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John Shanahan is a child

psychologist and works at Central Health, Southside Family Health Centre, and Island Health.

they will probably be tidier for a day, but soon revert to their true self!), replace this habit with another habit: You place everything they leave on the foor into a cardboard box and place it at the bottom of their wardrobe. Soon they will be looking in the box for their favourite jeans instead of blaming you for losing them, or complaining that they can’t fnd anything. The bad habit of leaving things on the foor will become the good habit of looking for things in the box.

If your child is constantly biting her fngernails, replace this habit with something that is less damaging to her cuticles: ask her to squeeze a small stress ball in her pocket. Remind her that whenever she feels like biting to squeeze the ball instead. Eventually this bad habit will become something that is not so damaging.

Reward. Don’t punish Reacting to the habit isn’t very effective. We need to be proactive. If you punish, that implies that the bad habit is conscious, that the child is choosing to engage in this behaviour. That’s just plain unfair. Once we have fgured out that it is an unconscious habit (unless it happens to be a time they are actually trying to annoy you or someone else) and we have decided on a better habit to replace this bad habit, we need to reward. Everyone loves rewards – it drives nearly everything humans do. We do what we do to receive money, or to help people, or to feel powerful, or to know that we are making the world a better place. Children and teenagers respond very well to rewards, and they don’t have to be monetary or materialistic. The reward is usually more effective (when used correctly) if it is not monetary or materialistic – hard to believe, but true. When your child successfully replaces a bad habit with a good one, or doesn’t do the bad habit at all, perhaps they could stay up a little later, or get to choose a dessert after dinner, or play an extra ten minutes with Dad, or spend the evening with Mum.

Think positive

Thinking positively doesn’t solve all of life’s problems, but it does help effect and instil change. If you think that you can help your child overcome his bad habit, or if your child himself feels that he can overcome this bad habit, then you have a better chance of making that happen than thinking nothing will help. If your child feels

like you believe in him, chances are that he, in turn, will believe in himself.

Find a (positive) role model This is a great strategy that can be applied to lots of different aspects of life. Ask your child to choose someone she aspires to be like. (Hopefully this will be someone who is a natural role model, like Nelson Mandela or

Albert Einstein, rather than Paris Hilton or Wayne Rooney!) Explain how hard work helped them reach their goals. For example: what would have happened if Barack Obama hadn’t done his homework when he was a kid? Get your child to put himself into his role model’s shoes and ask what they would do. One of my all-time favourite role models for kids is Harry Potter. Harry Potter didn’t give up when he was trying to fnd all of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s Horcruxes. He kept on trying.

These are quick-fx tips for any parent trying to get their child to stop a bad habit. However, it is important to work out if there is any underlying reason to the habit. Bad habits can sometimes be a sign that something underneath is really bothering your child. If you suspect that might be true for your child, it’s important that your child, or you as a parent, get the right help before the habit becomes a real issue. When in doubt, seek help from a professional who has experience working with children or teenagers.

Children and teenagers

respond very well to rewards, and they don’t have to be monetary or materialistic.

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