A good friend of mine has a daughter, Veronica. A wonderful and bright child. When Veronica was 3 or 4 years old, her mother tried to teach her to say "thank you" if the good people were treating her to something delicious.
The result wasn't so good... Every time I had to remind her of good manners. Without a clue, she rarely remembered what to thank. And that's when I came up with the idea!
I decided to do an experiment: when Veronica gave me an object, I smiled and thanked her for "thank you. My mother also joined the experiment, catching the essence of it instantly.
The result was not long overdue!
In just 2-3 days Veronica has mastered the new behavior and got used to it so much that reminders of good manners were simply not needed! Only a few days we fixed the habit of thanking, showing it by personal example, and the results are still to this day, after 9 years ...
The new behavior without obstacles has penetrated into the child's subconscious and has been established there in a completely natural way: by copying the behaviour, by imitation. A way that all children unconsciously learn from their parents.
Instill respect: fast, reliable, forever!
How do we do it? The first step is already obvious: respect your child. Communicate on an equal footing, listen to the opinion and desires. Listen, do not pretend to listen, otherwise, the child will miss your words just as much.
Refrain from being rude. Practice refusing to be insulted or blamed completely. Teach yourself to use the words "snotty", "small", "inconvenient", "brainless", "armless" and other pejorative remarks.
Teach yourself to even think about the child in this way. You can hide the fact that you think he or she is stupid, but in your facial expressions, gestures, intonation, the child will still read the attitude towards him or her. Children are far from as unreasonable as it may seem.
Do you have a person you truly respect? If yes, then communicate with the child in the same way. Imagine talking to a friend, an equal person. Children love it! Then they begin to love, appreciate and respect their parents even more.
Instill politeness for the rest of our lives
As in the previous examples, everything here is elementary, too. We are beginning to show the child all kinds of politeness in different situations. Thank you, we politely ask, apologize, open and hold the door, give way.
You shouldn't scold a child if he doesn't do it yet. Be patient and watch. By the way, do not focus on the fact that right now you are showing how to behave. This is unnecessary. Remember that the baby absorbs everything on a full machine.
Mirror neurons work constantly!
Learn to wash dishes after child use them
Play it so that the child really enjoys washing the dishes. What are the options? Oh, there are so many of them! Let's think about it...
We can have a dishwashing competition for a while. The winner is not only the one who washed the fastest, but also the one with the highest quality. The plates can be washed one by one: one you, one child and loudly count "one, two, three..." The winner, i.e. the child, is awarded a chocolate bar or other prize. I think it's very funny!
Your task is to make sure that washing dishes is associated with a lot of pleasant emotions. Mix, praise, encourage, thank. Fantasize, make a variety. You get pleasure from fun. And then your child will love washing dishes. I guarantee it!
And remember that blackmail in the spirit of "you won't wash the dishes, you won't get..." only creates negative associations with washing. Just like the punishment: "I haven't washed the dishes, so you'll lose...". If you don't want the dishes to be associated with sadness and bitterness from deprivation, just don't do it.
Instill a love of order
So, scolding, blaming, and punishing are bad ways to make a child's mind connected to order and pleasant emotions.
The connection you make is what it will be in life. If cleaning is associated with negative experiences, do not expect initiative and dedication in this matter. We all want to avoid unpleasant emotions, and it is quite natural.
Therefore, our task is to create a lot of joyful emotions around the cleaning. This includes competitions with music and prizes, joint missions, and the creation of a video film "How we cleaned up the whole family.
Before cleaning, hide 10 secret things throughout the apartment. The child's task is to find these 10 things by putting them in order. After passing the mission, he will be grateful to his mother and father, hugging and obligatory viewing of the cartoon.
Do not try to bribe the child. Your task is to make the reward is the process of cleaning, not its end result. Some people may find it inconceivable: cleaning as a reward? This is because in the reality of Soviet education work was not obliged to be pleasant. More likely even vice versa.
But it's gonna be very slow!
You might think that teaching your child by example is a very long time. Well, first of all, is it so bad to behave so well with a child? Is it hard to be polite? If so, it will make you feel better.
Second. When you start to treat a person well, how long will it take for them to understand that you are already treating him differently and to change their attitude towards you?
One year? Two years? Of course not. In a couple of days, the child will understand that something "wrong" is going on. In two weeks he will understand that you are serious. His attitude towards you cannot help but change for the better. The child will inevitably begin to love you more, respect and obey.
Children reflect the behavior of their parents quite quickly. Test it in practice, but don't make assumptions. In any case, our task as parents is to give the child good examples, which will stay with him for the rest of his life.
