Hacking your kid 101: House Rules
“I didn’t know I couldn’t that”
“That’s not fair!”
“Suzie didn’t get in trouble for doing that”
Have you ever set rules in your home that just seem to constantly keep getting broken? Do your kids complain that the rules are unfair? Or maybe that there are too many rules? No worries! I have a simple way of setting up house rules that makes it easy for kids to remember, easy to implement and enforce, and are consistently fair! Let’s take a look!
Rules are meant to be broken…
Before we get started, I’d like to mention that in a way the above statement is true, especially for kids. This is because kids learn by testing the boundaries that we set for them, I mean think about it for second…
Why did you follow a rule the last time you were given one? Is it because you’ve had experience with breaking a rule and had to suffer the consequences?
We can also flip this…When is the last time you didn’t follow a rule? Did you think the outcome of breaking the rule outweighed the consequence?
Now to put this into context, you’ve had YEARS of experience to learn what the consequence of breaking a rule would be in order to make the decision that is best for you…kids, well, you are the place where they are learning this!
Having realistic expectations…
If we understand that kids are learning the ins and outs of following rules, we can create more realistic expectations for ourselves and for them! Know that…
Kids need rules! It helps to give them structure and know what is okay and not okay. Even if they are going through a hard time, they need that stability, consistency, and predictability.
Kids are going to break rules and that’s okay! As mentioned above, this is how they learn about consequences in life - which is why following through is so important!
Just because they break them, doesn’t mean they aren’t purposeful or that you shouldn’t have them! Sometimes it may mean the rule or consequence needs to be updated.
You don’t need a million rules! Most behaviors can be managed with things we have learned in previous blogs (Relationship skills, BE DIRECT, Selective Attention, Two-Choice time-out or removal of privileges)
Let’s learn how to set effective house rules!
House Rules!
Types of behaviors that need House Rules…
Aggressive behaviors: hitting, kicking, biting, hair pulling etc.
Destructive behaviors: throwing, breaking toys, writing on walls, etc.
Unacceptable behaviors: this one tends to be unique to the family. Some examples may be cursing, name calling, teasing, not sharing, etc.
Setting up the House Rules…
Choose 1-3 rules. I know, I know, you’re probably like, “but wait, my kid is doing ALL of those things that you just listed above and none of those are acceptable in my home!” I get that. Remember, we are helping our kid’s learn! If we give them anymore than 3 rules they are more likely to forget the rules and break them. So when choosing the rules - think about the behavior that is most impacting you and your family. For example, maybe your child is frequently breaking their toys and cursing. If they break their toy, they have a natural consequence of no longer being able to use that toy, whereas they are not getting this natural consequence for cursing and it is extremely embarrassing for you in public outings. In this case, I would definitely want a house rules of not using bad words.
Make sure your kid understands the rules. Sometimes we think kids know what we mean by “don’t use bad words” but most often we have directly state what is okay and what is not okay. On top of that, if we only tell kids what not to do, they may not know what to do. So, when setting up rules it helps to state the rules both positively and negatively. For example, “In this house we don’t use bad words like ___, we use nice words ___ or tell each other how we feel.”
Make sure your kid understands the consequence. I don’t about you, but even as an adult I still have moments where I wonder if it would be worth to break a rule - especially if I don’t think the consequence would be that bad. This is with years of experience and a fully developed brain!! Kids need to know what they are getting themselves into - whether that is an automatic time-out or automatic removal of privileges. This also aids them in developing the ability to weigh pros and cons, which we want to see, even if it means they break the rules every once in awhile.
Keep it simple! Use some sort of visual to write out the rules such as a sheet of paper or white board. If your kid has destructive behaviors, I would recommend using a sheet of paper and laminating it because they will try to destroy the rules. Below is a simple way to write the rule, you can also use pictures for the littler ones!
“The house rule is no hitting. In this house we use nice hands. If we hit, we go to time-out.”
Implementing House Rules…
Have a family meeting. It is important that the house rule is for everyone in the house (yes, including you!). During the meeting, ensure everyone understands the rules - having each family member read a rule can be helpful to check for understanding.
Have a 3-day grace period. It can be a little jolting to suddenly have new rules implemented. Think about if your boss came in one day and said, “as of today, everyone has to enter each room with their left foot or they get sent home.” It would take a little getting used to and would feel unfair if he sent you home the first time you accidentally used your right foot. So during this 3-day grace period, you are labelling the behavior and possible consequence. For instance, if the house rule is “no using bad words. We use nice words. If we use bad words we go to time-out.” Throughout the week, you want to highlight examples of BOTH bad words and nice words for your child. For example, “that was a nice thing you said to your sister, you would not have to go to time-out for that” OR “that was a bad word, starting Tuesday, that will be an automatic time-out.”
Automatic consequence. After the grace period, BE CONSISTENT! In the previous blog, we learned how to give a two-choice time-out or removal of privileges - in this instance, we are not giving them two-choices, it is automatic. So if we were using that same script, we would remove the counting and the warning and move to Parent Gives explanation and Takes Child to Time-Out by stating, “you hit your sister, that is an automatic time-out” and then follow the rest of the script. Please note that if you have multiple children in the home at different developmental levels, you may need different consequences depending on their developmental level. A time-out to a teen may seem like a reward.
Updating Rules. Once your child is consistently following the rules you set, you can update them to other behaviors. Occasionally, the old behavior will pop up and in that case, add it back to the house rules - just don’t exceed 3!
Let’s go back to the start…
Even with the most perfectly implemented house rule - the rules will be broken, new behaviors will pop up, and old ones will vanish only to reappear at a later date. If we keep in mind that kids break rules to learn and that even we as adults test the boundaries of the world, we can handle our kids behavior from a place of understanding and help them to successfully navigate this world.
