How to Use Picture Rules in the Living Room

Your #1 priority as a parent is to keep your children safe. You are their Safekeeper! Picture Rules help everyone in the family keep it safe by showing children exactly what we want them to do to keep it safe in a given situation. Mom and Dad help keep the Bug Family safe by posting Picture Rules near the fireplace and referring to them often.

The right hemisphere of the brain is in charge of self-regulation. Because the right hemisphere processes information in images, it’s important to show children visual images of what acceptable behaviors look like.

Focus on safety when you create your rules and format them in the “do, do, don’t” style of the classroom Picture Rule Cards sold by Conscious Discipline. You will need two pictures of acceptable behaviors and one picture of an unsafe behavior with a red X through it. The fireplace Picture Rules show: 1) You may sit on the wood floor beyond the hearth, 2) You may lay on the wood floor beyond the hearth, and 3) You may not cross any part of your body over the stone hearth.

The more information we give children about our expectations, the more likely they are to cooperate, keep it safe and succeed.