How Many Times Do You Have To Remind Your Child?
What is the difference between reminding and nagging? Where do you draw the line? I believe that this is one of many grey areas in parenting – and I am not alone. A post by Kori Rodley Irons prompted me to write a post on this topic. In her blog, she poses the questions:
Do we remind our children until they do what we need them to? Do we put a limit on how many times we are going to remind them? Is there a grace period? Do we mix it up and use notes, signs, and verbal reminders? What is the right way to go about managing and issuing those annoying reminders?
Based on experience, I believe the best way is to instill a sense of responsibility in our children early on. When you ask them to do something, try to make them understand that there are consequences to their action or their inaction. Of course, in the beginning, you would probably have to keep on reminding until they realize that there is no way out of it. This could be dubbed as nagging by some people but perhaps the difference lies in the fact that you are reminding because you are trying to teach your children something and not because you are getting irritated that they are not taking some action.
Therein lies the difficulty. Being able to keep reminding without getting mad is not an easy thing to do. Perhaps in this aspect, we have some learning to do as well.
March 21, 2008 at 4:09 am
Hi Lara-
As you can imagine, this is one of those topics that parents bring up to me often. With all the talk about helicopter parenting it can be confusing for parents to know when they should prompt and when they should back off. It’s a balancing act between disciplining and teaching self reliance.
Sometimes the best consequences are natural consequences that occur when the child simply forgets to do what he’s supposed to do. Forgot to put your uniform in the wash? Guess you can’t play today. Forgot to put your favorite shoes back in the closet? Now you can’t find them and you’ll have to wear another pair.
My husband’s mother had some hilarious ways to deal with this problem– for instance, if he left dishes in the sink, she’d put them in his bed. I see you cracking a smile- it certainly had an impact.
I happened to write about teaching self reliance today– perhaps it would be helpful to your readers:
http://drrobyn.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/you-can-do-it-7-ways-to-teach-your-children-self-reliance-and-responsibility/
Have a great weekend-
Dr. Robyn
March 25, 2008 at 10:51 am
Thanks for this Dr. Robyn. Would you mind if I write something about your article sometime in the future?
Thanks!