One in four parents refuses to let their children stay overnight with their grandparents. The fear is that with such quality time spent with indulgent grandparents, children are only likely to become terribly spoiled. There’s such a thing as too much closeness.
On the other hand, when visits are short and children don’t get a chance to know their grandparents that well, they tend to find visits boring enough to feel the need to act up. It will be up to you to ensure good behaviour during these visits. Here are some tips.
Help your children learn “outside” behaviour
Children have the ability to learn how to act differently in different places outside their home, even when they are as young as two. You need to start them off even earlier and try to explain to them anytime you go out to a restaurant, church or the home of a friend, that they need to tone it down. Soon enough, they’ll begin to understand what they need to do, and they will learn to be on their best behaviour when they go to their grandparents, too.
From keeping their hands off fragile items to exhibiting polite behaviour at the table, they will know what’s unacceptable behaviour if you gently offer corrections everywhere you go with them.
Give them activities
If you don’t usually let your children have their fill of games on the phone at home their visits to their grandparents could be a good time to cut them loose. You can pick great apps in there. The Mandala coloring book app is an example. The intricately designed colouring app is so good, it has a largely grown-up fan following. Children love it too, however, and it could make for hours of wholesome fun.
Set up a secret code
It’s a good idea to establish a code that only you and your child understand. It can come in handy when your child decides to do something in front of everybody, and you’d like to get your child to stop without too much fuss. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate — a just innocent-sounding disciplinary phrase that you usually only use when you’re outside. If you find that your child is beginning to lose a sense of self-restraint, you can resort to your secret phrase to remind your child that better behaviour would be appreciated.
Help your child develop great conscience
When children find it hard to learn good behaviour, it’s often because they don’t understand why screaming, running around and making a ruckus should be frowned upon. Helping your child see that such behaviour makes others unhappy can help. The more readily a child understands that there is real unhappiness to others involved, the more quickly such behaviour is likely to come under control.
It isn’t hard to help children learn some decorum. It doesn’t take harsh discipline or anger. Gentle, periodic reminders are all your kids need.
This is a guest post