How to Find the Right Discipline Formula for Your Family
The Discipline Principle
I have seen recent parenting approaches vilifying some forms of discipline, leaving parents adrift, contemplating “do I even try and discipline my kids?” As long as we stay focused on the ultimate why of discipline as teaching our children, however, the what and how involves a constant experiment of what works, with which child, at which age. As part of my parent first parenting approach, this blog post continues the beat of the drum that we all need to figure out what works best in our own families. It’s not about the tool or strategy as much as it’s about the fit with your child and family.
Discipline v. Punishment
It’s worth starting out my “do what works for you, your child, and your family” philosophy with the clear distinction that discipline is not punishment. Discipline teaches; punishment is often reactive, and usually not effective.
For example, taking a toy away after it has been launched across the room, missing the TV by mere centimeters, is a consequence that teaches “throwing toys is unsafe.” Telling a child, “now you can’t go to the birthday party because you threw that toy” is punishment. The consequence is not connected to the behavior, and this over-reaching consequence will surely escalate a likely upset child into a more upset child, which more times than not results in the child throwing more objects because now he has nothing to lose.
“Discipline with your best intentions, be flexible when something just isn’t working, and keep at it until you find the right formula for your child and you.”
Most of us probably do it — punish, that is (present company included). We are usually at our wit’s end, so frustrated/impatient/overwhelmed that we pull out a big gun to just make IT stop. The IT could be our child’s awful mood the whole morning, repeated meltdowns, or smug defiance that is driving us bananas. This “big gun” punishment response is reactive. It happens, but the better ratio of discipline to punishment we can achieve, the more effective we feel and the more our children actually learn from their transgressions.
Because transgress they will, and they must, to grow and develop. Research has shown that highly obedient teenagers, for example, are more likely than argumentative teens to have emotional symptoms and problem behaviors like delinquency and substance use. The theory is that they do not feel safe arguing with their parents, or are avoiding punishment by sneaking and lying, so they end up at more risk. The teens who debate and negotiate, and sometimes break rules but talk it through with their parents, are better off in meaningful ways.
All this to remind us that as much as we may pine for perfectly cooperative children, that’s not really what is best for them in all they are supposed to accomplish while growing up (like figuring out who they are, what they think and believe, how to deal with life, etc.; you know, the whole point of being a person!).
Discipline Ingredients
You have most likely encountered one of the few parenting truths, known from common sense and the canon of parenting research: the most effective and beneficial parenting style integrates warmth and limits. Within the safety of our close, connected relationships, our children need limits to thrive. Harsh, distant parenting with limits causes problems; warm and closely connected parents without limits causes problems. Okay, easy. So, how do we go about setting these limits?
The 3 Keys to Setting Limits:
Be consistent. Stick to the limits you set – children of all ages need a lot of repetition, and they will test all the limits because that is what children are designed to do. If you have good reasoning for your limits, stay strong. [Example: research has repeatedly shown the sweet spot of social media / recreational screen time as under 2 hours before harmful effects show up, so that is the hard limit for my two children with their cell phones.]
Be clear. Make sure your child not only knows the limit you are expecting, but why. Giving rationales for rules and limits has been shown to be part of raising more independent and competent children. And they are more likely to respect the limits when they understand the “why.”
Be flexible. Okay, so after my pep talk to stay strong, there may be good reason at times to change limits. What a 4-year-old needs is clearly different than what a 9-year-old needs, so rules will evolve as everyone else does.
Connection and Correction
I have also seen the plea from parenting experts to examine the emotion under the behavior, to stay focused on our connection more than the correction. This is true. Using empathy and perspective-taking to respond to behavior problems is essential to effective discipline. However, connection and correction can coexist. I can understand the emotion underlying the behavior, have a very connected relationship with my child, and correct their behavior. Let’s look at the various ways of how, starting with how to examine what’s working and what’s not for your child and family.
Discipline: The Process
As you wield the range of discipline tools, with likely varying levels of confidence and conviction, you can do a mini self-assessment to pick the right tools for you:
What to Ask Yourself
Am I actually doing it how it’s supposed to be done? I run into this all the time when working with parents who claim “nothing works, we’ve tried everything.” With some questions, I find out they just need a few tweaks to be more effective. Like, if you are using a reward system, do not tackle every single behavior at once!
Is this discipline strategy working? “Working” can be defined as stopping the problem behavior and/or understanding why it was happening in the first place, which can then move you in the right direction.
Is this discipline strategy a fit for my child? Example: my oldest volunteered to “take time” as an upset 3-year-old; my youngest would become hysterical at the idea of being left alone, and needed us to stay by his side to calm down. Different kids respond to different tactics.
Do I feel like this is the right thing to do? Parent instinct matters. Read your parenting books, follow the experts, gather your info about child development and behaviors, and then do what feels right to you. Plenty of popular approaches have been later debunked.
Discipline Techniques
Time-Outs
Poor time-outs, they have been roundly rejected by parenting trends of recent years. As a psychology trainee well before having my own children, I remember learning how to teach parents the steps for using time-outs as an effective, research-based discipline tool. Yet, I saw they fell out of favor as a form of rejecting our children? I’m not totally sure. So, let’s apply the Discipline Principle questions to time-out.
