The moment one becomes a parent, their life changes. Suddenly your little one becomes your life, and you would want the best for him, and for him to grow up to be a healthy, happy and honest person. Now with you having his best interests at heart, it can be heartbreaking to see him being rude, impolite and downright mean, especially to other kids.
If that’s what you’re struggling with, here’s some help your way. Read on to discover how you can help your kids stop being mean to other kids and people.
Explain Why
If your child is exhibiting mean behaviour or being impolite and aggressive, you need to help him identify his behaviour, and get him to understand that it is wrong, no matter how young he is. Children need to understand the difference between good and bad behaviour at a very early stage. You can do this by helping him understand these differences from a third-person perspective. For example, you can put on a children’s movie that shows these two different sides, or pick up some good storybooks and introduce these concepts through bedtime stories.
Offer Unconditional Love
You may not believe it, but unconditional love really is the greatest teacher, and it can work wonders in helping your kid develop into a more happy, kind and compassionate person. When your child feels loved and accepted by you- one of the most important people in his life, he’ll bloom.
True, loving your child when he’s a mean person can be hard, but trust us on this, it is exactly what your kid needs to grow into a loving person.
Be a Good Person
Contrary to popular belief, our children don’t do what we ‘say’ but rather what we ‘do.’ If you’re a good person who has the qualities of kindness and empathy. You demonstrate that in your day to day life, your kid will pick that up and learn to do the same from you- won’t even have to push him to do it.
Get a Pet
True – adopting a pet does mean having a new responsibility, and it can be a big deal for most parents, but this move can prove to be a win-win for you in many ways. Having a pet has been found to help make younger kids more responsible in life, so that’s one benefit right there. Plus, bringing another tiny family member in your home can help your kid learn important lessons in kindness and caring for other living beings.
Choose the Right Words
No one likes to listen to someone who goes on and on, ranting and complaining, so make sure you aren’t that parent. Instead, be stingy with your words when it comes to helping your kid understand why he shouldn’t be a mean person and try to be more kind and respectful. For example, saying ‘You’re better than that” can work better than an hour-long lecture about why he shouldn’t be impolite.
This is so interesting as I’ve just written a post about what to do when other kids are being mean to your kid but I love the line of parental responsibility taken here.
Oooh will pop over and check out your post, unfortunately my children have been on the receiving end many times which I hope has helped them to see where I am coming from when teaching them x
Kids sometimes can be one of the meanest and again we should teach way before ways and explaining it clearly.
Unfortunately children can be very cruel but hopefully as parents we can make them see there is another way x
It can be so difficult, especially once they are at school. Thankfully my kids seem to be kind but my eldest has fallen in trouble before because a girl she was hanging around with had been sending nasty messages to other girls. We had to really carefully explain to her that she needed to disassociate with this particular girl.
Yes sadly, for all the good we put into them it only takes one misguided friend to take them on a different path x
Such an important post and so well put! Well done!
Thank you, it horrible to think of your own kids being mean but it certainly happens x
I’m lucky both boys are never been, they are the complete opposite. They are very sensitive which is also a worry as I often think they may be on the receiving end.
Yes, that is a worry, two of my children are particularly sensitive and are often on the receiving end. The good thing is that the school do seem to get onto it quite quickly.