How to Teach Children the Value of Following Rules

The process of learning to follow rules begins at home, in early childhood. Parents are their children’s first teachers and this is one of the important lessons they can teach them. Home is where children learn about what rules are, why they are important and how to follow them. Teaching children the value of following rules begins by helping them to understand what rules are and why we have them.

Why Do Children Need Family Rules?

Family rules have two purposes: They create order and structure in the family, and they prepare children for the world outside the family.

Knowing this, Be Strong International focuses on helping our families to teach their children about following rules. Again and again, we’ve discovered that children are hungry for structure in their lives. In programs like the Raising the B.A.R. Parent Club, we help parents to see that rules aren’t about controlling rules to control their children but to help them understand what behaviors they expect and will accept. 

The first lesson is that it’s a world full of rules. Children need to know how to follow them and get along with the world once they leave the safety and security of their parents. They learn this with clear, simple statements about acceptable behaviors, which also state the consequences of not following the rules. Rules help children learn the difference between right and wrong, by giving them limits to test. This is what challenging behavior in children is all about. Children misbehave because they need to know just how far they can go before they face consequences. It’s an important part of child emotional development.

In other words, rules prepare children for the world outside the family and help them learn how to obey the rules they will encounter there. To teach your children the value of following rules, start by making them an active part in creating the rules they will follow.

What’s the Best Way to Teach Children About Family Rules?

Involving children in the rule-making process is one of the best ways to teach them its importance, writes Thomas Gordon, founder of the groundbreaking Parent Effectiveness Training program. Giving children an active role in setting rules has several positive results, according to Gordon:

Children feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem and self-confidence. Most important, they feel they have gained more “fate control” – more personal control over their own lives. They also feel they are equal members of the family with an equal voice in making decisions and establishing rules – they’re part of a team, not second-class citizens. This means that families that function collaboratively and democratically will have closer and warmer relationships than those in which the adults act as bosses or authorities expecting the children to obey the rules made for them.

In fact, parents’ effect on children is so strong that they’re more likely to accept rules if you bring them into the process and make them part of the team. 

Write Your Family’s Rules

Putting this into action, psychotherapist Avidan Milevsky, Ph.D., says families should not just create rules but a formal  constitution, a document similar to the official constitution that created the United States’ system of government. “Having a family constitution assists children in the family in understanding the rules that govern all family dynamics including sibling interactions,” Milevsky writes in Psychology Today. He recommends creating a document that covers major issues the family contends with, such as how siblings will interact with each other and how much TV everyone should watch. 

Now let’s take a look at how the process should take place. What kind of rules should you be writing?

What Makes a Good Rule?

To begin with, the number and kind of rules your family writes depend on how old the children are. Toddlers can probably only understand and remember two or three rules; pre-schoolers, not many more. 

Keeping this in mind, be smart about the rules you set. They should be:

• Specific and objective. “Be nice” isn’t helpful. “Don’t hit people” says exactly how you want the child to act. It’s easy to tell when the child breaks the rule.
• Clear and concise. The younger the child, the shorter the rule should be.
• Age-appropriate. Expecting a 5-year-old to remember and follow 10 or 20 rules isn’t realistic, while a teen-ager should be able to handle more complex ones.   

How to Set Family Rules That Work

The most effective rules are those that everyone agrees on and understands. They also have to make sense for your family. Take the time to think carefully about them. Here’s how to set smart family rules:

Identify Your Family’s Values

First, decide what kind of family you want to be. Look at things like how strict you want to be, how important your children’s education is, how you want to spend time together and whether to limit TV watching and online activity. 

Agree on the Rules

Next, have a family meeting to talk about the rules everyone will follow. Bring up the values you’ve identified and ask the children what values they want to uphold. Write rules that will support those values. 

Agree on Consequences

During the meeting, talk about what should happen if someone doesn’t follow a rule. Tailor the consequences to the severity of the offense and the age of the rule-breaker. If your 5-year-old “forgets” to put away their toys, you might take away their favorite toy for a few hours. If your teen-ager skips school, you might ground them for a few days. 

Enforce and Reinforce

Finally, once you’ve all agreed on consequences, follow through and enforce them. Consistency and timing are the keys to success here. Enforce consequences every time someone breaks a rule and as soon as you’re aware of the offense. Haphazard enforcement sends the message that you don’t care or even that you’ve rescinded the rule.

When your child follows a rule correctly, be sure to point it out and praise them. This not only makes them feel good about themselves, but it also reinforces the reason for the rule. “You put away your toys without being asked! Won’t it be great to know exactly where your stuffed bear is the next time you want to play with him?”

If they don’t follow the rule, point it out but focus on the behavior and its results. “You didn’t empty the dishwasher this morning like you were supposed to. Now you’ll have to wait a little longer for dinner because we can’t set the table yet.” (Bonus points for focusing on how the broken rule directly affects the rule breaker.)

Follow the Rules Yourself

It’s not just fair but it also avoids confusion. How can you enforce a rule against using screens at the dinner table if you’re checking your email between bites? If you don’t think a rule makes sense for you, an adult – a set bedtime or a curfew, for instance – don’t assume it’s “obvious.” Include the exception in the rules.

Following Rules for a Better World

As we’ve pointed out, rules bring order to your family and make it easier for everyone to live together. But we don’t have rules just to keep our homes clean and to have quiet dinners togethe. When you teach your child the value of following rules, you are teaching them how to get along in the world and how to value themselves as an important contributor to a better family and a better world.

Be Strong International has a wide variety of programs and services to help your family grow stronger together. Contact us today.