How to Become a More Confident and Effective Parent

1. Don't take it personally

When your child fails to comply with a request, it's easy to feel disrespected. It's easy to feel targeted when your child flies into a rage. But these emotional reactions, however natural, are not helpful.

Firstly, children don't process emotions and information the way adults do. If your child is very young, there's a lot she doesn't understand about her own feelings, let alone yours. If your child is older, it's still likely that your child's misbehaviour reflects impulsivity or incompetence (to process and/or filter emotions) - not malice.  

Secondly, research suggests that our pessimistic social beliefs - the tendency to attribute hostile intentions where none exist - can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. People who assume the worst tend to provoke negative behaviour from others. So parents who make hostile attributions can end up creating the very problems they want to solve.

In one study, mothers who made hostile attributions about their toddlers were more likely, three and half years later, to have children with aggressive behaviour problems. The link remained significant even after the researchers controlled for pre-existing child difficulties, as well as the negative parenting behaviour that tends to accompany hostile attributions (Healy et al 2015). Reminding yourself not to take it personally isn't just good for your mood. It's good for your relationship, and good for your child's long-term development.

2. Ensure you have realistic expectations about your child's ability to follow rules and comply with requests

Young children have shorter attention spans, and they are easily distracted. They take more time to process verbal instructions. Their working memory capacities -- the sheer number of things they can keep in mind at any given moment -- are more limited. Learning new information, and adapting to a change of rules or procedure, may take longer than you realise (Lee et al 2015). Young children require more practice than older children do, and older children need more practice than adults (Yim et al 2013).

So when we issue directions, we shouldn't expect young children to respond quickly and efficiently. They work at a slower speed, and it's harder for them to transition from one activity to the next. They need us to provide them with clear, simple directions, and then give them the extra time they need to switch gears.

Older children can handle more complexity and speed, but their attention spans, working memory capacities, impulse control, and task-switching skills are still developing. By tuning into your child's pace and abilities - and providing patient, calm reminders - you reshape the task into one she's got the equipment to solve. And your child will get to experience the social and emotional rewards for cooperating - a crucial experience for his long-term development. You must invest more time, but it's an investment that will pay off.

3. Ensure you have realistic expectations about the development of empathy and kindness

Throughout childhood, children are still learning about emotions -- how to regulate their own moods and read the social cues of others. Dependent, inexperienced, and vulnerable, young children are more easily threatened, and thus more likely focus on protecting their own interests (Li et al 2013). Older children, too, may respond this way if they perceive the world to be hostile or unjust.

And some children are at a physiological disadvantage. They have the ability to learn about social signals, but their brains don't reward them as much for doing so (Davies et al 2011; Sepeta et al 2012). As a consequence, children are less likely to learn on their own. They need our help.

So whilst your child's behaviour might look selfish, that doesn't mean she's self-absorbed.

Children demonstrate a capacity for empathy and kindness from a very early age. When they fail to show concern for others, it's often because they perceive the situation differently, or don't know how to control their impulses. They need ample opportunities to learn - by developing secure relationships with parents; talking about their feelings and the emotional signals of others; and observing positive role models, and growing up in an environment that rewards self-control and cooperation.

4. Focus on maintaining a positive relationship

Researchers see families fall into a common trap: When kids misbehave frequently, parents tend to focus on all those daily conflicts. They feel obliged to answer every offense with criticism or punishment, and end up with a relationship that's mostly characterised by negative exchanges. 

It's a grim outcome, and it's also counter-productive. Studies suggest that children are more likely to learn desirable social skills when we provide them with positive feedback for making good choices -- not threats and punishments for doing the wrong thing. Moreover, a diet of negativity can make children become more defiant. Negative parenting can lead to a downward spiral of misbehaviour, punishment, retaliation, more punishment, and more misbehaviour (Cavell et al 2013).

How do you stay calm and upbeat? It isn't easy, not if your child seems stuck in "defiance". You'll need social support, and maybe some professional advice. But the first step is re-organising your priorities (Cavell et al 2013).  Maintaining positive relations is more important than prosecuting every failure. Sometimes you need to choose your battles.

5. Don't sacrifice your own psychological well-being

Dealing with behaviour problems is very stressful, and stress hurts. It makes us ill, clouds our thinking, and damages relationships. It's contagious - even young infants pick up on our negative moods. And when parents are stressed out, it adds fuel to the fire: Their children's behaviour problems tend to get worse.

So addressing your own well-being and relationship concerns shouldn't be an after-thought, a luxury to be put off until your child's behaviour problems improve. It's a pressing issue, a central player in the crisis. Perhaps looking within and optimising your own mental health might be a great place to begin.