The New Year is a good time to set positive expectations and goals for your child each year. Some of these goals are for his school behavior, some are for his behavior at home and some might be for the future!
Children usually seem to live up to your highest or lowest expectations. Therefore it is a good idea to set reasonable but high goals. If you do not expect high goals then they will assume that it is acceptable and that they will still receive the child's usual reinforcers even if he does not perform as high as your child might be capable of performing.
At school parents should set some standards and the reinforcer that the child will receive. By definition the reinforcer is something your child wants and will increase his good behavior. For example, if your child likes outings to restaurants. If he does well at school with his grades during a particular week and there are no reports of behavior problems he might earn an outing to a restaurant your child loves.
At home it is good to have more frequent reinforcers set up since you are usually there to give them out. For example an activity schedule for the child with specified behavior to perform in order to get the reinforcer is helpful. Parents should try to expect no behavior problems so that the expectation is very high for that evening in order to get a story read in the evening for example. Also, expecting higher level skills like sharing, preparing food for others, helping other siblings is a good idea. Provide a strong reinforcer for these high expectations such as computer games or other games for example if your child likes these items. Also, pair the reinforcer with some praise which is specific to his character. Soon your child will believe he is a generous, affectionate, helpful hardworking person if you expect that from your child!:)
Children usually seem to live up to your highest or lowest expectations. Therefore it is a good idea to set reasonable but high goals. If you do not expect high goals then they will assume that it is acceptable and that they will still receive the child's usual reinforcers even if he does not perform as high as your child might be capable of performing.
At school parents should set some standards and the reinforcer that the child will receive. By definition the reinforcer is something your child wants and will increase his good behavior. For example, if your child likes outings to restaurants. If he does well at school with his grades during a particular week and there are no reports of behavior problems he might earn an outing to a restaurant your child loves.
At home it is good to have more frequent reinforcers set up since you are usually there to give them out. For example an activity schedule for the child with specified behavior to perform in order to get the reinforcer is helpful. Parents should try to expect no behavior problems so that the expectation is very high for that evening in order to get a story read in the evening for example. Also, expecting higher level skills like sharing, preparing food for others, helping other siblings is a good idea. Provide a strong reinforcer for these high expectations such as computer games or other games for example if your child likes these items. Also, pair the reinforcer with some praise which is specific to his character. Soon your child will believe he is a generous, affectionate, helpful hardworking person if you expect that from your child!:)
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