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A lot of Indian parents are subjected to hit their children no matter how serious or not the issue is. The researchers have proved that parents distinctly hit their children because they are not able to control their anger. But, let us tell you that hitting your children is only going to make things very bad and worse. You are just promoting what is called the violence and your child doesn’t need to know what violence is for you. You can do much better than this, don’t you think? Well, hitting children will only make them feel violated and insecure about themselves. It isn’t a good feeling to be felt. The only way you can make your children listen to you is by following a few ways that we ask you to do so. Here are some tips to follow for you to control yourself from hitting children.
Top Things to Do to Make Children Listen to You
1Become calm
Getting calm is the easiest way you can stop yourself from hitting your child. The first thing you should do to not hit your child is to think for a minute, control your anger and then why you feel like hitting. If the situation goes out of control, you can always try and think of a nice thing your child did like a good memory or something that makes you love your child. A lot of times, you can tend to lose control over the situation. You may be just back from the office, your husband wants to eat, your children are shouting and the TV is blaring. The one thing you can do is to calm yourself, drop everything and think for a minute. If you are not able to leave the room when you are angry, step back a minute and count 1 to 10. That is the best way you can release your anger and focus on something else. If you still can’t control, just show it on something totally irrelevant and go ahead.
2Relax yourself
Taking time out of the routine is very important for every parent. Mothers mainly tend to feel that there is no time for them or there is no way they can take space for themselves. That is one of the many reasons why children tend to be unattained or parents get angry very fast. Take your breaks and go out. Meet your friends or just go on a silent walk by yourself. You don’t want to be around anybody, then don’t be! If you want to sing a song, just release it by singing a song. Relax yourself, because every mother who isn’t relaxed is the main and first person to raise hands on her kids.
3Be firm
Children don’t listen just like that. Even you were a kid and everyone faced that phase. If you want your child to listen to you, you need to be firm in certain things, no matter what. You needn’t hit him or spank him for anything. All you need to do is silently but firmly tell him that he will face consequences if he disobeys you or your wishes. If you think that your child is listening to you, then being firm will work out very soon. You don’t have to be angry. Being firm and being angry are two different meanings and you have to understand that very clearly.
4Choices work
Do you know what an effective alternative for hitting? Giving choices is one of the easiest ways to stop you from hitting the child. Give the children choices that they can’t avoid. If your child is not eating and is playing with food, you can ask ‘Do you want to eat or leave the table, because when you are sitting with everyone, you have got to eat’. You can tell him/her that they can play outside and not with food. If the child doesn’t listen and still plays with food, then you can ask her to leave the table with a firm yet not angry voice. She will know that you are serious about it. This way, choices can be a huge and an easier method that will help you get through your anger.
[Here are some reasons why you should not hit children]
5Give them an alternative, don’t punish
If your children don’t listen to you, there is something else you can do instead of punishing them. You can ask them to do some cleaning, mopping or brooming or even helping you in the kitchen. You don’t have to use the word punishment. All you need to do is to make them realize that if they don’t obey you, they will get to do a house work chore without sulking over it. Ask your children to clean their room, if they don’t listen to it, ask them to cut vegetables for you. For every work they don’t listen, their chore gets doubled up. So, they would fear about it and not make a big deal or noise about it.
6Inform them in prior
It is good if you inform your child that you are angry and you do not want them to irritate you more. Children go out of control when they are uninformed or unattended. If you don’t tell them how you feel, they will not really care about it. So, give them ten minute interval every time and tell them how you are feeling. If you think they are going overboard, you can shout and ask them to go to their rooms. That way, you will be able to control your children’s noise and thank yourself for not hitting them.
-Pavithra Ravi
