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Your child is learning the habits you actually keep
Children copy what they watch, not what they are told. This is how a household changes a habit on purpose.
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01 What you are working with
A habit is a behaviour you run without deciding to
Pulins keeps the definition small on purpose. A habit is an action you perform with little or no thought about doing it, like reaching for the seat belt or pushing the door shut behind you. You may not notice you are doing it at all.
That is what makes habits worth teaching and hard to teach. Because most of them form below the level of choice, neither you nor your child has a reliable list of them. So the work starts with noticing, not with correcting.
The book then gives one test. Once you have spotted a habit, ask whether the result you get is the result you meant to get. Making a to do list gets the day's tasks done, so it stays. Biting your nails when you are nervous leaves you nervous and short of a fingernail, so it goes. A habit is not bad because it looks bad. It is bad because it does not deliver.
Remember, just because your habits seem “bad” does not mean that you are. It simply means that you should attempt to replace those habits with healthier ones so that you live your happiest life.Chapter 1, Defining Healthy Habits
Name one thing you did today without deciding to do it. Then ask the single question: did it get you the result you actually wanted? That answer, not your opinion of the habit, is the verdict.
02 Where children get their habits
What you do outranks what you say, every time
The book opens its second chapter with the line most parents have used at least once: do as I say, not as I do. It then explains why that instruction never works. Children learn habits the same way they learned to walk and talk, by watching you and repeating it.
Pulins makes the point concrete. Hand a toddler your makeup brush or a game controller and watch them hold it the way you hold it. The habit you leave food on the table, or the habit you stock the pantry with fruit, is being copied at the same time and by the same mechanism.
This is why the first chapter of practical work in the book is about the parent. You are the one deciding the diet, the playtime and the activities, so the child's options are already set by your habits before any teaching starts. The book cites one study showing that when a parent smokes, their children are twice as likely to smoke in adulthood as children of parents who never smoked.
Kids are sponges, and they absorb everything they see and hear you do.Chapter 2, How Parents’ Habits Affect Children
Before you correct a single habit of your child's, list your own, good and bad. The book puts this step ahead of everything else: you cannot pour from an empty cup, and you cannot teach a habit you are visibly not keeping.
03 The mechanism
Every habit has three parts, and only the middle one has to change
This is the engine of the book. Before you break or build anything, identify the three Rs: the reminder, the routine and the reward.
The reminder is what sets the habit off. It can be a behaviour, like turning off the light as you leave a room, or a feeling, like irritation or anxiety. The routine is what you then do. The reward is the good thing you get at the end, and it is the reason the habit keeps running.
Once all three are named, the fix is narrow. You do not have to eliminate the trigger or give up the reward. You swap the routine for one that still pays out. Pulins works this through with a late bedtime: television after dinner is the reminder, losing track of time is the routine, and the enjoyment of the show is the reward. Find another route to that enjoyment and the late night has nothing holding it up.
The book gives five questions for tracking down a trigger you cannot see. Where are you when the habit starts? What time of day is it? What are you feeling? Is anyone else involved? Does it always follow something else, and if so, what?
04 The four phases
Change moves through four phases, and the family joins at the second
Pulins borrows a four phase plan: contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance. Naming the phase you are in stops you judging yourself for not being further along.
Contemplation is thinking. You have noticed the benefit of a change but you are not ready to start, and that is a real stage, not procrastination. Preparation is where the household comes in. Call a family meeting, get out a pen and paper, and let every person name habits of their own they think are healthy and habits they think are not. Set the goals there, out loud, together.
Action is the part everyone pictures, and it is also where the obstacles show up. Maintenance is holding it, which the book treats as its own job rather than as a finish line. Falling back through the phases happens, and the book says so plainly.
Pen, paper, everyone at the table. Each person names one habit of theirs they think is healthy and one they think is not. Then talk about why each one is good or bad, state the goals, and ask for input on how to reach them. Nobody is assigned a habit by decree.
