Why on earth do our children insist on doing exactly what we have warned them not to do, only to suffer the consequences? The answer to this is most likely found within the question itself. When we warn children too often they often begin to stop listening. Or they become so dependent on our warnings that they are unable to calculate risk themselves.

Here is a sample of some of our easy and effective tools for solving this issue

This works really well:

ALLOW MISTAKES

• Mistakes are an opportunity for learning.
• As long as our children are not likely to hurt themselves badly (we call this an “affordable” mistake), we should try to let them make mistakes as they are more likely to learn from these mistakes than from our warnings.

Here is another suggestion:

SET A RULE

• Instead of saying  “Don’t run!”, use “Slow down”. Instead of “Get off that chair, you’re going to fall and break your neck!”, use “Chairs are for sitting”.
• When you make a rule, make it a general rule, ie do not put it in the first person, lest it become  confused with a reprimand.
• Make sure that your child understands that we are setting this rule in the spirit of empathy rather than punishment.

These are just a few examples of our Best of Parenting Tools. You can find more ideas and solutions to typical parenting challenges in our book ‘Kids Don’t Come With a Manual – The Essential Guide to a Happy Family Life‘.