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THREE STRATEGIES THAT WORK
August 14, 2009
My followers know I don't approve of spanking. And everybody knows yelling, nagging, and threatening are futile. What does work? Here is a short version of my "Discipline 101: Strategies That Work" talk.
There are three basic discipline strategies that work with most children most of the time: Prevent Problems, Talk Right, and Do No Harm.
PREVENT PROBLEMS:
1. Understand and fully accept your role. You are the Parent-in-Charge. You are the Role-Model-in-Chief so how you behave is important too. You decide the rules. You decide what is important, what is non-negotiable like a safety rule, and what can be overlooked.
2. At the same time RESPECT YOUR CHILD. Validate your child's feelings, don't ever ridicule or demean your child.
3. Learn to read your child's signals and pay attention to your child's biorhythms. Then you will be able to prevent many problems caused by fatigue or hunger. Recognize when your child has anger or stress and teach your child how to handle these states.
4. Understand enough about child development so you don't expect a behavior before your child is developmentally ready.
5. Try to be consistent. Although consistency can never be absolute (parents are people and people feel differently at different times and are different from each other) it helps the child learn parental expectations if you are as consistent as possible.
6. Use your child's desire to please you. Your approval is more valuable than anything else.
7. Give your child choices whenever possible as this helps the child with future decision-making. The long-range goal of discipline is that your child will choose to do the right thing when you are not around.
8. Use environmental control. This includes everything from child-proofing when your kids first start to crawl to making the atmosphere of your house as quiet and calm as possible.
9. Use the three best weapons parents have to redirect a young child before discipline is needed: IGNORE mildly bad stuff like siblings squabbling but not hurting each other. DISTRACT a child from an unwanted action. REMOVE the child from the scene of brewing trouble.
TALK RIGHT:
1. Communicate your expectations clearly.
2. Keep the volume of your voice down. Whispers get your child's attention better than screaming does.
3. Do not say too much! State the rule, state what you expect, and then zip it.
4. Be specific in your criticism and praise. "You did not make your bed." not "You were bad today and I had to make your bed." "You cleaned up your room without being asked, that's being responsible."
5. Make rules specific and understandable. Rules must be brief, developmentally appropriate and enforceable. Don't use warnings like, "If you hit him one more time you will have to go to your room!" A rule should NEVER be broken.
6. Master the "EFFECTIVE COMMAND." Be CLOSE, be CONCISE, start with CHILD'S NAME, use a COMMANDING facial expression but speak softly.
7. No need to say please as it's a command. Example: "Jeremy, stop hitting your sister!"
8. Use HUMOR-it helps!
9. Think before you speak!
DO NO HARM!
1. Do not hurt your child physically. Also never give a verbal spanking (put-downs, screaming, sarcasm, threats, nagging).
2. Don't compare children as both favorable and unfavorable comparisons can be hurtful.
3. Don't assign roles. Avoid phrases like, "He's the stubborn one!"
4. Don't model unwanted behavior (Your child's brain is like a VCR tape--what child saw you do could be there forever!)
5. Don't ever threaten to withhold your love as this is terrifying to children
6. Don't be afraid of disciplining your child using the correct strategies. All children need intelligent, informed parenting even when they protest or grumble.
Now that you know the THREE BASIC STRATEGIES of discipline you are ready for the Five Useful Techniques. (See ParenTip: DISCIPLINE: FIVE USEFUL TECHNIQUES).
Written by Dr Marilyn Heins. Dr.Heins is a pediatrician and parenting columnist residing in Tucson Arizona. For more information visit www.ParentKidsRight.com.
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