Encouraging and establishing right moral behavior in children requires consistency and clarity of instruction. Wholesome discipline is always consistent. Unless your instructions are clear and consistent, your child is at a loss to know what to do. Principle Four Require eye contact when giving face to face instruction. Make it a standard practice to get your child to look you in the eyes when you are speaking.
Eye contact is a focusing skill and helps any child process instructions.
The child that is allowed to look around rather than at Mom or Dad as instructions are given, often struggles with compliance. Principle Five Understanding context prevents first-time obedience from becoming legalistic. Unless you give due consideration to the context of the moment, you may judge your child's right actions wrongly, and you may neglect wrong actions entirely. Moving a child from a crib to a bed takes place in the toddler phase of development, not the pretoddler phase. A child who is trained to first-time obedience greatly facilitates this transition.