Consistency happens to be one of the biggest challenges I
personally face in working with my children. I understand that
it is an important issue. I write about it. I teach it in my
business. And still I struggle.
I share the question on almost every parent's mind : “How do I
get my kids to do what I want them to do and not do what I don’t
want them to do?” My struggle with consistency happens to be my
weakness in this quest. One tool my wife and I have developed to
address this issue is a family system. We got the idea from our
work in the business world. The emotional ties are different.
But when it comes to structure, families and businesses have a
lot in common. They are both organizations of people with a
common purpose. So, what can we learn from successful businesses
that will help us build more successful families?
Nearly every successful business has a well-defined system.
Systems provide structure. Systems provide accountability.
Systems provide mutual understanding of expectations. Systems
make work easier. Systems are tools that allow ordinary people
to obtain extraordinary results. Systems provide the results
most parents desire -- a consistent method to encourage good
behaviors and to discourage bad ones.
As you develop your family system you’ll want to define the
following items: - a simple set of family rules,
- minimum acceptable behaviors,
- unacceptable behaviors,
- a way to reward good behaviors and penalize bad ones.
You should also write it down and communicate it to everyone in
the family. My wife and I own a speaking, training, and
consulting business. We speak and train on human behavior,
leadership, and communication topics. Everything we have learned
in the business world says two things: 1) Control and fear
tactics create minimal performance, and
2) Positive reinforcement creates high-level performance. We
teach business leaders to use positive reinforcement to inspire
their teams. Yet we sometimes find ourselves tilting more
towards fear and intimidation when working with the people we
love the most -- our children. Our negative disciplinary
approaches are not usually the result of poor understanding.
Instead, they come from fatigue, stress, and strong emotional
ties. A system also helps to remove stress and fatigue from the
equation when handling disciplinary issues.
Do the work to create pre-defined rules, expectations, and
definitions of consequences. Then you will feel less stress and
frustration as you work to guide, correct, and instruct your
children. You’ll be free to focus on relationship issues rather
than on task issues.
You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will
include all contact information with live links back to the
author. Notification of use is not required, but I would
appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed
media.
Copyright 2005, Guy Harris
About Author :
Guy Harris is an author, speaker, trainer, and consultant on
human behavior at home and in the workplace. Guy co-authored
"The Behavior Bucks System(tm)" (http://www.behaviorbucks.com)
to help parents reduce stress and conflict with their children
by effectively applying behavioral principles in the home. Learn
more about Guy at http://www.principledriven.com
