3 Ways To Raise Happy Kids

Before starting college, I had some ideas about what I'd like to study, but it wasn't until a couple years in that I found what I wanted to commit to: marriage and family studies.  I knew that what I was learning could be applied to both my current and my future relationships, especially my future family.  Growing up, I would say that I was generally a happy kid.  I got along with my parents, I had good friends, did well in school, was involved in extracurricular activities and active in church.  But if you had asked me then how I became that way--happy--I don't know that I would have been able to nail it down.  However, through my coursework, and now through practical application (aka parenting), I've seen three ways parents can raise happy kids: building connections, setting limits and encouraging independence.

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How To Use Role Playing In Discipline

Something you may not know about me is that I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in Marriage and Family Studies.  Basically this means that I took a lot of classes about marriage, family, parenting, child development, family finance, family systems and a million others in preparation to become a counselor.  I loved (almost) all of them and they've been hugely helpful for me as a parent.  Obviously I know that what I learned in these classes is the ideal and isn't always achievable due to *ahem* human error.  But at the same time, I've also learned that many of the methods and techniques taught are useful even when circumstances aren't ideal.  The one I want to talk about today is role playing.

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One Thing That Will Change The Way You Discipline Your Kids

I remember when my daughter was almost two years old.  She started getting into more trouble, throwing more tantrums and lots of the word "no!" (from both of us).  My husband and I talked to family and friends and read a lot of books to try and decide what type of "discipline method" we wanted to use.  We wanted to make sure that we were united on our method so it didn't matter who was disciplining our child, they would get the same treatment.

Here we are two years later and my son is now almost the same age as my daughter was when we first started looking at disciplining methods.  The only difference is that now we've had a little practice so it's not as big of a challenge when we're faced with the same tantrums. *wink*

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Encouraging Positive Behavior: Warm Fuzzies Jar

About a year ago, my daughter, then almost 3 years old, started to act out a lot.  We couldn't figure out why or pinpoint anything specific that could be causing it.  My husband and I spent a lot of time discussing what we should do and as we talked, we realized that she responded really well to positive reinforcement.  It's not like we weren't giving her positive attention.  We said "thank you" when she did something we asked and praised her when she did something well.  But we noticed that when we used specifics to communicate positive reinforcement, she would do more things to receive more praise from us and the "bad" things she was doing decreased.  For example, instead of just saying "thank you" when she followed directions, we would say, "thank you for being a good listener".  When we noticed her being kind to her brother without being asked, we said, "you are such a good big sister to your brother."  So while we noticed an increase in the kind of behavior we wanted to see, we also recognized that she is still a little girl, and little girls (and boys) sometimes need a little extra push to be good.

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