05 Who does the work
A habit handed down is obeyed. A habit shared is kept
The book is firm that the household changes together. When everyone practises the same habit, everyone can hold everyone else to it, and the child is not the only one being managed.
That principle shows up in small rules. Never ask a child to do a chore you would not do yourself, and do the chores alongside them so their contribution feels real rather than delegated. Let them do the job badly the first time, because taking the cloth out of a toddler's hand teaches them that a half finished job gets them out of finishing. Model accountability by apologising when you are the one who got it wrong.
Then give the habits somewhere to live. Eat together, cook together, plan the trip together, learn something together. Brush teeth together, clean together, exercise together. Habits are easier to hold when nobody is holding them alone.
Healthy habits start with you. Always practice the behavior you want to see in your family, and your kids will be more likely to follow in your footsteps.Chapter 2 summary
Pick one habit you have been asking your child to keep alone, and do it at the same time they do. Teeth, tidying, a walk after dinner. Same habit, same clock, both of you, until nobody has to be asked.
06 What ends most attempts
All or nothing thinking breaks more habits than the habits do
The book is direct about the timescale. Habits are not made or broken overnight, and it can take up to three months to break one. Anyone expecting a fortnight will quit before the change has had a chance to hold.
Inside that stretch there will be slips. The danger is not the slip itself but the story attached to it: one bad evening becomes proof you were never going to manage it, and the whole plan is dropped. Pulins names this the all or nothing mindset and tells you to let go of it, because you will make mistakes and you will need to keep going anyway.
The rest of the chapter is about reducing how often the slip happens. Start small rather than going cold turkey, and do not take on several habits at once. Change the environment so the trigger appears less, by putting the lighter away or throwing out the takeaway menus. Write down why you want the change and leave the paper where you will see it. Enlist someone doing the same thing so you are accountable to each other.
Prepare yourself for mistakes. Breaking a bad habit is not easy, and you won’t get it right every time. Be patient with yourself and keep trying.Chapter 4, Tips for Changing Bad Routines
Write down, on paper, why this habit is worth changing and what it costs you now. Put it where you will see it daily. Then remove one physical reminder of the old routine from the room it happens in.
07 The real test
A habit only counts where you are not standing
Seven of the eleven chapters take the same habits somewhere else: hygiene, the household, social media, school and study, the street and the shops, friendships, holidays. That structure is the argument. A habit that needs you present is not a habit yet.
The book expects the gap to show. Children act out when they are outside their comfort zone, so you often meet a bad habit for the first time in public or at a friend's house rather than at home. That is not a new habit appearing. It is the old one meeting the moment supervision stopped.
So the teaching changes shape as the distance grows. At school it is asking the question the moment you have it, and understanding rather than memorising. Online it is knowing that nothing posted is temporary and that a friendship needing to be secret is a warning. With friends it is the ALERT test the book borrows for choosing them: amiable, loyal, encouraging, respectful, thoughtful. Be the friend you want to have.
Teach them to make healthy decisions on their own, not just when you are watching.Chapter 3 summary
Talk to the other adults in your child's week: grandparents, teachers, the parents of their friends. The book calls this promoting health outside the family. One habit expected in every house your child enters is worth more than three enforced in yours.
08 The whole book
Three parts to every habit, one household to change them in
Whatever the habit and whoever holds it, the book takes it apart the same way. Name the three pieces, keep two, and replace the one in the middle.
Reminder
The trigger that sets the habit off, whether a behaviour or a feeling. Find it with five questions: where, when, what were you feeling, who else was there, what happened just before.
Routine
The only piece you have to swap. Choose a replacement that reaches the same payoff, start small, and expect the change to take up to three months.
Reward
The good thing at the end, and the reason the habit survives. Take it away and nothing sticks. Route to it differently and the old behaviour has nothing to hold on to.
A child with a bad habit has not been failed by you. They are watching how you handle yours, which means the fastest way to teach a habit is to change one of your own in front of them.
Adapted from How Parents Can Help Their Children Develop Powerful Life-changing Habits
Vernice Pulins · © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 40 cited sources in the source edition