Parenting Shorts: Corrective Teaching

by Sheryll Bonilla, Esq.

Parenting is the toughest job in the world. I’ve long believed that whatever God wants to correct in us, He makes it show up in our kids so we can see a small bit of what He dislikes about it.

I am thankful for those many child psychology experts who gave parenting workshops to those of us with kids. I am equally thankful for all those schools that used their PTSA money to host these educational sessions.

Here are my notes from one of the parenting meetings held while my kids were in elementary school.Corrective teaching is teaching your kids what you want them to do. Corrective teaching is responding to your children’s problem behavior to replace it with good behavior. When instructing your children, as hard as it is, it’s important to Stay Calm. We must model the behavior we want in our children.

When your children misbehave:

1. Stop the behavior
2. Give the consequence
3. Describe the behavior you want
4. Most importantly, practice the behavior you want in your children

Remain calm. Stick to one issue. Don’t get sidetracked. Tell them what the problem behavior is and show them what the correct behavior is.

If your child continues to argue, use the moment to teach them self-control. Talk about other things at a later time.

Give positive consequences for your child’s efforts to improve. Give your child a chance to earn something back. Positive reinforcement is an effective way to teach children.

If your child works to make up for the misbehavior, you can give back small parts of the privilege.

Be consistent. Use negative consequences for behavior you want them to stop and positive consequences for behavior you want to encourage.

Adapt the corrective teaching to work for your child.

In Helen Yong’s lovely book “Children Won’t Wait”, one mother’s comment summarizes this aspect of parenting like this: “You raise what you praise.”