Kids Behavior Management: 25 Parenting Tips and Tricks (Part 1)

As parents, we understand that raising children comes with constant challenges. Even the most well-behaved kids can create chaos at times. Our reactions to their behavior, whether through words, body language, or momentary decisions, can greatly influence their mood, behavior, our relationship with them, and even our own health.

In order to raise resilient kids, parents continuously learn and refine their behavioral strategies.

My wife, a psychologist trained in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), and a certified trainer of Child Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE), is naturally skilled at understanding, applying, and teaching these strategies. As an occupational therapist who loves to experiment and improve, I am constantly seeking out new approaches to managing our children's behaviors through research, books, and colleagues. Together, we make a great team and can anticipate behavioral issues before they arise.

In this series of articles on behavior, I will share the most effective strategies that we've used to manage our children's behavior. While the list of potential strategies is endless, we've compiled those with the best return on investment. These strategies can help you foster positive behavior in your own children and improve your relationship with them.

The 25 Best Behavior Management Tips & Tricks

1. Used forced choices.  Forced choices are when you provide a limited set of answers for your child to choose from.  Tacos or chicken?  Book A or B for bedtime?  Go to bed now or in 2 minutes? Whether he wants to do it or not, providing choices transitions his mind from if he's going to do to what he's going to do.  A little autonomy goes a long way.

2. Talk consequences.  The average toddler hears the word “no” 400 times a day. Instead of "no" and "stop doing that," teach them.  "If you keep ____ then you may ____ and we would have to ___. "  This method, also known as inductive discipline, teaches life skills like problem-solving skills and theory of mind.  It requires up-front costs to use inductive reasoning to break down the situation but the ROI is worth it.

3. Get them outside.  If you're going down your mental checklist of reasons for unusual behavior (hungry, tired, sick, bored) and nothing is standing out, take her outside. For hundreds of thousands of years, kids evolved surrounded by trees, sun, and dirt. Get them back to their roots early and often, before the unusual behavior begins. You’ll be surprised at how effective this is.

4. Give them proprioceptive input.  If your child is abnormally energetic or emotional, their central nervous system may be craving proprioceptive input.  Proprioception is the ability to sense the position of the body without visual input. When a child doesn’t get enough of this input, their nervous systems begins to seek it. They’ll start "crashing" into things, jumping, spinning, rocking, throwing things, and talking with an "outside voice."  Some effective strategies we use in our house are:

• giving them strong hugs

• wrestling with them

• doing "heavy work"

• running outside

• having jumping contests

• or playing "steam roller" on the ground

5. Model vulnerability.  Nervous about a big talk at work?  Do it in front of your kids.  Does your partner deserve an apology?  Do it in front of your kids.  Make a tough financial decision, have a difficult interaction with a friend, or on the struggle bus to being healthier?  Talk to your kids about your issues in age-appropriate ways.  Monkey see, monkey do.

6. Do a post-game analysis.  Kids have busier schedules than ever before which means that they have less time to process. Kids need time to process skills to augment learning, emotional regulation, and social development. Whether they had a tantrum or scored the game-winning goal, do an honest and judgment-free breakdown of the high-emotion situation. Ask them how they felt, relate their reported emotion to the situation, and discuss what they might change or double down on next time.

7. Let them struggle.  Kids (and adults) need hardship.  Yes, it's tough to watch them struggle but to be proficient at anything you need to trek through the mud.  Let them struggle and intervene with scaffolding techniques as appropriate.  After the fact, do a post-game analysis (see above).

8. Welcome all feelings.  Let your child be sad, scared, happy, or frustrated, even if the situation doesn't "warrant it."  Let them be in the emotion and support them through it if appropriate.  Avoid frequent go-to's like "Don't cry," "It'll be okay," and "You get what you get and you don't get upset."  Stay neutral instead with phrases like, "It's okay to be sad." or "I see you're frustrated.  I'm here for you."

9. ...but not all behaviors.  While feelings are accepted, behaviors are a different story.  Manage behaviors while acknowledging the emotion. “It’s okay to be sad. The problem is, you threw a crayon at your sister.”

10. Let them feel it.  As a child, I was often redirected with a treat, toy, or novelty to distract me from the pain of falling, getting hit by my brother, or any other problem that caused tears.

The pendulum has swung the other way and now the research has shown that instead of distraction, the best technique is immersion in the feelings.  It's a basic mindfulness tactic used to teach them to stay on the path and address the issue instead of the other two extremes: avoiding the pain or succumbing to a flood of emotions that can't be processed and managed. When I was a total parenting noob I’d hear myself saying things like, “Hey buddy, look at this thing over here!” I performed a mini boot camp on myself early on to reverse this. Nowadays I'll say something like, “That looks like it really hurt.  It's probably sharp and stingy.  I had that before too.  What should we do about it?”  From there, we problem-solve strategies and normalize the situation.  This struggle through a situation leads to adaptation and adaptation leads to resilience.   

11. Use humor: Once your kid is speeding toward (or already in) Inappropriate Behavior Town, they're hanging out with strong emotions like anger, stubbornness, and frustration.  Meeting them with a mirrored emotion, or a sterner one, tends to exacerbate the situation. Instead, the best way to cut through these emotions is humor.  Physical self-deprecation and Three Stooges' style slapstick humor tends to work better than tickling, joke telling or other forms,  Use humor to diffuse the situation then use it as an avenue to connect while saving the remediation talk for later.

