How to help your child form good habits such as going to bed on time. There are many good strategies which can help both your child and you. But the most important thing you need to bear in mind is that your ultimate goals are to teach your child to obey and respect others. If he is well trained in these two areas, you can send him to bed at any time and he will say :"Yes madam/sir." and do it right away.
1. Show him who is the authority in the house. Which means he needs to obey parents. Put him to bed at 9pm(or 10pm)everyday even if he doesn't want to. He needs to learn to obey and respect others by being quiet at bed time. If parents or other care givers stay in his room with him, he will never go to sleep. The worst of all is that he knows that you don't mean bussiness and you can not stick to the rules. Therefore, put him to bed and leave his room immediately.
2. Be loving but firm and consistant. Your child can sense it if you're not confident or persistent, and will push you to your limit. If he throws a tamper tantrum, don't give him any attention. If he gets out of his room, you may calmly but firmly tell him to go back. If he fails to obey, you may gently yet firmly pick him up and take him back to his room. Tell him he needs to stay quiet in his room becasue other people need a rest. It may take 3 days or forever to reach your goals depends on how you implement the strategies.Once he has established a good habit, you still need to follow the same rules in the future.
Some parents might think it sounds like military training. However, there are significant differences between military training and child discipline.
1. Parents give children directions instead of orders.
2. Parents speak to children in a calm and respectful voice instead of shouting out orders.
3. Children make decisions whether to obey or disobey. Of course, there will be consequences if they make poor choices. But soldiers don't have a choice and receive punishments if they don't obey orders.
4. Parents are encouraged to discipline their children in positive ways in order to help children build good characters. Parents discipline their children with love + rules. But military trains soldiers with rules only.
