Do you ever feel like so many words that come out of your mouth to your kids are direct orders?  A big part of preventing bad behavior in kids is to provide encouraging words to reinforce good behavior when you see it.

The best part about using encouraging words with your kids is the glow of happiness you’ll see on their faces.

Have you problems with getting your kids to listen to you and follow your insteuctions? Kids will be more attentive and more likely to zone in if you use positive words. We're guility of some of the below oursleves, so we're going to try to work on these phrases to use when engaging with our kids.

Try “Mum / Dad would be much happier to see you do X instead.”

Try “I know that your not happy with what just happened, Mum / Dad is here to help”

Steer away from “I’m busy.”
Perhaps try “I'd really like to play, but I just need a little time to finish this important thing and then we can play together.”

We can all be guilty of yelling “Stop that!”
How about saying “If you keep that up, you might hurt yourself.”

When you say “You don’t listen to me!”
Think about changing it to “Mum / Dad will be really happy if you follow what I say.”

When “Why can’t you be more like your sister or brother?” slips out...
Next time try “Your brother or sister is doing something really great that makes Mum / Dad happy, You should try and do that as well.”

Kids don’t respond well to threats or commands, especially if it's something that they don't want to do. Change strategy and try to explain why you want them to do a particular thing. Try using these suggestions and you just might get the response you are looking for. Good luck!