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Reorientation is both a strict and kind approach to the child’s behavior, implying his full responsibility for his actions. The principle of reorientation is based on mutual respect between parents and children. This method provides for natural and logical consequences for the undesirable behavior of the child, which we will discuss in detail later, and ultimately enhances the child’s self-esteem and improves his character.
Reorientation does not involve any special, radically new educational techniques that will make your child behave well. Reorientation is a new way of life, the essence of which is to create situations where there are no losers among parents, teachers and coaches, and among children. When children feel that you do not intend to subordinate their behavior to your will, but, on the contrary, are trying to find a reasonable way out of a life situation, they show more respect and willingness to help you.
Distinctive features of the goals of the child’s behavior
Rudolf Dreikurs saw the misbehavior of children as a misguided target that could be redirected. He roughly divided bad behavior into four main categories, or goals: attention, influence, revenge and evasion. Use these categories as a starting point for identifying the misguided goal of your child’s behavior. I am not suggesting that you label your children in order to clearly relate these four conditional goals to them, because each child is a unique individual. Still, these goals can be used to understand the intentions of a particular behavior of the child.
Bad behavior is food for thought.
When we see bad behavior become unbearable, we want to influence our children in some way, which often ends up using scare tactics (approach from a position of strength). When we consider bad behavior as food for thought, we ask ourselves this question: “What does my child want to tell me with his behavior?” This allows us to remove the growing tension in relations with him in time and at the same time increases our chances to correct his behavior.