Disciplining Children

KEYS TO EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE

1. Discipline means to teach. It does not mean to punish. When you decide which discipline strategy to use, ask yourself, “What lesson am I trying to teach?”
2. Make sure your expectations for the child are realistic for his age, developmental level, and situation. You can’t expect a hungry 3-year-old to act calmly in a long supermarket line. A tired preschooler can’t be expected to behave appropriately.
3. Schedule yourself for play time with your child during which you can improve your connection with a child and help the child feel loved. Spend 30 minutes playing with your child letting your child decide what to play with and how to play. Be a friend and not a parent during this time. Try to connect without passing any judgment.
4. When the child misbehaves, try to figure out what is causing the misbehavior. Here are some typical causes:
   • Overstimulation or fatigue.
   • Strong feelings (anger, fear, sadness)
   • Trying to get parent’s attention
   • Defiance
   1. Prevention of misbehavior is easier than management of misbehavior. Try to anticipate the situation in which your child may misbehave and try to make a plan for prevention. Discuss the plan with the child. Obtain your child’s ideas.
   2. Practice positive behavior management first. Give your child lots of attention and praise for appropriate behavior. Demonstrate appropriate behavior. When you are angry, tell your child you are angry and demonstrate a good way to handle anger.
   3. When making a decision to punish, make sure the punishment is logical (has a direct consequence to the behavior; you spill milk, you must clean it up), immediate, teaches a lesson, and is short. If you take the child’s favorite toy away because he was hitting his sister with it, only take it away for a few minutes or he will stop being upset about it or find another toy to hit his sister with. The punishment is only upsetting for a short period of time, then the child forgets about it.
   4. Time-out is used to help the child calm down, pay attention to your words, and lose parental attention. Parents can have a time-out to calm down. Toys can have a time-out.

Out of these causes, only defiance could be managed with punishment. Other causes require different management. For example, if your child is throwing a tantrum because her friend took her toy away, she is likely angry at her friend. Putting her in time-out or not letting her play with her friend, teaches her that her feelings are not important and she needs to suppress them in order to please you. However, telling your child that you understand that she is angry with her friend and that you would like to help them play better teaches her to express her feelings to you and ask for your help.