1. Choose key areas you want to influence. Parents model an almost infinite range of actions, beliefs, and values: the way we interact with friends and strangers and what we say about them when they're not around, how irritable we are on a bad day, how we handle errors by others, how we treat animals, whether we use a Kleenex or our sleeve ... it's endless. We cannot—and should not—be models of perfect behavior across the board. So with your spouse or partner (if you have one) identify the high priorities: the positive activities you would like to develop (specific competencies, skills, habits), undesirable behaviors you want to discourage, or values and beliefs you wish to establish. Keep the list short and use it to concentrate your conscious modeling efforts. Some of the goals may be lofty—like teaching your child to be generous with those less fortunate—but others may be mundane. If you really want your child to eat more fruits and vegetables, buy plenty of them and eat them yourself.

2. Talk to your child about whatever you want to encourage. Direct communication—talking about those key areas you have identified—complements the influence of modeling. Studies have shown this to be the case in such areas as safety, self-care, and how to treat other people. It's crucial, though, to wait for a moment of calm to talk positively about the behaviors you want to see more of. That sounds obvious, but far too often parents find themselves trying to have such conversations in the opposite circumstance: when they're yelling at a child for doing the opposite of what they want and when any intended content is therefore least likely to get through. The best time for a swimming lesson is not when a person is desperately trying not to drown.

3. Make available any materials associated with the behaviors you do want. In many cases, it helps to have the right things around and to use them yourself. If you want to foster interest in a particular topic, keep books, magazines, or photos related to the topic around the home where your children can get to them. If you would like to foster an interest in playing music, toy instruments and then a real instrument can help. Materials provide cues that support your modeling and direct communication, and they offer direct opportunities to play, tinker, and explore. Such opportunities allow for self-generated exploration in addition to your direct influence.

4. When you are inconsistent, when you ask your child to do what you say and not what you do, the best option is to change your own behavior. If life were simple, you'd just stop doing the behavior you don't want your child to copy. But, since life is not always so simple, the next-best option is to engage in the behavior in moderation and away from the child. The research shows that direct exposure to a behavior is more potent as an influence on the child than indirect exposure—when the child knows about it but does not see you doing it all the time. Indirect exposure is not the same as secrecy or lying to the child. Think of the difference between your child knowing that you're playing a violent video game in a separate room and your child sitting on your lap while you play it. Finally, if you are inconsistent, it's better to tell the child to do otherwise than to be silent. For example, research shows that parents who smoke often have children who smoke, but when smoking parents preach nonsmoking, it slightly lowers the rate of smoking in their children. Modeling is still by far the more powerful influence, but it helps to tell the child not to smoke (Jackson & Henriksen, 1997).

5. Modeling may be a powerful influence on a child's development and behavior, but it's not the only one, and it doesn't operate by itself. Here are other major influences:

- Responsiveness to the child; responding thoughtfully, warmly, and in a caring fashion

- Preventing risky behaviors and problems; setting limits that protect the child

- Monitoring—knowing where the child is, with whom, what he or she is doing, and how the child will get there and come back

- Mentoring—providing support, guidance, respect, and instructions

- Focusing on conventional values in the context of your culture—like teaching the child that it is good to read, do homework, have family activities and routines, do chores and take a little responsibility for little tasks (such as setting the table). Activities like these are associated with doing better at school, showing fewer problems in school behavior, and a lower likelihood of engaging in high-risk behaviors later in adolescence.

Modeling is a potent way to teach, but there's more than one way to teach, and there's more to parenting than teaching.

6. Fostering a good relationship with your child makes modeling more effective. Among the many benefits of a parent's good relationship with a child—trust, comfort, affection, close attachment—is that it makes the child more likely to model the parent's behaviors. This is great when the behaviors are desirable, but as one study of smoking and drug use among adolescents suggests, the caveat is that children will pick up negative behaviors more readily, too (Andrews et al., 1997).

For more on this and other aspects of parenting, one excellent resource is Adventures in Parenting from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.