I used to play the piano fairly well. I wasn’t the best at practicing, but my laziness + a little musicality met in the middle to make me an adequate player. Unlike my piano playing, raising kids is hopefully a task that more people are interested in practicing. Becoming a proficient parent or caregiver is much more useful, in my opinion, than being able to play a sonata.

So how does one get better at parenting and helping children learn? Amazingly, the answer for both parenting and instrument playing is the same: Practice! How do you practice parenting? Aren’t you just doing it most of the time when you’re with your kids anyhow? Practicing indicates that this is somehow a trial run, but isn’t everyday with your kids the real performance? So again, how do you practice parenting?

One thing that parents definitely practice with their children is crossing the street. When safety is involved, parents are often very (rightly) concerned that they teach their children how to be safe in semi-dangerous situations. So why not practice many of the other behaviors that you would like your children to adopt as good habits?

One of the most important things to remember about practicing behaviors is that you should aim to do it when everything is calm. If you notice that your child is having a hard time remembering to say please, don’t just wait until you’re in the situation, they’re asking you for something & you’re not obliging because they didn’t use the magic word. Practice saying please with them in an unheated environment where you take turns passing things and saying please. Please remember to give them lots of praise specifically about the “please” or their sitting at the table for 5 minutes at a stretch (whatever the desired behavior may be) to encourage further development in the direction that you’d like them to be heading.

“Please, may I have the ball? Thank you! Your turn!”

“Daddy, ball…please.”

“Yay, you said please! Here is the ball. My turn…Please, may I have the ball?”

And you’re on a roll. Just like that, playing has turned into practicing.