The parenting journey: Your four-year-old troublemaker

An out-of-bounds little monster!

At this age, your four-year-old will remind you of the child he was at two and a half; he is bossy, noisy, and aggressive, with changing moods and uncontrollable burst of energy. He is out-of-bounds in his behavior (Kicks and fits of rage), in his speaking (big fan of inappropriate words), in his personal relationships (defying, threatening and swearing), in his imagination (telling long fictions), and his sense of property (everything he sees is his). This phase is also marked by insecurity (biting nails, picking nose, sucking thumb, crying…) and incoordination (stumbling, fear of heights…).

In the truth, dealing with a four-year-old can be a jittery mess! Teaching good manners, establishing an effective discipline, and raising in overall a responsible and strong child without losing your mind in the process, seem indeed like an impossible equation!

But hey, things don’t have to be that hard! Understanding your child’s psychology and mastering the key tools of a healthy discipline will considerably save you unnecessary troubles.

The magic of reinforcement!

When a child behaves a certain way, he will be looking for the three A’s:

·        Attention

·        Approval

·        Affection

Doesn’t matter the nature of his behavior, once you react to it by showing one of these three, you are therefore reinforcing it, and making it more likely to be reproduced over and over again.

Example:

In a supermarket, your child is asking you with a nice quiet voice: “I want ice-cream!” If you are too busy and don’t pay attention, he’ll probably get louder and more insistent. Then, getting on your nerves, you’ll finally respond to his demand. Unwittingly, you taught your child that the louder his voice gets, and the more unpleasantly he insists on something, the more likely he is to get his way. You thus reinforced his irritating behavior with your attention.

Reinforcement as a great tool of teaching:

•   We can teach our children just about anything without having to resort to punishment; by spanking, the unwanted behavior will only be suppressed temporarily and not eliminated. 
•      Instead of punishment, when you want to get a child to stop doing something undesirable; like saying ‘bad words’, don’t get upset at him. Ignore the bad behavior instead of reinforcing it with attention.
•      Have a fun and pleasant relationship with your kid, this will make it rewarding for him to seek your love and affection.
•     Reinforce whatever you want the child to do with your love and approval; we tend to ignore our children when they are good and behave well, and that is a mistake! Reinforce every bit of positive behavior with your attention.
•     Reinforce every move in the direction of the goal. Whether your child is learning to read, ride a bike, have better manners, stop hitting children…praise him every step of the way. Reinforce his success and ignore his mistakes.

Discipline through self-regulation

Self-regulation is the capacity of your child to behave-well and be responsible without the need of your interference or instruction.

Does it seem too good to be true?!

Believe it or not, it’s not that hard! Actually, it’s so easy that we tend to do just the opposite; we usually make it difficult for ourselves and our kids, and end up whit a poor discipline and an unbearable frustration.

How to proceed?

•        Provide an interesting and stimulating environment (games, toys, or other play-material) to keep your child entertained and lowering the chances of misbehavior.
•        Give your child the chance to do things on his own (brushing his teeth, feeding or dressing himself…) it certainly needs a great patience from you, but to let your kid try to do things by himself is to teach him to be independent and self-regulating.
•        Imitation is a powerful teaching tool at your disposal; our actions teach him far more powerfully than our words.
•        Show emotional support and encouragement: if your child is confronted with some new task which makes him feel inadequate, tell him first that you genuinely understand his feeling of helplessness (feedback technique), and then tell him that you believe he can do it. Always take his problems and difficulties seriously.
•        Rely on natural consequences of misbehavior to discipline the child: if he doesn’t want to eat his breakfast, simply remove the plate from the table after the meal, shortly he will ask for a snack but you won’t give it to him, and he’ll have to wait until lunch. Hunger is here a natural consequence of not eating his meal at time. If he stalls to get ready to go to school (at 7 years old for example) no need to nag or yell, let him experience the unpleasant out-come of such a behavior; being late and embarrassed. Natural consequences promote a far faster change in your child’s actions than any amount of scolding or punishment would do.
•       If the natural consequences are not sufficient, create an artificial one:

o   Deprive him of something important to him (scribbling on the wall? Take away his crayons);

o   Isolate him from a play group if he is causing trouble, and tell him that he can only come back playing when he well behaves;

o   Spank him when you are furiously angry at his misbehavior (you may feel guilty for losing your temper after it, but it is alright to let your frustration out, you can make it up to your kid when you feel better later).

•       Phrase your instructions so that you tell him ‘what to do’ instead of ‘what not to do’.

The goal of discipline is not to raise a “model child” who is always quiet and nice, these children hide a considerable emotional disturbance inside. We are disciplining our kids and guiding them to become self-regulating with all the traits and dynamic quality of their childhood.

7 Teaching methods you shall avoid:

1.     Don’t use threats: you’ll be teaching him to fear you and hate you. If you want to punish his misbehavior, do it right away, don’t tell him ahead of what you are going to do to him, it is psychologically bad for your child.

2.     Don’t bribe your kid unless you want him to be a manipulative person. “If you’ll be good and sit still, I’ll buy you a candy!”

3.     Don’t extract promises from him: “Promise me you won’t hit your young brother again!” Children live only in the present; they have no control over future behavior.

4.     Don’t talk excessively to your child: long answers or lectures.

5.  Don’t insist on blind and immediate obedience: give your child some advance warning to let him know what you are going to ask of him. “In few minutes Omar, I’ll need you to stop playing and come to eat your lunch”

6.  Don’t ridicule, name-call, or make your child feel awfully guilty for misbehaving; it will undermine his self-concept.

7.     Don’t give vain commands: You keep asking your child not to climb on the chair, but you are not really interested in stopping him from doing so. You’ll be teaching him to ignore your other serious requests.

Your child and violence

      A violent child is unintentionally taught to be so by his parent. How?

•     By being violent himself
•     By not setting firm limits on his violent actions like hitting other kids.
•     By not letting him express freely his anger.
•     By not giving him an alternative to drain off his rage: enough active playtime, a punching bag…
•    By depriving him of genuine love and affection.

PS: Please don’t confuse ‘violent’ with ‘aggressive’; a violent child has a hostile behavior, an aggressive one knows how to forcefully stand up for himself when other children pick on him. Allow your child to be healthily aggressive by providing for him toy weapons or toy soldiers to play with. And most importantly, admire and reinforce the dynamic and energetic quality of your little one.