June 8, 2012

The Art of Disciplining Our Children

If you read my previous posts on parenting you know the importance I place on processing life’s events with our kids.  Often in the name of expediency we end up resorting to less effective methods of teaching, especially when it comes to discipline.  This often results in doing things to kids (using our power as adults to force them to do what we want), or for kids (because it is just easier to do it myself), rather than with kids (where we work with them to help them understand how life works, messes and all).

 

Before I get too far into this, let’s go back to our analogy about working for someone.  How do you feel when your boss exerts power to get things done her way threatening to fire you every time you come up short?  That usually does not result in feeling good about work and often results in passive-aggressive activity as a way to retaliate.  There is no way I would feel safe to talk to a boss about any concern I might have who treated me like that.  Did any of you go to a school that used spankings or a ruler across the knuckles to get compliance?  It may have worked because it induced fear but chances are those weren’t your favorite teachers.  You probably remember the spanking but may or may not remember at all why you got it.  How about someone hiring you but instead of letting you do your job, they just couldn’t let it go and ended up always doing it for you.  The hidden message is “I don’t believe in you enough to do this so I’ll do it for you.”  Fulfilling?  Make you feel competent?  Inspire you to grow?  I think not.  Kids feel the same way.

Consider, instead, how it feels to work in an environment where you are given an assignment and you are actually trusted to do it?  If it’s over your head you know it is safe to ask for guidance.  If you do it but it isn’t quite right, instead of being threatened or punished, the boss sits down with you and asks your perception of what went wrong and what went right and considers your ideas to make it better.  If she thinks of things you haven’t, she doesn’t insult you but, instead, asks you to consider her ideas and asks for your feedback.  Wow!  Now that is empowering and makes you feel important and valued.

It is important to note here that the expedient solutions often appear to work.  The fear that power produces in the child often results in compliance but over time, but what generally happens is that when they are not afraid any more or when that guidance is no longer there limits get pushed or trampled.  Spankings and sticker charts may teach what not to do but they do not teach what to do and in their absence often leaves kids believing that obedience is necessary only if they fear getting caught or can get some reward.  It may also teach that to get what they want in human relationships they need to try and control the other person or only do things beneficial to others if they see some reward in it for them.  These methods by themselves do not teach kids to internalize what you would like them to learn.  Instead, they teach the dependence on outside circumstances to determine their course of action.  My hope is that if you rely on these methods, you would at least add the processing piece to help your children internalize the lesson.  Doing things for kids frequently gives the message that you do not believe in their ability to do something well.  If I get frustrated and yell at them for not cleaning their room and out of frustration clean it for them, I inadvertently teach that I believe they are incompetent and if they just wait me out, they won’t have to do what they don’t want to do.  All they have to do is wait out the yelling.

So, again, even in disciplining I advocate processing that looks something like this:

1. 1.  What happened?  Have them verbally acknowledge what they did and their perspective of why they did it.What is our rule about that and why do we have it?  This, of course, assumes that you have been clear about the rules.  If they say “I don’t know” feel free to say that it wouldn’t be wise to continue playing, driving, etc. until you figure that out.  They’ll eventually come to you with something.  It is important here for the parent to refrain from rescuing the child by providing the answer.  The next one to speak owns the problem.

3. 2.  Since you decided to break our agreement what do you think is a reasonable consequence?  Often kids are harder on themselves than you would be but if they try to scrape by with too little, just say you’re not comfortable with that because you’re not sure it is enough to help them remember to make the appropriate decision next time.  You may offer your suggestions as to what you think would be fair and the bottom line is the final decision is yours.

4.  3.  Now that we’ve talked this through, what will you do differently next time?

     4.  If you choose to break this agreement in the future, let’s decide now what the consequence will be.  Doing this can prevent the yelling in the future which leads us to say things we regret.

     Remember, the four “R”s of consequences as espoused by Dr. Stephen Glenn.  Keep them related (If they watched TV too long, take away the TV privilege for a while.  If you take everything away all at once what happens if they break another rule during the consequence?), reasonable (not too long and not too short. Age is a big factor here), respectful (done with, not to or for), revealed (the expectations should be clear and known in advance as much as possible).