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Module 3

Understanding and guiding your child’s behaviour

Very often we would like to know how to make our children do what they have to do, how to make them more obedient, how to set the limits… In short, how to help them grow up and mature. We remember our own past, when we were children and what our parents did to achieve the desired effect, but it´s been so long! Are their methods still relevant in this time and age?

On the other hand, we hear lots of contradictory advice and opinions. The educational task is not easy. Therefore, in various circumstances, we doubt about our performance as parents, we don´t want to fail our children, we don´t know how to say "no" fearing a fight or their rejection, we are afraid to frustrate them or being too strict… But in other cases, we lose control over them and then we shout at them, we threaten them and punish them to teach them a lesson, especially when the situation ends up with a tantrum.

In this module we will learn that not everything works if we want to guide our children and support them in their own development, while transmitting them a way to see the reality around them, but at the same time paying attention and listening to their way of seeing things. Children have many needs that parents have to learn how to detect and satisfy them. It is important to observe how they develop in all areas: physical, verbal, intellectual, emotional and social areas.

In short, educating children is like a long-term investment, since growing up is a long adventure, and we, as parents have to be there to help them. In this module you won´t find one-size-fits-all recipes, because family lives are very diverse and colourful. Therefore, we will learn how to appreciate the use of observation, we will analyse the consequences of our educational methods and think about what we do to be able to decide on what changes we need to introduce in our lives and the lives of our children.

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Did you know...

  • Tantrums commonly appear in children of ages between 18 months and 3 years. It is a very frequent phenomenon in small children, because 85%-90% of all children have experienced a tantrum at least once in their lives. 1
  • Both the absence and excess of norms can result in low tolerance to frustration and are thus factors that can contribute to the tantrum phenomenon. 2
  • Information and knowledge that parents possess on child development are very important aspects of their role as parents. Various studies have shown that some parents do not possess an adequate level of knowledge on their child´s development, and therefore do not know what is normal and what can be expected during different development phases during childhood. They can thus ignore important developmental deficiencies or they can demand too much for their age. 3
  • Lack of frustration tolerance seems to be more and more frequent in the modern society. Some parents want to please their children with everything they want and deny them using the word "no" very occasionally. In this way they promote egocentrism, lack of empathy and low frustration tolerance. 4
1 

Tremblay, R. E.; Gervais, J.; Petitclerc, A. (2008) “Early Learning prevents Youth Violence”, Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development, University of Montreal.

2 

Díaz Pernas, P.; Bonet de Luna, C. (2005) “Las rabietas en la infancia: qué son y cómo aconsejar a los padres”, Revista Pediatría de Atención Primaria, volumen VII, número 25, páginas 67-74.

3 

Torrico Linares, Y.; Cañete Estrada, R.; Torrico Linares, E. (2002) “Valoración de los conocimientos de salud infantil en jóvenes universitarios de Córdoba”, Vox Paediatrica, volumen 10, número 1, páginas 37-46.
Herrera Torres, L.; Mesa Franco, M. C.; Ortiz Gómez, M. M.; Rojas Ruiz, G.; Seijo Martínez, D.; Alemany Arrebola, I. (2010) “Una aproximación al desarrollo evolutivo infantil: nivel de conocimiento y demanda de información”, Revista de Educación, número 352, páginas 219-244.

4 

Garrido Genovés, V. (2005) Los hijos tiranos: el síndrome del emperador, Barcelona: Ariel. Marulanda, Á. (1998) Creciendo con nuestros hijos. Colombia: Cargraphics-Imprelibros.

Objectives

1.
To identify the child´s needs and to respond to them in an adequate way.

2.
To know the most important milestones in early child development.

3.
To learn different ways parents use to respond to a tantrum and to think about the consequences.

4.
To know different types of frustration and to think about the importance of teaching our children to deal with it.

User's profile

This module is designed for parents with children between 0 and 6 years old, eager to know more about education. With this module they can improve their educational knowledge and skills on nurturing, they can think about their parenting role, share their experience with other parents and learn from them.