You should also write it down and communicate it to everyone in family. My wife and I own a speaking, training, and consulting business. We speak and train on human behavior, leadership, and communication topics. Everything we have learned in business world says two things: 1) Control and fear tactics create minimal performance, and

2) Positive reinforcement creates high-level performance. We teach business leaders to use positive reinforcement to inspire their teams. Yet we sometimes find ourselves tilting more towards fear and intimidation when working with people we love most -- our children. Our negative disciplinary approaches are not usually result of poor understanding. Instead, they come from fatigue, stress, and strong emotional ties. A system also helps to remove stress and fatigue from equation when handling disciplinary issues.

Do work to create pre-defined rules, expectations, and definitions of consequences. Then you will feel less stress and frustration as you work to guide, correct, and instruct your children. You’ll be free to focus on relationship issues rather than on task issues.

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Copyright 2005, Guy Harris

For example, if whining and complaining are inappropriate today, they had better be inappropriate tomorrow. If you give in to behavior to get them to stop whining, you just taught them that whining is okay. Unacceptable behaviors should never give your child their desired result. If it is unacceptable, it is always unacceptable. Even glimmer of hope that it might work for them is enough for them to give it a try. They have to know what to expect from you each and every day.

For me, consistency is tougher than certainty. I’m great at setting rules and communicating them to my kids. I’m not always so great at fair and consistent application. But, I realize, easy or difficult is not issue -- appropriate or not appropriate is. So, my wife and I constantly strive for consistency when we enforce rules in our house.

5. Be Immediate

Act now. When your children do something worthy of praise -- do it now. When your children do something that needs correction -- do it now. Delayed consequences have very little impact on behavior.

Let’s look at our adult behaviors to illustrate point. I like cheesecake. Eating cheesecake offers me both immediate and future consequences. The future consequence is negative -- I could develop a weight or blood pressure problem. The immediate consequence is positive -- it tastes good and gives me pleasure. When I have opportunity to get cheesecake, I find it difficult to resist. Why? The immediate, certain positive tends to overshadow future, possible negative.

The definition of immediate can change depending on your child’s age. For example, your ten-year old might respond to a disciplinary action that happens 15 minutes after event. With a four-year old, you had better correct behavior on spot -- even if other people are around. To a four-year old, 15 minutes is a virtual eternity.

Acting immediately has an added benefit for you when behavior is inappropriate. If it continues without correction, you are likely to get angrier every time you see it. As you get angrier, you will probably have more difficulty keeping your response proportional to behavior (i.e. – not blowing your stack). Act now and you’ll probably maintain control.

There you have it -- five simple principles to guide a wide range of parenting situations.

As I sit writing this article, I can think of times when I haven’t done it right. Nonetheless, I offer 5 B’s in an effort to help all of us become better parents. Collecting my thoughts on this topic reminds me of right way to work with my children. Writing them down helps me to stay on track.

Some or all of these ideas may be completely new to you -- but maybe not. It’s more likely that you’ve heard some of this information before. Maybe not in exactly same way, but you’ve heard it. If this is new to you, I hope it helps you as a parent. If it’s old-hat, I hope it serves as a reminder to help you stay on track as well.

You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact author prior to use in printed media.

Copyright 2005, Guy Harris