Making a Child Learn From His Mistakes

You have just cleaned your room and soon after that your children spilled over and spoiled your new bed sheet, left the bread crumbs and stains on the floor. What would you do? Yell at them and give them a time out. Or ask them to clean the room immediately and snatch away their favorite toy? Or would you forgive them for their mistake and forget it?

Well it's not at all easy to forgive their mistake. After all they should learn to keep their house clean and better not do such things again. But for a moment think about it. Is yelling do anything good? Is physical punishment going to teach them not to repeat the mistakes?

May be, sometimes it helps but not always. Then what can be done to make the children reduce their number of mistakes. For that we need to understand below mentioned points discussed by Helene Goldnadel a life coach:

• First thing, as a human we are prone to make mistakes and so are kids. We are actually over expecting if we think that the kids will not commit any mistakes or not repeat them. They are bound to do something new and in the process make new mistakes. This needs to be accepted to keep your head cool.
• Secondly, kids are too curious and impatient to wait for you to come. They just want to get into the depth of things, do their own research and surprise you of their findings.
• Children are not so good at concentration and get distracted at slightest thing. Like while keeping the dish in the sink, Joe gets attracted to the new bottle on the shelf. And he board on to find out. He may hurt himself if he loses his balance or may be ends up breaking up something in the kitchen.
• Kids make mistakes often in spite of your warnings. This can be a kind of attention seeking behavior and to show off their anger or disgust.

In all the above situations, strict behavior, spanking or screaming by parents will have long- term adverse effects on the child. He may stop listening to the instructions and turn defiant. He may also lose interest in learning new things which is also not healthy for child development.

So if all these methods do not work then maybe you need to change your method of dealing with your child. It's better to forgive him at times and make him learn in gentle and loving way.

Also read: Untapping Your Child's Hidden Potential