How To Help Your Child Break Bad Habits

I think as parents we are sometimes the last to see our children’s bad habits. Many times we are the cause of these bad habits. For example when they are toddlers we give them an ipad to keep them quiet and busy but when they are in high school they spend all their time on YouTube. We manipulate them to do what we want when they are children by buying or giving them things they want in exchange for them doing a chore or task. As they grow older their prize for doing the tasks grows bigger as well as their own understanding of what is going on. Now we have a child that is disrespectful to teachers and elders if they don’t receive their “prize” for obedience. 

Don’t feel bad, I think all of us are guilty to some degree of enabling our children’s bad habits. Because we love them so much and so forgiving we also often are the last to recognize these bad habits. However, habits can be broken, they can be changed. So when we do recognize the problem how do we change it? I don’t have enough room in this small blog to write out a detailed explanation but there are plenty of sources on the internet. So here is a bullet point list of actions to take when you finally discover a problem.

• Communicate - When you first recognize the problem or habit, calmly start to point out your observations to your child with explanations on why it might not be beneficial for them. Talk through the habit and its roots. Admit and point out your guilt in enabling the habit, ask for forgiveness and demand change. Don’t nag, talk rationally with them.
• Model - I guarantee that when you point out a habit your child is immediately going to call you out on your habits and actions. Be realistic and reflect, they might be right. Agree, and work on changing your behavior especially if they agree to change theirs. However, remind them that changing their behavior regardless of your changes might be beneficial to their future, not yours. Ask them to help you change.
• Help - Breaking habits is not easy and is a step by step process. I suggest reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book will give you a step by step process of tiny changes that will help your child break bad habits. Work through and discuss with them a routine and way to help them. When they see you working to help them they are more likely to be motivated to change.
• Create the Environment - habits are formed through routines either physical or mental and often both working together. So make sure you think and create a new environment, a new routine that disrupts your old routine and allows for a new habit to form and grow. You can’t just say you're going to change and change, make sure you set up an environment to succeed.
• Be Determined - When trying to change a habit or reach a goal we all know that there will be times when we fail, when we are not able to stay disciplined or focused on the tasks at hand. When that happens, many people give up. Your child must be determined, you must want to keep moving forward. So when a small failure occurs, get back as soon as possible to your new routine.
• Make it Satisfying - Nobody is going to want to change if the long term result is not satisfying and beneficial in some way. Make sure that the new habit will be better than the old one. Make sure you communicate and show this to your child.
• Love - The highest form of love is confrontation. Remember to do whatever is in the interest of the person you love - in this case your child. Do not back down, make sure you sacrifice and show them your love for them and you will do anything and everything to help them succeed, even if that makes your relationship with them uncomfortable.  

Famous Alumni

Phebe Novakovic, is the CEO of General Dynamics and listed in Forbes as the 25th most powerful businessman in the world. She graduated from Smith College, a small, highly regarded all women’s liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts as a double major with German and Government degrees in 1979 and almost a decade later received her MBA from University of Pennsylvania in 1988.