Making and reinforcing rules is a primary parenting task that all of us must attend to throughout our children's growing years. This is because rules play such an integral role in helping our children learn how to conduct themselves in various situations and participate as a social being in one's community or culture. Equally important, rules help us govern our behavior toward each other to promote mutual growth and wellbeing. Ultimately, rules are the tools we use as parents to teach our children values as well as develop self-discipline.

In the 1980s, the notion of using "consequences" as a means of developing and reinforcing desired behavioral patterns in children was popularized among child specialists and parents alike. The methodology was probably best articulated for the public in a landmark book called Positive Discipline authored by Jane Nelson and published in 1981. The basic approach involved establishing consequences for specific misbehaviors that were aimed at helping children experience the results of their mistakes.

The following is our top ten list of guidelines for managing your child's behavior. While we consider each of them to be equally important, we purposely listed the first three ahead of the others as we consider these to provide the base upon which parents can successfully manage children's behavior.