Covid Advice For Families: About That Misbehavior

During confinement, being cooped up can create tension. Being cooped up with misbehaving children can create even more. Review these tips from UNICEF to see which of these may help.

Redirect

Catch misbehavior early and redirect your kids’ attention from a bad to a good behavior.

Anticipate it before it happens. Watch for when you kids get restless, and redirect them with something interesting or fun: “Come, let’s play a game together.”

Take A Pause

Feel like you need a break? Give yourself a 10-second pause. Breathe in and out slowly five times. Then try to respond in a calmer way.

Millions of parents say that this helps — A LOT!

Use Consequences

Consequences help teach our children responsibility for what they do. They also allow discipline that is controlled. This can be very effective.

1. Give your child a choice to follow your instruction before giving them the consequence.
2. Try to stay calm when giving the consequence.
3. Make sure you can follow through with the consequence. For example, taking away a teenager’s phone for a week may be harder to enforce than taking it away for an hour.
4. Once the consequence is over, give your child a chance to do something good, and praise them for it.

Be Consistent

Keep using tips 1 – 3

1. One-on-one time, praise for being good, and consistent routines will reduce misbehavior.
2. Give your children and teens simple jobs with responsibilities. Just make sure it is something they are able to do. And praise them when they do it!

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In these exceptional times, even though we all may find ourselves cooped up inside, everyone’s experience may be different. For some, you may be home alone and dealing with the sense of isolation that may bring. But others with a family at home have their own unique challenges.

These posters from the CDC and other international health organizations are designed specifically for this purpose. Over the next 6 weeks, they will cover many issues you may face if you are quarantining with kids.

Click here to download this poster from the WHO website.