Discipline comes from the word “disciple,” which means “to follow one who teaches.” So the focus is on children learning lessons, such as “I have a choice about my behavior,” “My behavior choices affect me and other, so I need to choose wisely,” and “I am responsible for my own behavior choices and the outcomes they cause.
What Message Does Effective Discipline Send?
Instead of making the child suffer, which is the goal in punishment, discipline focuses on fixing the mistake or learning how to prevent it in the future. This results in children learning self-discipline, not blind obedience.
Effective discipline has its own language and actions. Most parents and professionals have good intentions, but could make a few important changes in their words or actions. This will help them avoid the risks of punishment and reap all the benefits of discipline.
Before or after misbehavior, describe the behavior you wants to see and explain how negative behavior affects other people or things. “It’s important to (positive behavior and its benefit). If you were to (negative behavior) it could (its effect).” For example, “You can ride your bike on the sideways, to stay safe. If you rode your bike in the street you could get hit by a car.” This is the “why” of your rule, not a threat, which would be, “You either do what I want or else I’ll do this to you.” The reason will be a bottom-line issue you are responsibility for, as a parent, such as: safety, health, rights, rules, values, etc.
Because the child has a choice and the parent follows through with respectful, reasonable words and actions, there really isn’t any justification for the child to be angry with the parent. (They can try, but you can honestly say, “You made this choice,” in a respectful, calm, matter-of-fact way. This language of choice empowers children, because they realize that they do have choice — about their behavior and the consequences it brings. So they usually focus more on what they’ve learned and will choose to do in the future, which is within their control, rather than blaming the parent for their feelings, which leaves them feeling like a disempowered victim.
Follow through. While discipline involves teaching, it is not “all talk.” When you take action, it needs to be logically related to the misbehavior, only last long enough to teach the lesson, and be presented respectfully.
Show children how to make amends. For example, if they spill it, they clean it up. Make sure what they are doing directly relates to any harm or damage they incurred. Avoid demanding or forcing apologies. Ask, “How can you show you are sorry?” This opens up options like a letter, doing a favor, drawing a picture, etc.
Offer choices within limits. Alter the focus of the choices as issues shift. For example, when shopping you can use choices to prevent problem behavior, such as involving the children in the shopping or choices. If they start getting rambunctious, you can offer a choice of the kids settling down and continuing to shop with you or you may need to leave and skip any fun activities already planned for that outing. If they continue to fuss, tell them their behavior is telling you they have decided to leave. That choice has been made. New choice is when or how you leave. They can walk out or you may need to carry them (if they are small enough). If it should come to this, you need to follow through and not bring children back until they learn how to shop — which means you need to take the time to teach and practice at home.You might be thinking, “Then I’m being punished and inconvenienced by having to leave the store before I’m done shopping and the children are getting rewarded for bad behavior if they didn’t want to shop in the first place!” These are legitimate questions and concerns…and raise the question, “Why are the kids being taken shopping if they don’t want to go?” That’s a sure-fire motive for trying to sabotage shopping.
Use Problem Solving to prevent, reveal, or decide discipline. “I am concerned about (misbehavior). What can we do about that?” You can use the two-party, parent/child variation of the F-A-X Listening process to find a win/win solution to which you both agree.
You may have noticed that time-outs, logical consequences and restrictions aren’t in this list! That’s because time-outs actually aren’t effective when used for discipline and logical consequences and restrictions are very easy to misuse, unless you make sure they meet the 4 R’s above. These three tools are actually the ones more often misused and over-used, which renders them ineffective.
When you effectively use the four-star discipline tools, you’ll find you often only need to follow through once. Children learn the lesson better, because aren’t distracted by suffering, and don’t repeat the behavior for revenge for being hurt. And if you use prevention tools first, including teaching children proper behavior, you will find yourself rarely ever being in a situation that needs discipline!
This final article offers the effective discipline strategies you can use. For more in-depth learning, get the “Take the Bite Out of Discipline” workshop audio and resource package.