The 6 skills children need to behave well
Often the beahivor that an adult wants a child to do seems minor and easy to them. It seems easy for us to remember to pick up our towels off the bathroom floor after a shower. It seems easy to remember not to grab toys out of our friends hands and then to not hit them in the head with them, but it’s not so easy for kids.
I remember, as a child, feeling like I had to remember everything that I was supposed to do and being overwhelmed. I would often forget something and someone would get upset at me. I felt bad for not having remembered everything at every moment. I realized from this experience that even children who really want to behave well and are given every chance to do so, still need to master many skills for each wanted behavior. In the next six posts I will explain each of these skills more.
It’s important to consider the many skills required to behave well regularly. I’ve identified six different skills necessary for a child to behave the way we want them to. Every time a child is behaving in an unwanted way, consider first whether they just need some help with one of these skills.
The six skills are:
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Understanding and being capable of doing the wanted behavior (or not doing the unwanted beahvior).
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Remembering the wanted behavior.
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Working against impulse to do something else.
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Knowing how to do the wanted behavior.
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Remembering the wanted behavior in all contexts.
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Dealing with others not doing the wanted behavior.
These skills need to be learned, just like any other skill or task. They can’t be learned faster with more negative consequences. I’ve heard many people say, “she knows not to do that,” when a child does something unwanted that she hasn’t had a problem with in a previous context, but that doesn’t mean that the child really has all the skills completely mastered. To a child, different situations require different behavior. It takes a while to learn which behaviors fit where.
