Reactive or Proactive Parenting

Your child's first teacher is you. You might not be teaching her to read and write. But you are teacher her how to speak, listen and behave. Everything you do has an impact on the formation of your young child. That's why it's important to choose your discipline policy carefully. You can choose to be a reactive parent or a proactive parent. This means that you can discipline your child when you are fed up with her behavior or you can discipline her consistently to form her as a person.

Parents who yell at and hit their children are reactive and usually disciplining their children when they have "had enough". At first, this style of parenting may prove to be low maintenance. But in later childhood, it will backfire. You will always be fed up. So you will always be disciplining. When your child is disobedient, do not yell and spank. When it is obvious to your child that you are frustrated and she sees that you handle your frustration by yelling and hitting, she learns to handle her frustration the same way. It doesn't matter what you are saying when you are yelling. It only matters that you are doing it. She will yell and hit when she is not getting her way with her siblings or friends. The example-based learning process develops long before the instruction-based learning process. So your child will follow your example long before she will obey you. Reactive parenting also teaches manipulative behavior. Your child will not learn right from wrong. She will learn how much she can get away with before you've had enough. This is probably not the kind of person you intend for your child to become.

Proactive parenting is based on consistency. As a proactive parent, you must decide what the rules are and what the consequences are for violations of those rules. The keys to making this work are consistency and self control. You can't wait until you've had enough of the bad behavior before you implement consequences. You can't yell and hit. Initially, this style of parenting may prove to be high maintenance. It takes repetition to form habits. So you will be implementing consequences somewhat frequently. But rest assured, good habits will form in your child because of your diligence. In later childhood, it will pay off. She will know right from wrong. She will choose the right thing by force of habit. This probably is the kind of person you intend for your child to become.

Don't just "react" to your child's behavior. Teach her how to behave by providing a calm example and consistent guidelines. No matter how much effort this seems to take at first, it will make later childhood discipline much easier and it will form your child into the kind of person who will do the right thing calmly in the face of frustration.