The Parent Support Group at the Community Center in the Meadow Mall, started meeting this fall every other Saturday morning. The Parent Support Group will continue from January through May 2017. There's still room for a few more families. Topics for discussion include sleep, nutrition, oral hygiene and other health and behavior-related information that help to promote a positive and nurturing environment for children. Additionally, the group is discussing the 5 R’s of Positive Discipline, one R at a time.

The 5 R’s are: Reinforce, Respect, Redirect, Routines and Rotate Attention.

Learning how to reinforce good behavior

Because one of the most effective things you can do to promote cooperative behavior in your children, is to reinforce the behavior you want to see, Reinforce was the first of the 5 R’s that we discussed.

The best way to reinforce good behavior is to first of all, notice it and then provide descriptive praise.

That sounds easy enough, but noticing good behavior is not something that comes naturally to most of us. It seems to be human nature for us to only notice the problems. Paying attention and describing good behavior is something that we need to make a conscious effort to do and repeated practice is needed so that it eventually becomes second nature.

You may be thinking, “They never do anything I ask.” But you might be surprised. Challenge yourself to notice at least three good things your child does in a day and let them know you noticed.

Here are general guidelines for providing reinforcement:

• Make sure to recognize all good/appropriate behavior every time you see it, especially with behavior that you are trying to encourage or that doesn’t happen enough.
• Use descriptive praise when you see good behavior. Tell them what they did well by describing what you see.

E.g. “I noticed you put your clothes in the hamper, Chris. It’s a pleasure to enter your tidy room.”

“That was nice of you to play cards with your little sister. It makes me so happy to see you two getting

along.”

“You got dressed on time and your shirt matches your pants.”

“You’re doing a great job on those dishes, Samantha. It’s such a big help to me.”

“I see you packed your backpack tonight. That’ll make getting off to school in the morning easier. That’s

what I call being prepared.”

• Praise should always be heartfelt and genuine.
• Look at them and smile and don’t hold back on hugs and pats, especially with young children.

With young children the praise should be very enthusiastic and paired with hugs, pats and smiles. With teens, as you can imagine, it can be more low key. It should also be descriptive as in the above examples. Just saying “good job” is not enough. They need to know exactly what they did right. It should also always be genuine. Describing what they did well makes the praise more genuine. When praise is descriptive, it helps children to develop a sense of what their strengths are and helps to build their self-confidence.

Keep a tally of how often you acknowledge or praise your child’s behavior each day. Self monitoring will help ensure that you keep looking for good behavior and stay focused on the positive. After just a few days, you should notice that you get more cooperation from your kids and giving descriptive praise will come naturally to you.

There's room for a few more families (parents of kids from preschool to 2nd grade) for these semi-monthly sessions. Free babysitting is provided. The discussion group meets from 10 am to noon twice a month at the Community Center in the Meadow Mall in Boothbay Harbor. For more information, contact Liz Lussier at 633-1162.