(NAPSI)—Experts say that while children are great learning machines, they actually learn more through experience than they do from their parents talking.

If you are finding it a challenge to discipline your child, a national child care organization started over 90 years ago offers the following tips:

• Teach children acceptable and unacceptable behavior immediately after they do or don’t do something. Don’t wait.

• For important matters such as commands or instructions, speak less; one or two words for every year the child has been alive is more effective than an elaborate rationale.

• Be very clear. “Would you” or “could you” is not as clear as “you have to.”

• Use positive motivation way more than punishment.

• Create a positive learning environment; four to five pleasant interactions to one unpleasant direction.

The source of these tips—Boys Town—counsels families and schools across the country on best parenting and discipline practices. These strategies incorporate those teachings and can be used for effective parenting in the home.

Children Learn by Doing

“The general rule, especially as it pertains to behavior, is that children learn by doing things,” says Dr. Pat Friman, Boys Town director of Clinical Research. “They need what they have done to change their experience in certain ways, primarily in a pleasant or unpleasant way.”

About Boys Town

Nationally, Boys Town has been a beacon of hope for America’s children and families through its life-changing youth care and health care programs for more than 90 years.

In 2011, Boys Town’s Integrated Continuum of youth care and health care programs served more than 500,000 children and families across America. This includes those who received services from Boys Town’s residential programs as well as those served by the many varied programs that comprise the Boys Town Integrated Continuum of Child and Family Services.

These services include in-home family services, health care services provided by Boys Town National Research Hospital and the Boys Town National Hotline.

To learn more about parenting, visit www.parenting.org/friman. To learn more about BoysTown, visit www.boystown.org. Its national hotline offers free advice to parents, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For assistance, call (800) 448-3000.

 

On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate (NAPSI)