Discipline

I have been struggling with the concept of discipline lately. I read somewhere, not too long ago, that spanking is a sign of lazy parenting; it might be effective in the short-term, but it also reinforces the idea that physical force is an appropriate way to solve problems. This is not a message you want being internalized by toddlers who, by nature, have poor impulse control. Small children are nothing if not master mimickers. That swat on the behind you dole out to your four year old will eventually trickle down to the behind of your two year old. I have therefore, somewhat regretfully, come to the conclusion that spanking as a way of imparting discipline is not somewhere I want to go. I say regretfully because despite the evidence to the contrary I feel like it is appropriate in some circumstances. Unfortunately I realize that I am not enough of an expert to be able to discern which circumstances. Ultimately, I would rather err on the side of less spanking than on the side of too much.

A close second to spanking in the chest of parental discipline tools is yelling. I think yelling can be utilized effectively if it is administered in small doses; otherwise it loses its shock-value and makes the yeller (i.e. you) appear foolish. My experience is that yelling is effective to stop your child from wandering into the street and to keep their hands away from the stove but is of limited utility beyond that. After all, chances are they can yell louder than you. A band-aid on a bullet wound, yelling is.

So what does work? The American Academy of Pediatrics consensus conference on corporal punishment and guidelines on effective discipline identified three essential elements of an effective discipline program: a learning environment characterized by positive supportive parent-child relationships; a strategy for systematic teaching and strengthening of desired behaviors; and a strategy of decreasing or eliminating undesired or ineffective behaviors. A concise paper which expands on these elements may be found here.

While these techniques are no doubt effective, they also require a scientific approach to child-rearing which is often difficult to keep in the forebrain when your darling son is pouring yogurt all over the rug or creating a Picasso on the living room walls in permanent magic marker. This is where parenting becomes an exercise in detachment. While your initial impulse might be to wallop the behind of the budding young egocentric artist and truck him off to his room for an extended period of shrieking behind a closed door, the conscientious parent takes a different approach. Instead of spanking and yelling, the conscientious parent should schedule a time-out. The time-out has to be used carefully though, lest you simply take a bad discipline situation and make it worse. Time Out is the place to teach the child about his behavior, but the screaming the child causes the sleepy/overworked/underappreciated/stressed out the ass parent’s brain to become confused. The confusion from the crying, screaming or constant demanding short-circuits the parent’s ability to think clearly about what to do next. Not being able to decide what to do next makes the parent frustrated or angry, and can cause yelling to begin. When yelling begins, the child shuts down. As we’ve already seen, yelling is ineffective.

Ultimately, the disconnect between a parent’s expectations for behavior and the child’s ability to conform to those expectations is where the problem lies. It is hard for a parent to remember that adults have the ability to use reason but preschoolers won’t even develop the ability to use logic until around age 7. Sharon Silver, the “Mommie Mentor” thinks that sometimes the best way to get a child to do something is to “speak their language”, i.e. the teaching a parent does needs to be done at the preschool level, a time-out has to be structured to take into account the true amount of time your preschooler can pay attention and hear you when he’s emotional, and the ability to “try again” needs to be included with your discipline.

This is a lot to think about in a stressful situation. This is also a very long post so I’ll pick up on this tomorrow.