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Parenting
7. Approaching Discipline
A
series that helps parents raise their children
Introducing
this Page
The
purpose of this page is to examine the idea of discipline and consider
general approaches to it before moving on to the detailed ideas of the
next page.
Again
with all these pages the style of this page will be short paragraph
or ‘bullet-point' style to separate out individual things for you to
think about with plenty of white space around to make it easy to read.
Each individual bit needs thinking about.
Because
discipline can be a rather contentious subject we will look at all different
possibilities so that you can try different approaches
Contents:
1.
What is Discipline
a)
Early Thoughts and a Definition
b)
Observing the Absence of Discipline
c)
Dealing with the Situation
2.
Long-Term Training
a)
Work on establishing a foundation of self-esteem building
b)
Determine from the outset what style of parenting you will use
c)
Establish a recognition of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour
in the family
d)
Establish a Structure or Pattern for dealing with non-acceptable
behaviour.
e)
Keep an Open Environment – hold Family Meetings
3.
Giving Choices
a)
Choosing to Give Choices
b)
Natural Choices in Life
c)
Inabilities of Toddlers
d)
Choices of Behaviour
4.
Preventing Misbehaviour
a)
Control the Environment
b)
Lay down Expectations
c)
Interact with your Child
d)
Reinforce Good Behaviour
5.
Recap
a)
Early Thoughts and a Definition
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I
wonder if this is the first page in this series to which you
jumped? It will have been for a number of people because discipline,
or rather lack of it, is often the number one worry for many
parents.
-
If
it is, we would really counsel you to go back and read some
of the earlier pages because often strong discipline seems
to be needed because the foundations you'll find on the earlier
pages have been missed, especially the page about Self-Esteem.
Dictionary
definitions of ‘discipline' are useful:
-
mental or moral training
-
bring under control
Put
those together and you have:
Discipline = training that brings self-control.
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b)
Observing the Absence of Discipline
See
this in real life:
Illustration:
Eight year old Kelly has been having difficulties with work
at school. She's also just fallen out with her best friend.
At the end of the school day, back at home, her younger brother,
Brian, has just taken her favourite toy from her room. Kelly
is not a little girl to be messed with. She snatches the toy
from Brian, pushes him over and when her mother comes in to
calm her down, she throws a temper tantrum, screams and smashes
a fruit bowl. Kelly is not under control.
If
we observe this situation dispassionately, we can recognise
that at the end of this day, Kelly has come home from school
upset and stressed. Work has been difficult, her friendship
is in upheaval and she's probably just tired anyway.
At
home she is faced with a problem brother! She hasn't learnt
that the arbiter of disputes in the home needs to be Mum or
Dad and so she acts strongly to deal with her brother. Any wise
person can see that this behaviour was going to escalate and
cause upset and ‘upset' means pain, physical or emotional!
For
the vast majority of us, pleasure is preferable to pain. We
try and avoid pain – at least when we are rational – and in
control!
Kelly
is clearly NOT in control because she enters into a course of
action which, in a rational moment, she will know is going to
cause trouble. It does. Mum gets involved and now Kelly really
breaks loose, with emotions running amok and damage being caused
as a result.
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c)
Dealing with the Situation?
Now
what many readers will next be expecting is what do we do about
Kelly now, to deal with this current situation?
What
we'd like to do, instead, is consider what should have
been done in the years beforehand so that this situation
did not escalate in the way it did.
Do
you see this? There are two ways we can view ‘discipline':
-
the remedial action
to deal with an out-of-hand current situation OR
-
the long-term training that goes on
all the time to produce a child in control of their life.
Yes,
we will come on to the first one on the next page, but we need
to consider the second one first, here on this page, because
if we do it should reduce the number of times we will having
to take remdial action.
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Let's suggest, first of all, ways to go about this long-term
training:
a)
Work on establishing a foundation of self-esteem building
-
As we've seen on Page 4 children who feel good about
themselves are more likely to be in control of themselves and
able to co-operate and harmonise with others.
-
So, build in respect, encouragement, helped learning
and unconditional love as seen on that previous page.
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b)
Determine from the outset what style of parenting you will use
Parents
generally will fall into one of the following categories:
i)
Parents who GIVE ORDERS
-
These tend to use a combination of reward and punishment.
-
This often produces a child who expects to have to
earn acceptance.
ii)
Parents who GIVE IN
-
These are parents who have no guidelines and chaos
ensues.
