YOUR STUBBORN CHILD IS GOING TO BE BETTER WITH AGE! A BIG MISCONCEPTION

Nov 1, 2021 | Teens' Perspective and Reseearch

Being a parent, have you ever heard of giving your child what they are insisting on despite knowing that it will not prove good in the long run? Also, you must have heard that if your child is throwing tantrums, or is stubborn, this is because they are a child. Things are going to be alright as they grow. Or they are going to become normal, decent, and reasonable human beings with age.

To tell you before the time when, in their adolescence or adulthood, they will be just worse in their behavior, never hate them. Because you are responsible for that or those people who suggested you gratify every need of your child just to avoid them crying or throwing tantrums. 

So, if you are a person who is keeping their kids’ unnecessary stubbornness in control, well and good! But those who belong to the previous category, are being misled. What are you actually doing by taking your kids’ stubbornness normal? What kind of behaviors will your child develop as a result? And how to train your kids for better behavior including some smarter ways like the usage of the best parental control app? These are the things that we will be discussing here. 

Behavior Reinforcement and Its Effects

The first thing that you need to remember is, a person is the product of the environment they grow in as children. So, whatever you teach them, it is going to be a part of their personality. So, when you hear things like, ‘children usually show this behavior during this age,’ ‘this age is meant to be full of aggression and showing tantrums,’ know that there is nothing like this. 

Usually, the same environmental influences make children show some typical behaviors. For example, crying for a mobile phone, insisting on playing video games, etc. But that does not mean it will pass. It remains and only gets worse. Not just that, untrained children are more likely to express more disapproved behaviors in their older age. 

You will have to understand the concept of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. According to psychology, children are active recipients of the environment. This means, they observe and adopt what they see around them or what they find favorable. 

Usually, when a child shows stubbornness, it is not to accept what is being asked of them and do what they want to do. For example, when you ask them to have lunch with you, they would not come and keep using their phones. Or when at some get-together, they cry to have a donut which is not healthy for them, what do you do? You try not to put more effort into telling them to come down at the time or in the second case, you get them a donut to avoid that embarrassment among relatives or friends. What you are doing is actually reinforcing their behavior. 

A child’s mind picks up things and stores them into its memory which then is transformed into a behavior. Now they know, if they cry or keep insisting on their demand instead of listening to you, they are going to get that reward (in the form of fulfillment of their wish). So, they fix their behavior.

On the other hand, if you do the opposite of it, you will negatively reinforce their behavior which means the behavior will weaken and disappear in the end. So, you have to positively reinforce good behaviors and negatively reinforce bad behaviors. 

How to Train Your Child

Training your child is not very easy. You have to show some hard love, let your child cry if it is for some undesirable demand, and scold them at some moments. But, it is just part of the process. If you are getting embarrassed for your child’s behavior in front of people, always know that you are their parent not them.

Using FamilyTime, the best parental control app can help you in many other ways. You can put instant locks on the phones instead of arguing with your child to leave them, put homework breaks, lunch breaks, family pauses, and limit screen time. There is a lot more than you can do with it. Download it from App Store or Play Store to enjoy the free three days version or check out the website for more details. 

Have a fun day!  

FamilyTime helps families manage and protect their children’s digital lives.

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