Teaching Tip: Enforce The Do’s, Not Don’ts

You hear it all the time. As parents or teachers, we attempted to enforce rules on child. Most of the rules appear in a negative form like “Don’t run” or “Don’t touch”. Enforcing these rules, tend to promote resistance by children as they attempt to control their surroundings.

Instead, change your thinking to reinforce positive statements by enforcing the Do’s, not the Don’ts.

Turn all your statements into positive statements. Here’s some examples:

Negative Statement	Positive Statement
“Don’t Run”	“Please walk in an orderly fashion”
“Don’t Touch”	“Let’s only look without touching”
“Don’t Push”	“We need to keep our hands to ourselves”
“Don’t jump on equipment”	“Please, use the equipment properly”

Negative statements may stop behavior but don’t provide direction for the student which in turn, causes the student to return to the behavior. Positive statements enforce good behavior, provide directions, and set positive expectations.