to internalize and establish rules preventing non-compliance and future sanctions of these. Helping them to have a good image of themselves will be a source of positive emotions and actions in accordance with their objectives, so we must avoid negative labels, specifying what they may have done wrong “this time” instead of “always” or “ never”, providing an alternative or possible solution, always reinforcing what they do well.
