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Sunday, August 21, 2011

To Raise Disciplined Children ... Be Their Role Model

It's been a week since I started staying at home.  I never stayed at home this long and I can say that being with my kids most of the time is very much different than being with them only on weekday nights, weekends and holidays.  Now, I have the time to observe their behavior on most of their activities ... mealtime, study time, play time, etc.

I'm happy because at last I'm personally taking care of them but sometimes I get frustrated because they misbehaves most of the time.  My eldest daughter, now nine years old is a little hard headed, she wanted to do things her way.  It seems that she loves to do the opposite of what I am telling her and most of all she has a little patience with her little brother.  My son, only five years old is very energetic, loves to climbs chairs and tables, runs everywhere, it's just so tiring to run after him all the time.  He also has the tendency to throw things on his sister.

I know their behavior is just typical of children their age but as a parent I want them to know the difference between right and wrong as early as possible.  If I won't do anything about their misbehavior, they may think that what they are doing is okay and they will continue doing it as they grow old.

I noticed that whenever my children misbehaves, shouting at them or pinching them doesn't do any good (well sometimes it settles them for a while, maybe one to ten minutes), they just tend to misbehave more ... trying to test my patience.  At first, I just can't stop yelling at them but I got tired and one time, after my son did something not so good, I just took a deep breath, did not say anything and I just looked at him.  Sensing that I'm angry, he just sat at a corner of our sofa.  After a few minutes, I sat beside him and talked to him in a very calm voice telling him that what he did was wrong.  He said sorry and behaved after that ... oh well there are still times that he misbehaves but at least he did not repeat what he did that made him say sorry.

I found this "staying calm and not saying a word" to be effective in telling my children to stop and behave so from now on, I'll try my best to be calm and practice more patience with my children.


Now I realized that my daughter's little patience with her little brother is what she observed from me, sometimes I really see myself in her whenever she gets irritated so I think I have to learn to control myself first ... behave myself the way I want my children to behave ... I am their role model and whatever they observe I'm doing, they will follow.  I know this is very difficult but because I love my children and I want to raise them to be a responsible individual, I have to try.

3 comments:

  1. Discipline and imposing rules to children is a vital and challenging work. I admit i easily lose my temper at times i can no longer control the situation or when i'm tired and lack of sleep. Now,i quickly walked out and get back to my tantrummy three when i am more calm. WE as parents should be their role model so we are expected to be cautious of our actions and words.

    Its our great influence whether they'll turn out responsible or not.

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  2. Hi! I am Louie Shane Raymundo of the College of Fine Arts, University of Sto. Tomas. I am currently working on my thesis which covers the buying and fashion preferences of little girls. I was hoping you could help me by posting the link of my online survey on your webpages so that moms who read your blogs and have 4-8 year old daughters could answer it. I would really appreciate your help. Thank you so much!

    Here is the link: http://www.kwiksurveys.com/?s=NMDIOI_372f859c

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  3. I guess I will encounter this scenario, 2 to 3 years from now. Thanks for this. It is true, that we as parents have to be the examples for our children. They actually mimic our every move. Sometimes, I would ask myself if I am behaving like my daughter. And the answer is always yes. :-)

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