Think about your style of interacting with children in times of stress or conflict.
What is the Goal?
If a child is acting out, what would you like to happen?
Hopefully your answer includes the word "learning." We are wanting children to learn from their behaviors. Usually when learning is the goal, we want to offer some teaching. We can use several different approaches to teach children, and sometimes several different methods are necessary.
Think about Balancing your Approach.
Many parents and professionals teach children by applying consequences. This is similar to the way our judicial system works (search Behaviorism for more info). If applied consistently and correctly, this method can be effective for teaching children what happens when we don't follow the rules. But, is this all we want them to learn?
No. We also want them to learn Self-control. If they are simply making good choices because they are afraid of the consequences, that is not going to be effective in the long term.
For a balanced approach, to instill long-lasting change, one must consider adding other elements as well. What we refer to as Cognitive psychology, offers many ideas for teaching children how to improve Self-control. Cognitive psychology includes teaching empathy, mindfulness, self-awareness, and recognizing the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It also focuses on the identification and processing of thoughts and feelings in healthy ways.
The Challenge Software Program teaches children the basics of Self-control and encourages them to utilize the power they have to change their behavior. This Interactive Web-based program is based on the fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology.
by Brad Chapin brad.chapin@cpschallenge.com
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