Saturday, May 23, 2009

Parenting myth: consequences are an effective method of discipline


(blog feed at sueedge.minti.com)


There are many problems with the modern parenting advice on the use of consequences as a disciplinary tool. Parenting experts today constantly promote the need to make any consequence you impose be a natural and logical consequence of the infraction. However, there are many problems with this approach.

Firstly, it requires parents to think on their feet all the time. Instead of knowing automatically what their response will be when children commit an infraction, parents have to think fast after the event, in search of a logical consequence. This is stressful and if a parent can't think of an appropriate response in time, it can lead to one of two things:

a) a lot of yelling and lecturing instead. The only thing this teaches a child is that their parents are toothless. Not a good way to maintain respect and authority in a child's eye;

b)inappropriate and unduly harsh consequences. When parents can't think of a logical consequence, they invariably resort to familiar consequences like 'grounding'. Unfortunately, groundings by their nature last a while. This can end up being more severe than the infraction warranted, resulting in the child feeling unfairly done. The end result is that the whole point of the disciplinary measure is lost

Even when parents are good at giving appropriate consequences, this becomes a tedious and stressful exercise when it is multiplied by several children. Several times a day parents have to think fast and apply appropriate consequences. On top of this, parents then have to make sure that their consequences are consistent. This means remembering the consequence they gave last month or last year. If it is a natural consequence, it is easier but it still becomes very difficult to keep track of what consequence was given to which child at what age...Yet without consistency, parents can't effectively teach their children boundaries or self-discipline which is the very foundation of good discipline practices. Being consistent in discipline is like drawing a road map in a child’s mind – every yes/no adds to the map until the child knows exactly how far and where he can safely go. This is invaluable to building a child’s sense of security.

The experts' suggestion for dealing with all the many situations that don't have obvious logical or natural consequences is to take some time to think about it. In reality, this advice just does not work. Firstly, discipline is most effective when applied immediately after the event. Any scientist and trainer will tell you that immediate negative and positive responses work best in training. While it is possible to say, "I will discuss this with you later" to an older child, this will not work with younger children. By the time you have worked out an appropriate response, the child will have forgotten about the event and the discipline imposed will be meaningless and unfair. Immediate correction is the only effective correction with young children.

Steps to effective discipline

Discipline needs to be delivered calmly, consistently and immediately. Here are some suggestions that may help:

a) Select just one or two consequences that you will use all the time, at least for the first 12 years. You may have to select a couple of different measures when the children become teenagers. Stop worrying about whether these are logical consequences and focus on whether they are measures you can apply immediately and which can be quickly over;

b) react immediately when a correction needs to be applied; and

c) always apply the correction calmly, without being drawn into arguments or discussion or negotiations.

While some parents do manage to use logical consequences method effectively, we need to acknowledge that many, maybe even most, don’t. The above method is simple and far kinder on already stressed parents.

For more information, see parenting myths. Need parenting advice? Read How to Raise a Child
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