Are Parents Responsible For Children’s Behavior?
As parents, we are our children’s first teachers. As such, there are many important lessons that they learn from us, long before they start school. We teach them how to crawl, walk, and eat table foods. We teach them to care for their health and hygiene. But there are other things we need to teach them too.
Some of the important behaviors parents teach children are:
* Manners and proper social behaviors
* How to manage difficult emotions
* How to cope with stressful situations
* Listening skills
* Sitting still and paying attention
* The importance of being on time
Teaching a child proper behavior prior to their arrival at school is good for the child, for you, and for your child’s future social relationships. Having time to practice social skills is important, and these can be learned through modeling. When you model a behavior, this means, a child watches your behavior and learns the proper way to act.
This is why it is important to be mindful of our own behavior, especially when our children are watching. They learn behaviors like kindness, empathy, sharing, and emotional regulation by watching what we do. This is true even if we don’t think that the child is watching. They are much more alert than we give them credit for.
If a child has learned a behavior that we don’t like, it is possible that they have learned it from us, even if we aren’t aware of the behavior in ourselves.
According to The Kid Counselor,
I cannot tell you the number of times parents have come into my office asking me to “fix their child”. They give me a list of things that are “wrong” with the child and hope that I can produce major results in a short time frame. While there are some issues that are biologically or chemically rooted, most of the concerns that parents bring are confounded by their own actions.
If a child is exhibiting anger, anxiety, rudeness or inattentiveness to others (among other things) there is a good chance that we have a tendency to behave this way ourselves. When you notice your child acting in a way that you don’t like, it is important to have some introspection and ask yourself if there are times that you act this way.
Maybe it isn’t a typical behavior, but a response under stress. Since children are always observing us, chances are, they see us when we aren’t at our best. This means, we need to be aware of our unconscious patterns, or behaviors that we resort to in times of stress. Then, we can learn healthy coping mechanisms for our own behavior, and model better coping skills for our children.
Sometimes, especially in modern times, parents overly rely on schools to teach kids everything. However, proper behavior is something that they should already have some idea about prior to going to school. Otherwise, teachers have to take time out of lessons to tell kids to be quiet or stay in their seat.
