How to Be Firm in Your Children's Education

As children get older, many parents easily give in to their requests. After a long day's work, saying yes to everything instead of being firm is the easiest option. However, this attitude doesn't benefit children.

Many parents find it hard to be firm in their children’s education. In reality, it’s much easier to say yes to everything, especially after a long day of work. There are times when parents feel so tired that they give in to whatever their children want.

Setting limits isn’t always easy, both for parents and children. However those limits are necessary for children’s education. Being firm, as far as education is concerned, is very important for your little ones’ future.

Family and education

Educating children isn’t a responsibility exclusive to schools. From the day children are born, they start learning from their first social environment: their family. At home, they learn values and behaviors that are essential for life.

The continuous support of education will help kids develop properly. If children know what they should or shouldn’t do every day, they will internalize it. Then, it will just be a part of them. Therefore parents need to be firm in what they teach their children.

How to be firm in your children’s education

The following tips can be very helpful on how to stay firm in your children’s education:

• Discipline: Discipline doesn’t mean punishment. In fact, discipline means guiding, and it helps form children’ behavior. It implies showing them right from wrong. Educating with discipline requires a lot of patience and love.
• Definitions: It’s important to define the values, habits and attitudes that kids have. Knowing where kids’ education is headed will help you teach them balance. In addition, it will help foster healthy emotional development in children.
• One voice: Parents in charge of the children must agree on the message they’re sending. It’s important that kids hear the same response and attitude from both parents.

Coherence and unity is a key point to stand firm in educating children. All people in charge of the children during the day while their parents work must follow the same criteria.

In addition, other issues to consider are:

• Educational style. Education demands a certain amount of authority. Kids must understand that adults have the last word. In this sense, it’s important to avoid authoritarianism and imposing rules without considering your children.
• Basics. Explaining why you made decisions may not avoid arguments and tantrums. However, your child will internalize these explanations and will eventually accept and understand them.

Establishing the rules

To be firm in your children’s education, it’s good to establish rules. They will clearly visualize how they should behave and how they shouldn’t.

Some suggestions regarding rules are:

• They should be few, clear and reasonable. It’s best to determine few rules that the children can meet. However, make sure there aren’t too many that they could forget.
• Appropriate for the children’s ages. The rules for small children won’t be the same for teenagers. As kids grow, their cognitive functions improve to make direct communication easier.

• Establish punishments for not respecting the rules in advance. It’s a good idea to discuss this with your children. Punishments should only be used in extreme cases when you cannot control their behaviors in any other way.
• Stay firm on your rules and sanctions. If disobeying sometimes causes punishment and sometimes doesn’t, your children will be very confused.
• Promote reflection. In fact, this is one of the most important steps. After acting out, it’s important to promote reflection. Children need to understand that they acted badly, as well as the consequences of those actions.
• Screaming, spanking, and long speeches aren’t effective. If parents react violently, they will emotionally harm their children. Being calm when reprimanding will help the conversation have educational value.

It’s essential to preach by example. Therefore, be a role model and act out the values and behaviors you want to teach your children. Common sense should always prevail.