Three Things Every Child Needs at Home

Sometimes love isn't enough. As Tina Turner once asked, What's love got to do with it? Love has a lot to do with it, but combined with other key ingredients can help every child get a good start in life and form healthy relationships with the people around them. By teaching your child limits, providing a routine, and positive interaction, your child can have some of the basic skills to help them succeed, as they grow older.

Setting Limits

As just about any parent knows, setting limits for children will help them to learn right from wrong. It's one of the basic beginnings to positive discipline. Setting limits will not only help you discipline your child but it will help to teach them self-control as well. If a child learns what actions and behaviors are appropriate at a young age, that child will also learn to control themselves in situations where certain behavior is expected. When you are setting limits for your child, keep the rules simple and your expectations reasonable; taking into consideration the age of the child and their level of development. By making your expectations specific and following through on any consequences, you set a solid base for your child to know what is expected of them and what will happen if they misbehave.

Provide a Routine

When you provide a routine for your child, this doesn't just mean dinner at the same time every night. This falls under the category of discipline as well as having a stable environment. Children are creatures of habit. Children tend to crave the safety and stability that a routine provides. When our lives are constantly out of whack and there is no stability in the home, this becomes a breeding ground for bad and inappropriate behavior. Children will not know what is expected of them nor will they understand why what they are doing is wrong because there have been no clear ground rules established and there is no routine in the home that demonstrates to them what is expected and when. By following through on what you say you will do (a time out for taking toys or bedtime at nine for example). The routines and rules don't have to be complex, they can be as simple as helping to set the table every night for dinner, brushing teeth before bedtime, or the same chair for a time out. If you make these rules and guidelines a routine in the home, you can give your child the safety of a stable environment with clear rules and expectations along with comfortable routines.

Positive Interaction

Building a healthy, positive relationship with your child boosts their self-esteem, teaches respect, and makes a child feel important. Every parent wants their child to feel loved and to know that they are loved. However, we can sometimes let our emotions and frustrations with our children send them an entirely different message. When we use verbal and emotional attacks, we damage our children's self-esteem and devalue them. Sometimes we do not even know we do this. It's very easy to let our anger and frustration over bad behavior, grades, or any number of normal childhood behavior get the best of us and we find ourselves yelling, nagging or even spanking our children. By behaving in this manner ourselves, we are sending the message to our children that we do not respect them and they are not valued. When a child lives with this, they begin to believe that it is true and therefore tears away their self-image and they no longer have respect for themselves or others. We can end this by becoming more conscious of what we say to our children, listen to what they have to say and how they feel, even if those feelings are negative. This form of positive interaction teaches our children that we are listening to them, value what they have to say; they are important to us, and love them.

There are many more things that every child needs in their lives but these are three simple things that you can start now. If you can take the time to put these key ingredients into play in your home, you will be able to better help your child guide his or her way through life and how to handle the bumps that arise along the way.