Have you ever heard of the old piece of parenting advice, “Spare the rod and spoil the child?” Forget about it!
That kind of mindset was used way back when the role of children was primarily “free labor for the farm.” Today, things are a little more complex! But that doesn’t mean that children shouldn’t be taught discipline.
Discipline is the art of teaching kids how to be strong, independent, empathic, and trustworthy members of a family, alongside society in general. It requires parents to have a high degree of emotional intelligence to shape their children into emotionally strong, secure, confident adults.
The old model of teaching children (Spare the rod, yadda yadda) emphasized blind obedience to authority figures. Thankfully, this philosophy has been supplanted by one that emphasizes creating self-sufficient and empathic adults.
As parents, you are your children’s first teacher and living examples of emotional intelligence and how relationships work. That’s a lot of responsibility, so let’s take a look at some suggestions on how you can be the best parents you can possibly be:
Be Calm
One of the best pieces of parenting advice I ever received was from, believe it or not, a scuba diver!
He was teaching me to become aware of when I was stressed or experiencing a shot of adrenaline due to an accident or the unexpected. Once your body gives itself a rush, it shuts down logical thinking and puts you into crisis mode. The blinders go on and reactions are fast and furious. Underwater, this can be deadly. In parenting, the stakes are almost as high.
When something happens with your kids, you need to stop, breathe, think, and then act. The spontaneity of kids can trigger instant reactions from parents, especially if they are already emotionally exhausted from not eating well or getting little sleep due to the baby waking up in the middle of the night.
As a parent, when you feel the instinctive rush to react, first count to ten to give your emotions and logical mind a chance to catch up to the situation at hand. The bad reaction on your part can take a bad situation and make it worse.
This is a lesson I had to learn fast. Having twin boys, situations often developed where I didn’t see what happened. I would just hear loud crying. My instinct was to fly into action, but I quickly discovered that I shouldn’t make an immediate judgment until I got a better grasp of the situation.
First, I always looked to secure the scene and make sure everyone was ok. I asked the other child, “What happened?” in a relaxed and calm voice. Usually, their first answer was, “It was an accident,” or “I didn’t do anything,” as children are inherently afraid of blame. This is the place where my cool, calm, and non-judgmental tone was critical to getting to the bottom of what happened.
By being calm and figuring out the situation, you’re going to be showing trust in your children. Being able to get the truth out of your kids is the greatest skill a parent can learn, and requires trust. Yelling, blaming, or putting the child down will not help the situation, their trust level, or their self-esteem. All it does is make a parent feel temporarily better as they could vent some anger. But that’s short-term thinking that can have long-term effects on how they behave in the future.
Set an Intention
What is your vision of yourself as a parent? When your kids are eighteen and leaving for college, how would you want them to describe your parenting to their friends?
Discipline is about teaching and instilling lessons. What are the lessons you want them to learn? What is the best way you can reinforce those lessons? It’s essential to set yourself that kind of intention with your parenting. If you view your children as a nuisance, they will likely act like one. If you see them as trustworthy and honest, constantly challenging their capabilities, they will rise to the challenge.
Whenever a child has done something wrong, instead of just saying, “Don’t do that,” take the time to analyze their behavior, then share with them where their mistake may lead, and the danger or the consequences you wish them to avoid.
Use Rewards. Never Bribe.
The golden rule of parenting is, “A doesn’t happen until B is complete.” For example, “You can play with your electronics when your homework is done.” Or “You can have money for the gift shop when you earn it with chores around the house.”
Some people might classify this as “bribing” your children. I strongly disagree. A bribe is when you pay a reward in advance. However, a reward comes only after they have maintained appropriate behavior in a situation.
Here’s the thing, bribes never work with kids, but rewards do. Always keep in mind any rewards, perks, and special activities you are going to do later and make sure any not-so-fun task is done first. For example, if my wife and I are planning to take the kids to the movies over the weekend, I will ask them to clean their room before we go. Never waste a reward because there is always something new to do!
Never Threaten
Never, ever threaten to do something that you are not prepared to follow through on. The moment you make a threat and not carry it out, all your requests instantly become optional and will be tested repeatedly by your children.
Discipline in the face of poor behavior needs to be clean, swift, and felt immediately. A short and fast correction is more powerful than a huge threat, while also being proportionate to the behavior.
Redirect Their Punishment
However, this kind of punishment sometimes doesn’t work with younger kids. Children don’t fully understand the concept of time until they are in their teens. For example, I know a mother who threatened to take away her children’s iPad for a day, a week, and finally a month. It didn’t work. Her child was emotional and needed a punishment, but also needed empathy and a redirect. Threatening “No iPad” did not shift her child out of their deeply emotional state of anger or frustration.
This is why it’s important to redirect a child to positive behavior after a punishment. Before redirecting, take a moment and check-in with the child’s emotional and physical state. Were they tired from missing a nap or staying up late the night before? Were they hungry, physically uncomfortable, or perhaps just wanted some of your attention? Often, kids act out because it’s the only surefire way to get you to feel you totally present with them. You do not want to reinforce their negative behavior in the moment, but once the storm passes, schedule a date or activity to spend more time with the child. Find a victory or accomplishment to celebrate and reward. The better you get at that, the less discipline you will need with the child.
I believe that all parents do their best, with some doing better than others. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Enforcing the rules takes discipline in the parents and creates discipline in the child. If you are not happy with your children’s behavior, never blame it on them being lazy or stupid. They simply need more guidance and clearer rules. They then need those rules to be fairly enforced, with the possibility for forgiveness to show them a positive path forward out of any negative situation.
Mind you, we’re only scratching the surface here when it comes to raising children. I’m going to be sharing more thoughts about it next week, so stay tuned!
Click here to read the post, How Discipline Works When You’re Raising a Child: Part 2
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