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Discipline
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It’s normal for parents to get irritated when their children don’t cooperate. Irritation leads to nagging, nagging leads to frustration, frustration leads to anger and nothing positive comes out of these negative emotions. The problem some parents have is that they use strategies that don’t work for them when it comes to get their child to cooperate.
For example, when a child doesn’t do what their parent wants the parent’s response can be:
“How many times do I have to tell you”
“ You’re so lazy” (Labeling)
“Do it for Mummy” (begging)
“Don’t make me late again” (blaming)
“I’m so disappointed in you” (shaming
And if these strategies don’t work then parents try ( bribing ) “ I’ll give you some…..if you do as I say”
Or as a last resort “If you don’t get your shoes on, I’ll spank you” (threatening)
At the time these techniques seem justifiable to parents as they tell themselves that their child’s lack of cooperation is an act of defiance. Perhaps their own parents may have nagged, bribed or threatened them for not following directions and hence these responses may come naturally when they’re backed into a corner by a child who refuses to cooperate.
This irrational self talk stems from parents’ frightening realization that they don’t have control over their child’s behaviour. They believe that they must control their child.
Believing that their child is defiant, for example, may push parents to blame, shame, label or punish him /her as an attempt to control his/her defiance. On the other hand telling themselves that their child’s behaviour is developmentally appropriate lets parents re frame the situation as a teachable moment. It given them a chance to work with their child rather than against him/her.
Nothing positive results from nagging, bribing or threatening a child. The child may do what its asked out of fear, guilt or shame but the child won’t learn the skills necessary to get along in the world as a responsible, self sufficient considerate human being. Instead the child learns just the opposite, the child learns how to intimidate others to get them to do what they want.
Helpful ways to Motivate your Child
Parents can build their child’s trust by helping him/her learn to make decisions, follow the rules, and accept the consequences of his/her choices.
Show your child that you really understand his/her concerns. This validates him/her and tells him/her that you respect his/her opinion, which in turn motivates him/her to cooperate as part of your team. If you repeated scold, find fault, complain, blame, shame label and guilt trip your child he/she will tune you out and learn to use these hurtful tactics on other people.
If your child wants to do something and you want them to do something else saying “when you have done what I want you to do then you can do what you want to do” is a peaceful solution to parent-child conflict and teaches your child the value of meeting his/her responsibilities being doing what he/she wants.
It gives the child practice in delaying gratification and tolerating frustration. It helps the child develop the internal motivation to his his/her work done before enjoying his/her fun. It teaches your child the win-win team approach to meeting everyone’s agenda.
Bribery on the other hand tells your child “if you do what I ask then I'll give you a special prize” It teaches the child to hold out for a tangible payoff before cooperating. Once the child learns that his/her cooperation can be bought and sold on the market, his/her motivation remains external and totally dependent on the size of the payoff he/she can receive.
Teaching by giving choices
When you give your child choices, he/she practices his/her decision making skills. If your child is getting rough with his/her friend you can say “ you can play nicely with your friend or you can play by yourself. You choose” This motivates your child to play nicely with his/her friend in order to remain in the friend’s company.
On the other hand, intimidating your child by threatening to punish him/her when he/she doesn’t listen tells him/her that he/she has no choice in the matter. Because he/she feel intimidated by you his/her anger, resentment and reluctance to cooperate will increase. Threats lead to fear and feat motivates your child to escape or rebel rather than cooperate.
Threats also put you in a difficult position. If your child doesn’t comply, you’re forced to follow through with a punishment that damages your child and your relationship with him/her if you don’t follow through your credibility is destroyed.
Punishment is not necessarily the key to discipline
Many good parents feel that they have to punish their children once in a while. Other parents find that they can successfully manage without ever having to punish. I suppose a lot depends on how the parents themselves were brought up.
I believe it’s the nature of the discipline that matters. If your child is disobedient then the child needs to be disciplined. Spanking or hitting is not considered an effective form of punishment. This type of punishment teaches your child the very thing you don’t want him/her to learn and that is that it is O.K. to hit others especially if they are smaller than you. A more appropriate form of punishment is time out and or taking away something from the child which they value, such as watching TV or going out with friends etc.
The everyday job of parents is to keep the child on the right track by means of firmness and consistency. The main source of good discipline is growing up in a loving family – being loved and learning to love in return. Yes, some children are more challenging than other, they may be more active, impulsive and so under responsive to the usual messages from parents that even very good parents feel ineffective, frustrated and angry.
However if you keep in mind that children’s motives are good (most of the time) they really do want to please their parents, children are always looking for their parents’ unconditional love and approval, it’s just that sometimes they don’t have the experience to follow your instructions in the manner you expect them to.
When a child feels that they are unconditionally loved, a disapproving glance or word from a parent is enough to steer the child back on the right track.