Am I actually doing it how it’s supposed to be done? For example, toddlers do not understand time, and their little id-ruled brains have close to zero self-regulation strategies yet, so time-outs are not effective for the under 3 set. Older children on the other hand have a lot more skills for learning from their behavior, and time-outs do not meet their developmental capacity to use more sophisticated abilities. Time-outs are most effective with a tight age span of 3-5/6. Time-outs should not be too long; their purpose should be focused on safety (eg, removing child from hurting property or others) and a time to calm down. If a child can’t do this, they are not learning from the time-out. Instead of a time limit, the end of the time-out should be when the child has calmed down, even if that takes only 30 seconds.
Is it working? Does the time-out with your child for that behavior stop the behavior and give them time and space to self-regulate? Or does it escalate frayed emotions into more unraveling that turns into a 30-minute power struggle between a chair in the corner, your tired biceps carrying your wily preschooler to said chair repeatedly, and said child running away from said chair? (Also, the use of a time-out chair has been debunked by research; more in this article about how to effectively use time-outs.)
Is it a fit for my child? Does your child have the self-soothing strategies to benefit from the time and space of a time-out? Does your child react like a caged animal to the concept, and you can tell there is real distress? You truly know your child best.
Do you feel like it is the right thing to do? As mentioned above, my mama heart knew a time-out (or as we called it, “taking time,”) caused more distress for my youngest, so I knew it wasn’t right for him. But it worked great for my oldest, and she does her own version to this day.
Behavior Plans and Rewards
I have already written a couple of blog posts defending behavior plans and rewards, so I won’t repeat myself here. Like time-outs, they have gotten a lot of bad press recently, for reasons I don’t disagree with, but often without the nuance I think they deserve. Rewards and behavior plans can work when done thoughtfully and strategically, again with the ultimate purpose of teaching your child. Some children come designed with less internal motivation than others, and these external rewards can be a critical part of them learning and growing.
Am I actually doing it how it’s supposed to be done? See past blog posts for all the details on how to approach behavior plans and rewards – there are many common pitfalls AND essentials.
Is it working? Using a reward and/or a behavior plan to address a problem is not supposed to go on forever. It is meant to shape a more desirable behavior as part of resetting a problematic behavior pattern. If a child is more motivated by doing the problem behavior than by the reward, it’s not going to work. If there is an underlying diagnosis like depression, anxiety, ADHD, or Autism, the problem needs a more systemic solution that likely involves professionals.
Is it a fit for my child? I have met children who truly are not motivated by external rewards, and for them, the solution to a behavior problem lies elsewhere. Maybe a child with perfectionism gets fixated and discouraged when they do not earn a reward; that is not the point, and is not a good fit. A behavior plan and reward system are a good fit for a child when the child gains pride and self-esteem in the process, not the opposite.
Do I feel like it is the right thing to do? Honestly, I have felt defensive in doing behavior plans in my own home as I read so many experts condemning them. But, I know my children and I are close and connected (one criticism is that doing this somehow undermines connection), and we approach it as “I know you can do this hard thing and we are going to make it fun!” If it’s not, we change course. But I have seen it accomplish its goal with my children, and so many more I work with, so I persist.
Consequences
In some circles of parenting guidance, “consequences” seems to have become a dirty word. I’m not totally sure why, except for the idea of them as punitive rather than useful to the child, and possibly interfering with the parent-child relationship. Again, I argue that when done well, consequences are necessary for child development and learning. Consequences shape human behavior at all ages. Natural consequences (you will be hungry if you don’t eat dinner) surround us when we see them and should be used as a primary form of discipline.
The truth is, however, that some natural consequences do not motivate children (e.g., my kids don’t care when their room looks like a tornado hit, nor that vegetables help their bodies grow more than chips), so we need to use logical consequences. As in the throwing objects example, a logical consequence matches the problem. One we use a lot in our household is “you can’t go do all the fun stuff like bike with your friends until your Saturday chores are done.” Work first, then fun. The logical consequence of not doing their chores is delay of fun.
The Final Word
As is true with every other part of parenting, disciplining well is hard and can take a lot of thought, effort, experimentation, and energy. I fear the advice and science have recently conflicted, but we can remember two important ingredients of parent first parenting: there is no one right way, and context matters. Discipline with your best intentions, be flexible when something just isn’t working, and keep at it until you find the right formula for your child and you. Until it changes and you start all over. In the meantime, stay warm and connected. With firm limits. Happy disciplining!
Resources
Why Time-Out Is Out, Parents (A great summary of the research and how to most effectively use time-outs for their intended purpose)
What to Do When You Feel Like Hitting: A No Hitting Book for Toddlers, Dr. Cara Goodwin (I had the pleasure of reviewing this beautiful board book for toddlers — an evidence-based approach for teaching our youngest!)
Rewards: Bribery or Behaviorism At Its Best?
The Ultimate How-To Guide for Behavior Plans