Avoid Counter-Productive Parenting

Parents and their children have a complex relationship.
As children progress through the stages of development they are bound to experiment with countless forms of challenging behavior.
What their parents do in response to their behavior operates on the child’s development on many levels.
When we respond properly to the child’s improper behavior, the child quickly recognizes the appropriate boundary.
He then outgrows the problem behavior most swiftly, moving into more mature levels of child behavior.
In parenting, to help a child OUT of improper behavior, the parent needs to respond properly.
When parents react improperly, they cause emotional issues to surround the child’s experimental behavior, causing the child to become stuck in that behavior.
Then, what would have passed as a phase turns into deeply entrenched child behavior problem due to the reaction of the parents.
Children in their toddler years, for instance, might pick up a penny from the street and place it in their mouth.
As shockingly dangerous (and even disgusting) as this behavior is, parents need to avoid reacting in ways that would make the situation worse. Otherwise they engage in counter-productive parenting.
You help the child into healthier self-conduct by responding responsibly, not reacting blindly.
If you react too severely, you incite the child’s wild reaction that may drive her to repeat this behavior as a way of punishing you when she feels bored, annoyed or unhappy.
Sometimes, parents cause a child to become stuck in a problem behavior by how the parent relates with the child at other times.
If you impose needless boundaries on your child’s eating that unnecessarily displease the child, the child may continue to place dirty and dangerous objects in her mouth even in an act of rebellion against your unreasonable constraint.
A child to become stuck in a behavior problem due to a more general error made by parents. Children need a certain amount of freedom of action and exploration. If you control or restrict your child’s movements excessively, he may feel compelled to compensate by defying reasonable and responsible boundaries.
Parents also unwittingly cause their kids to get stuck in problematic behavior through excessive emotionalism.
If your relationship with your child is overly emotional, the emotional intensity overwhelms the child’s ability to make thoughtful, responsible choices. Under the influence of extreme emotionalism the child impetuously repeats thoughtless behaviors.
If you routinely engage in power-struggles with your child, and particularly if you do this with a competitive attitude toward the child’s defiance, the child feels instigated to repeat reckless behaviors with the aim of winning the competition between the two of you.
How you react to your child’s behavior makes a tremendous difference in the behaviors that your child displays.
Your expectations are a major influence upon your reactions.
If you feel shocked by your child’s behavior, your expectations were off, and that prompts an over-reaction from you.
Children seem like angels one day and the next day they experiment with behavior that seems diabolical to their parents. Children are helped by the parent’s proper responses to outgrow that behavior.