Introducing your new baby to her older siblings ought to be a joyful moment…but not when your two-year-old and four-year-old kids keep grabbing at baby’s face and handling her too roughly. Then, it’s just plain stressful.

That’s exactly the scenario that one frazzled father described to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on a recent episode of the More2Life radio show. “Mark” said that no matter how often they told their kids to not touch the baby, they kept touching her. Mark’s question: How do I get my kids to obey?

It’s a problem many parents face, especially with little ones. Often, parents think their littles’ failure to follow their directions is either willful defiance or the fruit of a “wild” personality.

But as the Popcaks explained, what’s really going on is a lot more basic.

“Our kids don’t know anything unless we teach them,” Dr. Greg Popcak said. “So your child isn’t wild. He’s not broken. He’s not out of control. He’s not willful. He’s just untaught.”

That insight is good news, because if the problem is that a child is untaught, the solution is straightforward: teach them.

Don’t Just Tell; Teach, Too

Most parents naturally assume that once they’ve said something, a child has the information they need. Tell a three-year-old to sit at the table, and he should sit at the table. Tell a four-year-old to be gentle with the baby, and she should know what gentle looks like.

But children can’t draw on knowledge they’ve never been given.

“If we want them to sit still at a table, we need to teach them how to do that,” Dr. Popcak said. “And when I say teach them, I don’t mean tell them. I mean do it with them.”

Lisa Popcak offered an analogy: Imagine playing German-language radio in the background throughout your child’s life—no pictures, no context, just sound—with the expectation that your child would just naturally begin speaking German.

“Will they become proficient? Will it become their second language? No,” she said, “because they have no way to know what that noise is, what it’s referring to.”

We make the same mistake with behavior. We assume that children will absorb good manners by watching us, or pick up gentleness simply because they’ve seen it modeled.

But that’s like trying to teach your kids a new language by playing it on the radio. Behavior is a skill, and skills have to be taught and practiced.

Take Mark’s older children, the ones who were being too rough with the baby. Developmental psychology is pretty clear that two and four-year-olds still really struggle to imagine an experience different from their own. A four-year-old grabbing a baby’s cheeks doesn’t register that the pressure feels different to a much smaller, more fragile person than it does to her. She only knows what she feels when someone touches her cheeks

That’s why she needs her parents to teach her exactly what “gentle” means when it comes to being with baby. Not just describing with words, but actually coming alongside her and guiding her hands.

Realizing that we need to be more intentional about teaching our kids good behavior is actually empowering. Instead of asking, “Why is my child so difficult?” we can ask, “What does my child still need to learn?”

Three Ways to Teach Your Kids Good Behavior

With that insight in mind, here are three strategies for teaching your kids to do what you ask them.

1. Do it with them

Especially when it comes to littles, you need to do more than simply tell them what to do. Teaching means demonstrating the behavior and then walking them through it, step by step.

Most parents already do this when it comes to their kids’ bedtime routine.

“You don’t send kids into the bathroom to do their nighttime getting ready for bed ritual,” Dr. Popcak said. “You go into the bathroom with them and you walk them through those things step by step by step—night after night after night—until you see that it’s become second nature.”

So, what Mark’s children most needed was for him to take their hands, place them gently against the baby’s cheek, and show them—physically, repeatedly—what “gentle” means.

The same kind of accompaniment works with other behaviors, too.

2. Break it down

Most parents know that teaching a child how to put his shoes on correctly requires mastery of subskills: how to identify which shoe goes on which foot, how to hold the laces, and so on.

The same sort of task breakdown will help your children learn how to speak respectfully, how to touch a sibling gently, or how to regulate themselves at the dinner table.

“Everything needs to be broken down into small skill subsets that will build upon each other,” she said. It’s not so much a matter of taking it slow but identifying which skills are needed for the child to succeed.

Instead of simply saying “don’t do that” or “stop it,” ask yourself: “What do I want my child to do instead — and what’s the smallest next step toward teaching that behavior?”

3. Build in structure that makes success possible

Part of teaching children means designing situations where success is actually achievable.

The Popcaks share a simple example: the “hold hands or hold you” rule for walking in public. Children who have just learned to walk are thrilled by their new freedom but have no concept of danger. Rather than simply saying “stay close,” the Popcaks taught their children a clear, enforceable rule: you can hold my hand and walk, or I will carry you. No third option.

“And that’s how a child learns to stay close to us and to explore the world safely,” Dr. Popcak said. “They point at the thing that they want to go see, and we can decide whether it’s safe to go look at it. We’re giving them the option to explore in safe and healthy ways and learning how to stick close to parents who can keep them safe.”

Your God-Given Teaching License

The Church has always said that parents are their children’s “first teachers.” Fortunately, God doesn’t leave parents to shoulder this responsibility alone, but offers the help of the Holy Spirit and the Church itself.

“You’re invited by the Church to remember that you’re there to teach (your children) every little thing in their lives,” Lisa Popcak said, “so that they can become all that they can be.”

So, the next time your child doesn’t do what you tell them to do, remember: your child isn’t broken. She’s just still learning. Asking, “What does this child still need to learn?” changes everything. Instead of feeling helpless, you have a clear path forward.

To explore more faith-driven strategies for raising children, pick up a copy of Parenting Your Kids with Grace or Parenting Your Teens and Tweens with Grace by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak.

And if you’re looking for a community to accompany you on your parenting journey, join hundreds of Catholic parents (plus Catholic pastoral counselors) on the CatholicHŌM app.