-
This child fails to learn to respect others and fails
to learn about feelings, rights & responsibilities.
iii)
Parents who GIVE CHOICES
-
These parents give choices of action to fit the child's
age and maturity.
-
This child learns respect, responsibility and decision
making.
In
reality, because we're all imperfect, we will give orders and
we will give in, but learning to give choices (which we'll consider
in detail below) is far better.
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c)
Establish a recognition of what is acceptable and unacceptable
behaviour in the
family
i.e. establish boundaries of behaviour
- Talk
with them from the earliest age and as they grow older,
to seek to convey understanding as to WHY some things are
unacceptable. Seek to gain their agreement.
- Teach
positive behaviour – respecting others by the use of ‘please'
and ‘thank you'. Remember politeness is simply a form of respect
and remember all we said about respect on Page 4.
- Teach
what is unacceptable behaviour – abusive language, violent
and destructive behaviour.
NB.
Although we may have decided to be a parent who gives choices,
this is NOT the choice of whether, say, to be violent to a younger
brother or sister or not. These are things you wish to teach
that are no-go areas!
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d)
Establish a Structure or Pattern for dealing with non-acceptable
behaviour.
- When
your child puts their fingers in the soil in a flower pot
they are learning to feel.
- When
they pull the cat's tail the cat may let them know that's
unacceptable or you may have to stop them and explain that
that might be hurting the cat.
-
Try
to avoid too many ‘No's but do use ‘No!' to convey something
that is unacceptable.
-
Keeping away from things that will hurt them (heat,
electricity, prickly plants) has to come by:
- providing
protection (barrier or moving out of range where possible.)
-
Further
forms of discipline – see next page.
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e)
Keep an Open Environment – hold Family Meetings
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The purpose of the meeting is to talk about family
matters – things that worry, concern or upset, things the
family might be going to do together, and so on.
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a)
Choosing to Give Choices
- This
style places limited options before your child but lets them
choose from those options.
- Making
choices is a natural part of life and we need to teach our
child to do this from early on.
- Oddly
enough, when we give our child two choices, they rarely ask
for a third but consider the two given.
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b)
Natural choices in life
The following are some of the natural, easy choices that
may occur with our children:
- jam
or honey on their bread
- which
book to read together
- which
toys to let a visiting cousin play with
- which
of two shirts in a shop to buy.
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c)
Inabilities of Toddlers
Of
course very young children are still learning and can't be expected
to do certain things. The following are such things where choices
are inappropriate:
- your
toddler is probably too young to learn to distinguish between
things that they can handle safely and things that are breakable.
Rather than ban them touching everything, it is simply easier
to put all breakable ornaments above their reach- level.
- two
year olds cannot be expected to sit still and quietly and
therefore if you are in company you need to give them things
to play with or to distract them. (My wife used to collect
odds and ends and hand them out one by one in church services
to distract and give our youngest children something to do
in the absence of a crèche).
- biscuits
or sweets left within reach of toddlers are a natural target
and so for the reasons given above, they should not be left
within sight or reach if you do not want your child to have
them at the moment.
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d)
Choices of Behaviour
Where
a behaviour has negative effects we can create choices that
show up the negative consequence and help our child avoid it.
The
following are some examples:
5
year old Carl
leaves toys all over the floor. His mother asks him to collect
them up and put them in a box when he has finished playing with
them. He doesn't seem to want to do this. Mother explains that
he is old enough to learn to do this and so gives him choices:
“Either you can help Mummy to put them away (to start with –
later he will do it on his own) or Mummy will put them away
and they won't come out again until she thinks you are able
to take responsibility for them. Which do you want to do? It's
your choice?” He leaves her to clear them up so they are put
away until a couple of days later she asks if he thinks he's
able to clear up if he has those particular toys out again.
Eight
year old Tracy
plays outside and comes in with muddy shoes on, and is about
to take mud across the kitchen floor. Her father gently points
out the mud and says, “Darling, take off your muddy shoes when
you come in or you'll need to wipe the mud off the floor. You
decide which is the better course of action.” Tracy
thinks it will be fun to see mud on the floor and so steps out
onto the floor. Dad grins and says good naturedly, “OK, here's
your mop, let's see you clear it up.” It may be fun to mop up
but next time Tracy
decides she doesn't want to stop and clean up so takes her shoes
off on the mat.
