Parenting ~ Communication and Discipline
By Jonathan Anderson
Setting some simple ground rules and intentions for yourself as a parent can be very helpful. This piece will give you a good start.
Parenting - Communication and Discipline
Generally speaking, there are some basic considerations to be mindful of when parenting children of any age.
First, if your kids feel included in the creation of some of the rules, rewards and consequences, and ideas, then they will be more invested in the process, and more likely to cooperate with the expectations.
Regarding communication, strive to be:
* Non-threatening (you want them to feel safe to ask you questions, tell you their mistakes and ask for help)
* Non-shaming (again, if they feel that you will simply judge them for their mistakes and decisions that you disagree with, then WHY WOULD THEY TELL YOU?)
* Nonjudgmental (related to non-shaming. Your kids will not communicate with you as much if they feel judged, especially as they approach their teenage years - when the stakes of communication are overtly much higher)
Regarding discipline:
* CATCH 'EM BEING GOOD!! Why do I put this advice in discipline? Because most of us have been trained by our own parents, and society in general, to mostly catch children being bad (followed by punishing discipline) in an effort to extinguish the negative behavior . . . we forget that parenting is about teaching and guiding, NOT just about discipline. The most powerful form of guidance is rewarding the positive.
* When you need to enforce consequences for not-so-good behavior, make sure that you KEEP YOUR COOL and that the consequence fits the mistake. . . in other words, if you teen is on the phone for 10 minutes longer than curfew, grounding them from the phone for a month is completely inappropriate and jeopardizes your credibility as a reasonable parent that teen can learn from. As a general rule of thumb, grounding should last no longer than 2 weeks for extreme behavior. The reasoning behind this number is that for children and teens, any longer might as well be an eternity, and for young children, they forget what they are being punished for and may come to associate their grounding with appropriate behaviors they have developed since the grounding was enforced. . . for teenagers, they are likely to begin a power struggle where their logic is, "Well, I'm grounded forever anyway, I might as well get 'em back, or have some fun while I'm grounded."
* BE CLEAR about what the inappropriate behavior is, and why it is not appropriate. Explain what the more appropriate behavior is, and always try to wrap up with clarifying that you love them even though you may not like how they are behaving.
* BE CONSISTENT! If you ground you child for a week, then follow through for the week (sorry kids! read on though, it gets better for you further down this page). HOWEVER, if you realize that you have overdone a consequence, then you may use the opportunity to teach your kids how to apologize and make things right by scaling down the consequence to a more reasonable level.
* Have ground rules written down in advance, and add to the list as necessary . . . if a behavior is not listed, or alluded to on the list, then do NOT impose a consequence . . . YET. Add the behavior to the list, explain why it is inappropriate and what the future consequence will be, then move on. Of course, if the behavior is an obvious violation of laws, safety, etc., then some sort of basic consequence is OK. Just remember to keep your cool and NEVER ACT OUT OF RAGE.
Point System (adapted from "Transforming the Difficult Child")
Philosophy: Reward the good by giving points; impose immediate/natural consequences for the inappropriate behavior by deducting points along with other consequences (time outs, replacing/repairing broken items, an apology, etc.) if needed (just taking away points is often sufficient for many difficult behaviors; however, do not hesitate to use 'time-out' etc. in conjunction-just do NOT overdo it).
Motto: "CATCH EM BEING GOOD!!!!"
Create a system that is age appropriate (sticker and star charts for younger kids, graph paper a little later on, and accounting ledger for teens) where positive behavior is awarded points (more points for how big the behavior is), and negative behavior has points deducted (again, more points for bigger behaviors). Your Point Chart can be divided into 3 levels of positive behaviors (and 3 levels of rewards/points), and 3 levels of negative behaviors (again, with 3 levels of consequences/point deductions); try to use broad terms where possible (for example, accountability, respect, honesty, etc.) so that obvious infractions or positive displays of these principles can be addressed through the broader concept (respect, for example).
Be creative with this . . . feel free to check it out with a counselor if you are not sure about the details. Be willing to debug the system as you go along though. . . this process is an excellent opportunity to model learning and putting learning into action in a calm, healthy manner.
Many people find a basic point system where points are directly cashed out for rewards to be most effective in their particular family situation. Others find more complex systems motivate more behavior change in their lives as long as the system is not so complex as to defeat the purpose.
**INCLUDE your kids in the making of the lists that get rewards & consequences, and how much those actions get awarded/taken away; be willing to bargain a little. The more invested your children are in the process, the more likely they will abide by it.
**If a behavior is not on the list, do not deduct points; simply explain the behavior, why it is not OK, and how many points will be taken away next time. Of course, major negative behaviors that endanger people/property (setting fire to a corn field) should not be overlooked and just added with no consequence . . . clearly, use your judgment.
**REMEMBER that you must keep this system in place for 6-8 weeks before it begins to 'stick.' The point system only tends to work when parents keep it in place over time.
(Click here to see the rest of this article and how Jonathan applies genuineness, awareness, trust and empathy to parenting.)
Jonathan Anderson's career providing professional counseling as well as management and personal consultation for thousands of customers over the past 10+ years has prepared him to help people as they explore ways to find balance in their lives. He provides his counseling and consultation in a manner that is applicable to real-life situations (i.e.even metaphysical discussions are always brought back to real-life, even scientific, applications to your life). See Jonathan's blog on psychology, therapy, healing and learning.