12. Make sleep sacred. A good night of sleep (or nap) makes everything better and lack thereof makes everything worse.  Stick to a consistent schedule, talk about its importance, and practice what you preach.

13. Celebrate the wins.  Your family is your team and your team wins and loses together.  Celebrate the wins (while also acknowledging the losses).  A good test grade? A new friend at school? Learned to swim without help at swim lessons? Make them excited to bring it home to you.

14. Give them time.  Toddlers' processing time is significantly slower than yours, especially when they're tired or distracted.  After you provide a statement, give them five uninterrupted seconds to follow through (count in your head).

15. Be on the same page as your partner.  You may have two totally different personalities, upbringings, communication styles, and even relationships with your kids but you need to have a united front when it comes to behavior strategies.  Discuss the breakdowns, the barriers, and the resolutions.

16. Simulate the scenario.  Use areas of behavioral concerns (sharing at the park) or anticipated concerns (long flight coming up) to role-play these situations in a play environment at home.  Run through it and problem-solve different scenarios and responses with your kid.  Make it more realistic with sensory-based stimuli such as the roar of the plane engine, the dim lights, and the shaking of the seat. Bonus points if you incorporate an action figure or favorite lovey to play a role.

17. Do as you say.  Out of all of the tips on this list, this may be the most important. If you tell them X then enforce X.  If you tell them they have 2 minutes until bedtime, stick to the 2 minutes.  If you tell them to you’re going to take the toy if they throw it one more time, then carry it out. If you're constantly inconsistent, then you blur the lines for what they should follow which leads to inconsistent command following. Inconsistency means confusion for the child and subsequently weakens the effectiveness of these promises or threats.  On the contrary, consistency provides a sense of stability and security.

18. Teach them in ways they'll remember. Whether you're pre-emptively teaching them behavioral strategies or doing some post-game work, use strategies that kids learn best with. 

• Minimize your words. 

• End your message with the main point. 

• Use a sing-song voice. 

• Talk slowly. 

• Repeat, repeat, repeat. 

19. Be firm, fair, and consistent. I first heard this from a patient of mine who was a corrections officer.  He pointed out the difference between his workers who practiced this motto compared to those who didn't. Those who practiced it had respect from the prisoners, career longevity, and more job satisfaction.  While your home is hopefully a far cry from a prison, the fundamentals of human behavior are not biased toward the location.

20. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.  Kids are developing skills at a rapid pace in a world they've been in for only a fraction of your life.  The combination of novelty and confusion around safety and social norms can create a somewhat chaotic environment that requires constant parental intervention. However, the good news is that children want boundaries, even if they never ask for them. Boundaries make kids feel safe, and it's crucial for parents to establish and enforce them consistently to allow anticipated safety, structure, and support. Set them and enforce them.  

21. Eat the frog.  Does your child hate brushing his teeth?  Do it first thing in the morning (and right after dinner).  Getting a bath?  Do it as soon as you get home.  Getting dressed or undressed?  Do it as soon as you can.  Eating the frog, a phrase borrowed from Mark Twain and often used in the world of productivity, means getting the hard thing done first.  Whatever it is that your kid dislikes the most, knock it out first. 

22. Downgrade the cue. There was a stretch when my son would grunt and whine when he wanted something—milk, toys, food, attention, anything. I curbed this over a period of weeks by using a psychological term called shaping. I started by explaining to him why it’s important to use his words and to say “please” at the end of the request (in age-appropriate terms) after the first few grunts. Over a period of a week or two, I cued him with “Say please” while touching my ear and tilting my head. Then I simplified it to an ear touch and a head tilt. From there it became simpler with a subtle head tilt. Over a week or two he became more aware of his response, the behavior was extinct, and no cue was needed.

23. Communication is critical.  The main reason that kids have tantrums is because they can’t communicate their needs.  While this may include simple requests, such as asking for a crayon, it often extends beyond that to include more complex emotional, attention-based, or sensory needs that can be difficult for children to express. The hard wiring in their brain is still developing so they don't have the skills to express their wants or needs, especially in times of stress (overwhelmed, tired, hungry, etc.).  A meltdown ensues and oftentimes we’re totally unsure of why it happened in the first place, chalking it up to fatigue, hunger, or personality.  

By prioritizing clear and effective communication with your child, you can help them feel understood, manage their emotions, and prevent tantrums before they occur. For babies, this might mean teaching sign language. For toddlers, this may mean phrasing common stressors, and for older children, it might be a focus on the granularity of emotions, or describing an emotional experience in a detailed and nuanced way, to identify and then self-regulate. Start with the most popular points of concern and use the post-game analysis to model better communication skills for the future.

Emotional granularity in a picture..

24. Be conscious of your response. Kids are sponges who take in every reaction you have to every situation. If you have a strong reaction to food that you didn't like, the person you just spoke to, or the fact that you have to do chores too, they'll remember that and reiterate that later. This could be in the form of a grimace, a grunt, your comments, or any form of your body language. Become aware of it before they do.

25. Don’t resort to bribes, negotiations, or bartering. When you do this, you undermine your sense of control and authority in their eyes.  Be the parent and assert the authority. 

What is your best parenting tip or trick for behavior management?