Cooperation is a social skill that all children have to learn, and teaching your children to share at an early age is the best way to begin teaching them about cooperation. Learning to share helps kids understand that they have to cooperate with each other to have fun. As kids get older, they’ll need to begin cooperating with others in bigger ways.  At school, kids need to cooperate with other students when working on a group project or playing on the playground. Your family cooperates at home by cleaning the house together or leaving the house on time for an outing. In these 15 blogs, tips will be given to teach cooperation through modeling the behavior, praising your child for successful cooperation and communicating positively.

Modeling

As with many other skills, children learn cooperation by watching others cooperate. You might think that your child will learn to cooperate without any active input from you, but the truth is they learn best by watching you model desired behaviors. As a parent, you need to make sure that you are actively showing them how to cooperate with others. Do you count to three to get your kids to obey what you tell them? Do you threaten them with a time-out? If your kids do what you say simply because you are bigger and you make them do it, you are modeling bullying instead of cooperation. These five blog articles will explain how to model cooperation.

• Teach Your Young Children to Share Through Early Lessons in Cooperation By modeling cooperation when you’re cooking or playing music your child can learn how to cooperate.
• How to Teach Preschoolers About Cooperation Teach cooperation by role playing different situations for the kids.
• Six Communication Tricks That Will Get Your Kids to Cooperate One way to model cooperation is by inviting your child to do something and then offering to help them with it.
• Teaching Cooperation In order to learn cooperation your child needs to see a give and take action modeled; by working with your child on this it becomes a win/win situation.
• 6 Methods for Getting Kids to Cooperate Sometimes your kids may need you to cooperate with them and show them how it’s done.

Praise

Everyone enjoys receiving praise. It makes you feel appreciated and valued. When teaching your child to cooperate it’s important to praise his efforts. And while it’s important for your child to cooperate with others, it is also important for you to cooperate with your child. It’s a two-way street. For instance, some kids don’t like to do chores. That’s not unusual because there are many adults that don’t like to do chores either. But by working with your child and discovering his strengths you can figure out how to get him to do his chores without argument. Learn more about using praise to teach cooperation by reading these five blogs.

• Cooperation Makes it Happen Make sure that you praise a positive attitude when your child cooperates.
• 10 Creative Ways to Gain Kids Cooperation Kids want to please their parents, so when you praise your child for cooperating you will encourage that behavior.
• 5 Ways to Increase Cooperation When Kids Won’t Do Their Chores Watch this video and learn how to determine your child’s strengths, then praise him for what he does well and try to work on the things he will excel at instead of assigning chores without discussion.
• Teaching Kids to Solve Problems Let your child know that you believe in him and his ability to solve problems. Give him the opportunity to solve those problems and he will develop cooperation with you and with others.
• How to Fill Up a Child It’s important to take notice of the good things that people do; recognizing these things creates an atmosphere of love and cooperation instead of fighting.

Speak So Kids will Listen

Sometimes parents think their children aren’t cooperating because they ignore them when they ask them to do something. However, often the child is so engrossed in what they are doing or watching that they literally don’t hear the request. Instead of making sure that your child is listening the first time, parents will raise their voice and get angry when they have to repeat the request several times. Keep the peace and get your child’s attention before you ask him to do something. Other ways to speak so that your child will listen and cooperate are discussed in these five blog posts.

• Why Can’t You Just Cooperate? Children may not listen to you because they get engrossed in what they are doing.
• Cooperation: You’ve Got to Speak Their Language Talk to your child in a way that he will respond to positively; learn the different styles of communicating in this blog article.
• Discipline: Teaching Through Love Instead of Fear Discuss your child’s needs and your own needs and work out a compromise so the two of you can cooperate to get the job done.
• 3 Best Daycare Games to Train Children Cooperation Explain how to play a game that will teach the kids to cooperate with each other.
• Cooperating with Children Give kids the opportunity to cooperate by asking them to do things. If they say no, then just say, “thanks anyway” and move on without argument.