Anyone who has cared for children knows that, in certain respects, they can be like a time bomb. Bad” behaviour and tantrums are an element that can appear with astonishing frequency; in most cases, what is rare is that children stick to the rules we set for them , not the opposite.

However, if children have an almost natural tendency to disregard rules, parents have not developed an innate and intuitive ability to deal with this. They must learn from their experience to do so and pay close attention to what strategies they use to curb their children’s misbehavior.

Unfortunately, in this process of learning by doing, a number of very frequent errors appear that are completely avoidable. In most cases, detecting and eliminating them takes time and effort, so if you want to save yourself the trouble, you can always read what follows: the most frequent errors that parents make when faced with their children’s disobedience .

Frequent traps to avoid when children disobey

During childhood ideas as abstract as civility, constancy or long-term plans mean nothing . Sigmund Freud said that this reflected the nature of the Ello, one of the three psychic structures that according to him operated in the back of the mind of human beings. However, outside of psychoanalysis this phenomenon has a scientifically explained reason: its frontal lobes are not so connected to the rest of the brain as to make its decisions go far beyond the here and now.

In fact, during the first months of life, babies have serious difficulties in “unhooking” their attention from the first thing they see, even if they sense that there is something more important beside them that they are not looking at. As the neurons in the infant brain become more connected to each other, forming so-called white matter, the ability to orient one’s actions towards long-term goals improves , but this is a gradual process that doesn’t end until well into adolescence.

Therefore, what parents should aim at is to adapt to their children’s mentality and to create coexistence strategies that are not toxic for both sides. Let’s see what the most frequent mistakes are when it comes to managing children’s disobedience at home.

1. Demonstrations of power

One of the traps parents fall into is taking disobedience as a direct challenge to their authority, something that should be handled as if it were a game of military intimidation.

That a child does not comply with the rules does not mean that he or she does so to challenge . In fact, it is more likely that his actions are simply a consequence of his disregard for those rules, that he forgets them. This is very common, since many times norms of behaviour that seem to us to be common sense are, in their eyes, meaningless, something that is not understood and therefore not memorized.

So, to avoid this error, we must first make sure that we are dealing with a case of “disobedience” or, rather, of simple “nonobedience”. If the latter is the case, one must strive to make the son or daughter understand what logic lies behind the rule.

2. Imitate the tantrum

Seeing a child scream and verbally attack us for a rule he doesn’t like can tempt us to do basically the same thing: get angry and fight back. But in these cases this is nothing more than fighting fire with fire , and only serves to make two people have a stressful and unpleasant time.

If this tantrum results in a punishment, which is very common, it should be noted that this punishment will not be interpreted as anything other than an extension of the parent’s tantrum . That is: the reason for the punishment will be one of personal satisfaction related to what the adult feels in the here and now, nothing else.

That’s why children who receive punishment constantly develop resentment and frustration, which in no way leads them to behave better, but rather to behave worse in a better way, without receiving the punishment.

3. Yield

Giving in when children refuse to follow certain rules is always counterproductive, as it is an act that speaks for itself and whose message is “disobeying works” . In other words, one comes to believe that following the rules is optional and, by extension, the rules are useless. They are simply an annoying obstacle to avoid, whether they are present or not.

4. Make it look like nothing happened

This error is similar to the previous one, but with a nuance. While if we give in we are implying that the rule is eliminated and no longer counts, by ignoring the transgression of the rule we introduce a good deal of ambiguity into the situation. Is the parent not acting because he or she has not realized that he or she has disobeyed, or has he or she realized and has not considered that to be important? The feeling of neglect and that what one does does does not matter to anyone is very negative, even if this option is the most comfortable in the short term for the adult : simply, avoid getting into trouble

Thus, disobedience must always have a consequence, even if it is the reformulation of the rules to find a better balance between the two interests. Negotiation can be very positive, since it is a way to demonstrate the idea that the needs and concerns of the children are taken into account and respected .