Boosting Behavior and Productivity: 3 Powerful Strategies for Children

Do you find yourself chasing your kids around the house, picking up constant messes like you have raised Tasmanian devils, or worse, do you find yourself in a constant battle with electronics for the attention of your child? I know in my home all these things have been true at one time or another (sometimes all together).

My wife and I got married very young and we also started our family right away. Most of our early years were spent in emergency mode as our daughter was born with multiple heart conditions and had many open-heart surgeries. This made it difficult to ever establish consistency in our routine, but also created a unique need to “figure things out” quickly.

I remember working as a restaurant manager late at night and my wife calling me and stating two phrases; “I'm done” and “I’m going to bed.” I came home to what could be explained as an atomic bomb, maybe a stampede, or something in between. Chairs upside down, flour and eggs on the kitchen floor is just the first room I walked into. We are no strangers to failure and if you have or work with children, then you are not either.

There are many ways that we have learned to help manage the chaos and I am going to share a few of them with you here that you can implement in your home or any other environment you might be the overseer of children.

1: Limit screen time

Let’s be honest, TV, computers, video games, and tablets are easy child entertainment and especially for parents who work and are tired. We can all be guilty of the virtual babysitter, but there lies the problem. According to the CDC website, children now spend on average 7.5 hours per day Infront of some type of electronic device.

This creates a few problems that can really affect a child’s behavior in a negative way. First, we already live in an on-demand society which is fostering a serious problem in our children's ability to be patient. Second, even educational videos and games limit the mind from diving into your imagination and inspire creativity. In other words, when put into an environment without electronics, children are having more difficulty entertaining themselves.

To alleviate or prevent this problem, limit screen time to 1-2 hours per day. This will feel like torture for a little while and your child will tell you they are bored; this means you are doing well. In fact, children who are bored are actually forced to use their imagination and this helps with building patience, coping skills, and intelligence.

2: Praise

There is something innate in us that feels good when we are recognized for doing a good job and it has been part of us since we were very small. Remember the award assembly, or even when your parents said, “great job” or “I am so proud or you.” The reality is that your words are so powerful and whether you recognize it or not, your words will have an everlasting effect on your child, student, family member, sibling...etc.

Take time to recognize the small successes and try not to hyper focus on mistakes. There is an unfortunate reality we all live in and that is that we are doomed to make many mistakes in our life. The good news is, that is how we learn and when these mistakes are nurtured into learning experiences and grace is extended, it provides the environment to grow. Freedom to fail is a powerful notion that allows kids to flourish and reach their fullest potential.

Tell your kids that you are proud of them and find ways to celebrate them as much as possible. This does not mean forgoing the consequences of poor choices as this is part of life and is very important. What it means is that the poor choices of yesterday do not need to determine the choices of today as every day brings a new opportunity for success.

Kids will find attention, good or bad. By feeding attention to the correct behavior, children will naturally gravitate to what makes you happy and brings them joy.

3: Incentivize Children

It sounds like you are telling me to bribe my children... I am, well sort of. Look, the reality is that nobody just gets up and goes to work for fun, they do it for a paycheck. Our reward for a clean house as adults is relaxation, but that does not really translate to value for the average child.

One of the most powerful tools you have is the power of using what your child wants to get them to perform the tasks or behavior that you desire to see. If you are giving good gifts to your child without some reason tied to it that earned them this reward, then you are wasting good resources.

As a teacher, I remember one of my parents saying that they give their son $20 in Roblox bucks every weekend just to keep them happy. I her defense, he was very difficult, and she was burned out, but she was missing one of the most important lessons that she needed to be teaching her son; no good thing in life comes for free.

What would it look like to incentivize your child? Take the last example, all that mom needed to do was put a job or desired behavior in front as a requisite to getting the desired reward. If you are dealing with challenging behavior, don’t try to tackle them all at one time, pick one. Start with the incentive as a short-term goal like one week with a smaller reward. Over time, as the child is achieving the goal on a regular basis, increase the time and the reward.

Remember that incentives for littles can be very cheap, I recommend a prize box and sticker chart. This keeps the continuous praise and reminder of the goal. For older children, I like to use allowance because it has such a natural progression into real life adulting.

Conclusion

This is not an exhaustive list and there are so many books, classes, and YouTube videos on parenting, finding your way through can feel like getting stuck in the weeds. The reality is that simple is always better and that is what I am offering you here. Just think about what you want and what motivates you to be successful in life and try it on your kids.

It is not good for us to binge tv or video games, so this is also true for our kids. We enjoy it when people recognize our accomplishments, and so do our kids. We all work for something, so why would it be any different for our kids.

Remember to have faith in the process and be consistent in your approach. Faith is believing in what you cannot yet see and hope in what you know can be true. Until next time, keep the faith.