You can give positive help towards your children’s personal, social and emotional development by:
- Giving praise and physical affection when possible.
- Listening to worries and concerns and discussing them in a respectful way.
- Taking time to talk about happenings, ideas, thoughts and feelings.
- Talking through mistakes or things that have gone wrong in a sensible way, and getting them to understand that a mistake is not the end of the world, and to respond accordingly.
- Encouraging them to practise self-discipline.
- Encouraging them to make choices and decisions about daily events and routines.
- Enabling them to solve problems for themselves.
- Showing them the consequences of their actions.
- Concentrating on positive, affirmative behaviour rather than constantly criticising negative behaviour.
- Using stories to help them understand sadness and pleasure, illness and loss.
- Playing board games together; inviting other children to play and encouraging return visits.
- Giving them individual responsibilities such as their own bit of garden to grow and look after, helping with shopping, looking after pets;
- Demonstrating how to treat possessions, people and places with care and concern.
- Teaching them how to wash and dress themselves.
- Encouraging ‘dressing-up’ activities, where they can pretend to be other people and look at life from a different perspective.
- Helping them to reassure and comfort other children during their ‘bad’ times.
- Remembering that you are always your child’s first role model.