"My 5 year old has just started school. Before school she was always polite, caring, helpful. Since going to school, while she still appears to be so with her teachers (so they say), she now really pushes the boundaries at home. Some kids at school have taught her to swear, talk back, talk about sex in very broad terms. She talks back and while fundamentally she is still a wonderful and very smart little girl, her smarts have turned into "smartie-pants".
You might not sure how I should teach her to make the right choices about right vs. wrong. She has already missed school at the insistence of her 5 year old friend. HOw can you help her when she is not under your watchful eye at school? How do I ensure she will make the right choice on her own?
Hmmm, how indeed? Let's look at the underlying principles.
Kids, like you and me, are doing their best to succeed in life. So their behaviors are their attempts to get good results for themselves, as they themselves would define them. Those "good results" might be to satisfy basic urges such as hunger and warmth, they might be to get approval and love - from their parents, or from their friends, or they might be simply to have fun and excitement.
They will demonstrate the behavior they believe will get them the need they have at that time.
They will discover that their behaviors don't always end in success. They learn from this and try other behaviors until they find the ones that yield the intended result. When deciding what behavior to have we rely on experience, direction for our parents, and our skills and abilities. We create a group of behaviors that we hope will serve our needs effectively.
Once we find behaviors that seem to pay off well for us, then we tend to stick with them. The more we repeat them, and the more often they work, the more firmly they will be entrenched as our default behavior.
Back to your 5 year old daughter. Her behavior signals that she is in the process of trial and error. She is in a new situation at school and this has expanded her world. She is not sure how to react and is excited and nervous at the same time. She is testing different behaviors to determine which behaviors will yield a successful result.
Many of these behaviors, once tried, will be abandoned. Some will be kept, and incorporated into her normal lifestyle. Which will they be? That depends on what outcomes she experiences. At this age the approval of parents is pretty important, so your response to them will certainly be an influence. But so too will be outside influences, such as explicit rewards or punishments, the approval of teachers and, of course, her friends.
How much influence do you, as a parent, have over this? At this age, quite a bit. When they are teenagers, a whole lot less. Your influence is through two means.
1. How you respond emotionally to her behaviors. Do you approve or disapprove of her behaviors?
2. Your control of external factors. You can decide what school she goes to, and the types of people she will meet at school and in your neighborhood. You can also impose rewards, punishments, and constraints (such as permissions to do or not do activities).
Weaving what he discussed together and looking at this strategically, you need to answer the following questions:
Do you think your daughter is just experimenting with her behaviors and that it will pass? If you do, then don't worry about it at all as she will move on to better behavior. Kids tend to do mischievous things at this age and still end up to be productive adults.
Another item to consider is the intensity of reaction you demonstrate to bad behavior. Take swearing for example. If you become exasperated every time she swears, she may view swearing as an adventure because she wants to see you get red with anger.
If you feel as if her bad behavior is escalating too much then you need to do something to combat it.
At this point you will need to rely on your judgement of the situation. Are you doing all the things you can as a parent? Make sure that you are a positive role model. Remember, you have a significant influence on her.
Then look at the school and neighborhood. Do the kids, by and large, turn out okay? Or is everyone on drugs by the time they are 13?
Take the time to talk with parents and teachers at school. Each school has a culture and perhaps your daughter is trying to fit into this culture. How concerned are the teachers? Does the behavior of most kids at the school improve as they grow up out their phases?
Sadly, you can't watch over every outside influence in your child's life. You also can't be totally sure that your daughter will learn right from wrong. However, you can improve the chances of her success. Your influence is great and you should be a healthy role model for your daughter.
Dr. Noel Swanson is a leading expert on child behaviour. He has a fascinating website with lots of parenting advice that is well worth a visit. Don't reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.
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