Generally speaking, there are some basic considerations to be mindful of when parenting children of any age.
First, if your kids feel included in the creation of some of the rules, rewards and consequences, and ideas, then they will be more invested in the process, and more likely to cooperate with the expectations.
Regarding communication, strive to be:
* Non-threatening (you want them to feel safe to ask you questions, tell you their mistakes and ask for help)
* Non-shaming (again, if they feel that you will simply judge them for their mistakes and decisions that you disagree with, then WHY WOULD THEY TELL YOU?)
* Nonjudgmental (related to non-shaming. Your kids will not communicate with you as much if they feel judged, especially as they approach their teenage years - when the stakes of communication are overtly much higher)
Regarding discipline:
* CATCH 'EM BEING GOOD!! Why do I put this advice in discipline? Because most of us have been trained by our own parents, and society in general, to mostly catch children being bad (followed by punishing discipline) in an effort to extinguish the negative behavior . . . we forget that parenting is about teaching and guiding, NOT just about discipline. The most powerful form of guidance is rewarding the positive.
* When you need to enforce consequences for not-so-good behavior, make sure that you KEEP YOUR COOL and that the consequence fits the mistake. . . in other words, if you teen is on the phone for 10 minutes longer than curfew, grounding them from the phone for a month is completely inappropriate and jeopardizes your credibility as a reasonable parent that teen can learn from. As a general rule of thumb, grounding should last no longer than 2 weeks for extreme behavior. The reasoning behind this number is that for children and teens, any longer might as well be an eternity, and for young children, they forget what they are being punished for and may come to associate their grounding with appropriate behaviors they have developed since the grounding was enforced. . . for teenagers, they are likely to begin a power struggle where their logic is, "Well, I'm grounded forever anyway, I might as well get 'em back, or have some fun while I'm grounded."
* BE CLEAR about what the inappropriate behavior is, and why it is not appropriate. Explain what the more appropriate behavior is, and always try to wrap up with clarifying that you love them even though you may not like how they are behaving.
* BE CONSISTENT! If you ground you child for a week, then follow through for the week (sorry kids! read on though, it gets better for you further down this page). HOWEVER, if you realize that you have overdone a consequence, then you may use the opportunity to teach your kids how to apologize and make things right by scaling down the consequence to a more reasonable level.
* Have ground rules written down in advance, and add to the list as necessary . . . if a behavior is not listed, or alluded to on the list, then do NOT impose a consequence . . . YET. Add the behavior to the list, explain why it is inappropriate and what the future consequence will be, then move on. Of course, if the behavior is an obvious violation of laws, safety, etc., then some sort of basic consequence is OK. Just remember to keep your cool and NEVER ACT OUT OF RAGE.
Point System (adapted from "Transforming the Difficult Child")
Philosophy: Reward the good by giving points; impose immediate/natural consequences for the inappropriate behavior by deducting points along with other consequences (time outs, replacing/repairing broken items, an apology, etc.) if needed (just taking away points is often sufficient for many difficult behaviors; however, do not hesitate to use 'time-out' etc. in conjunction-just do NOT overdo it).
Motto: "CATCH EM BEING GOOD!!!!"
Create a system that is age appropriate (sticker and star charts for younger kids, graph paper a little later on, and accounting ledger for teens) where positive behavior is awarded points (more points for how big the behavior is), and negative behavior has points deducted (again, more points for bigger behaviors). Your Point Chart can be divided into 3 levels of positive behaviors (and 3 levels of rewards/points), and 3 levels of negative behaviors (again, with 3 levels of consequences/point deductions); try to use broad terms where possible (for example, accountability, respect, honesty, etc.) so that obvious infractions or positive displays of these principles can be addressed through the broader concept (respect, for example).
Be creative with this . . . feel free to check it out with a counselor if you are not sure about the details. Be willing to debug the system as you go along though. . . this process is an excellent opportunity to model learning and putting learning into action in a calm, healthy manner.
Many people find a basic point system where points are directly cashed out for rewards to be most effective in their particular family situation. Others find more complex systems motivate more behavior change in their lives as long as the system is not so complex as to defeat the purpose.
**INCLUDE your kids in the making of the lists that get rewards & consequences, and how much those actions get awarded/taken away; be willing to bargain a little. The more invested your children are in the process, the more likely they will abide by it.
**If a behavior is not on the list, do not deduct points; simply explain the behavior, why it is not OK, and how many points will be taken away next time. Of course, major negative behaviors that endanger people/property (setting fire to a corn field) should not be overlooked and just added with no consequence . . . clearly, use your judgment.
**REMEMBER that you must keep this system in place for 6-8 weeks before it begins to 'stick.' The point system only tends to work when parents keep it in place over time.
(Click here to see the rest of this article and how Jonathan applies genuineness, awareness, trust and empathy to parenting.)
Jonathan Anderson's career providing professional counseling as well as management and personal consultation for thousands of customers over the past 10+ years has prepared him to help people as they explore ways to find balance in their lives. He provides his counseling and consultation in a manner that is applicable to real-life situations (i.e.even metaphysical discussions are always brought back to real-life, even scientific, applications to your life). See Jonathan's blog on psychology, therapy, healing and learning.
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