How can you help if your young child is misbehaving while out of your control?

Try to replace the negative behaviors that he or she exhibits at home with positive ones instead. If your child ever shows you the same misbehavior at home, then show them what you’d rather see instead. My young friend who is having trouble keeping her hands to herself when mom is not with her is facing this same struggle. So I gave mom and dad some tips to help correct the behavior.

#1 Make sure that there is a consequence at the daycare for when she’s acting out. If they have not given her one and you are called to come, then you should give her a consequence immediately. In this case, they use time outs with her.

#2 If she shows you hitting behavior with her stuffed animals, simply take the toy that she was playing with, turn your attention from her and be kind and gentle with the toy, talking as you cuddle it to show her what you want. Besides wanting the toy back, she’s also going to want your attention back. In this case, chances are that she was hitting it to get attention in the first place. Limiting attention given to her for her negative behaviors is a good place to start when trying to get rid of those same behaviors.

#3 If you’d like to try something a bit more systematic, you can use a very simple daily chart at home that requires 2 stars or smileys per set amount of time in order for her to earn a reward or dessert, etc. This works especially well if you find yourself taking these things away from her as a consequence. Replacing the “take away” with giving her the power to earn the “treat” is a good way to spin the situation around and make it more about positive reinforcement than punishment.

There’s more that we discussed of course, but these were some good places to start. And as I told mom and dad, if you’re not sure that you’re going to use a chart regularly, then you should not adopt it & that you should see how small modifications go first before throwing everything you had at a problem. You don’t want to find your toolbox empty before the situation has been corrected.