As
an alternative to the above, Tracy
says she won't mop up after taking mud across the floor. The
consequences and choices now get a bit heavier. “OK, darling,
you have the choice, you can either put your shoes on the mat
and mop up and then go and get ready to go out as we planned,
or you put your shoes on the mat and go to your room while I
clear up and that means we won't have time to go out like we
had planned. It's your choice. What do you want to do?”
Ten
year old Jeff
has been invited by a friend to go ice skating on Thursday evening
and to go and watch videos with another friend across town on
Friday evening. Dad realises this is going to mean a lot of
taxiing around town and also that Jeff isn't going to have enough
time to get his school work done. He puts the choice to Jeff:
“Jeff, it's good to have lots of friends but being out two nights
running is going to put a lot of pressure on us and on you.
You can either choose to go out Thursday or Friday evening,
or you could invite your friend round here to watch videos on
Friday evening but that will mean you'll have to put aside Saturday
morning to do your school work. Which would you prefer?”
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4. Preventing
Misbehaviour |
From
what has already been said above, we can see that misbehaviour may be
prevented or avoided by thinking ahead in the following ways:
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a)
Control the environment
•
Put dangerous
items, breakables and valuables out of the reach of toddlers.
•
As they
grow ensure areas for play are safe – guards around fires,
plugs in socket outlets etc.
•
If possible
ensure you have interesting toys for your child. Play is essential
and variety is good. (My wife separated off some of the children's
toys and brought them out at intervals so that there were a
variety of toys for them to play with – ‘new' toys or toys that
have not been available for a while are always more interesting).
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b)
Lay down expectations
•
Keep rules
to a minimum, but do have rules where you consider them necessary,
which should be reasonable and consistent.
•
Establish
patterns for the day – times to go out, times for play, times
to go to bed. Familiarity breeds a sense of security.
•
Have
special ‘events' days out, or special things to do to break
in occasionally to the ordinary, and to have things to look
forward to and through which to create good memories.
•
Let it
be known that you expect your child's cooperation and that
there are things that will not be said or done in this family.
That sets boundaries and expectations that can be met.
•
Get into
the habit, where possible, of giving 5 to 10 minutes warning
of when you want them to stop what they are doing to move
on to something else (e.g. going out, sitting down for meal
etc.)
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c)
Interact with your Child
•
Be available
to your child, but this doesn't mean to say they need to have
every moment of your attention.
•
Always
be a good example to your child – they will follow what they
see in you (not what you just say!). If you get angry take
a ‘time out' and apologise later.
•
Watch your
voice with your child. Never shout at them in anger. You will
need to raise your voice to them to catch their attention sometimes,
but always seek to be caring and respectful and loving in the
way you address them.
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d)
Reinforcing Good Behaviour
If
you create a climate or environment where good behaviour is
something that is clearly expected and is something to be worked
at, this will also be something that reduces the likelihood
of having to deal with misbehaviour.
Remember,
there is a fine line to be walked between:
•
creating
such high expectations that your child is always in a state
of tension and guilt, and
•
having
such an easy going approach that your child feels either
•
insecure
from the absence of boundaries or
•
unchallenged
by having nothing to aim for.
Good
behaviour can be reinforced by:
•
acknowledgement
of achievement and success - praise
•
affirmation
of your love generally – encouragement
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In
these various ways you will head off the likelihood of misbehaviour.
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Things
we've looked at on this page have been:
1.
What is Discipline
•
that discipline
is about bringing self-control before bringing correction
•
when self-control
is absent, problems erupt
2.
Long-Term Training
•
training starts
with self-esteem building
•
giving choices
is better than giving in or giving orders
•
boundaries
of behaviour have to be established
•
a baby doesn't
have misbehaviour but that changes with growth
•
talking within
the family creates an environment to deal with difficulties
3.
Giving Choices
•
giving your
child choices is a choice you make
•
they will make
choices throughout life
•
Toddlers are
too young to make choices
•
facing the
consequences helps make choice of behaviour
4.
Preventing Misbehaviour
•
we can head
off misbehaviour by controlling the environment
•
creating expectations
to work to can head off misbehaviour
•
a close relationship
with your child will head-off misbehaviour
•
reinforcing
good behaviour helps counter misbehaviour
This
page has really all been about working to create self-control in your
child so that they determine their behaviour and are not driven by poor
responses.
The
suggestion is that you start empowering your child to be in control
of themselves from their earliest years and in this way they determine
the outcomes of their life.
There
are suggested a variety of ways that we can work on that. You may need
to go back over this page and work through these things again to come
to a fuller understanding of them so that you can apply them to help
equip your child for the years ahead.
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