Discipline is the most important factor in the early years of your child’s life. It’s also the most effective method by which we instill values, teach important life skills and keep ourselves sane. The absence of it leads to all kinds of problems ranging from annoying behavior all the way up to psychological issues that will continue into later life.
As a therapist, I deal with this type of situation often. In fact, a mother recently said to me – “I always thought that if I just loved my children enough that they’d turn out just like I wanted them to.” As it turns out, this was definitely not the case. And herein lies one of the major problems with our thought processes and patterns regarding discipline: many of us feel bad about disciplining our children; even going so far as to believe that love and discipline are mostly incompatible with one another, when in reality there could be nothing further from the truth.
Children need appropriate boundaries, and often receive a sense of security from those boundaries. For those who struggle with discipline, here are some top tips for establishing an environment of appropriate discipline that will help enrich not only the lives of your children but also the establishment of your family.
1. Chronic rescue leads to chronic irresponsibility.
• Your kids must be given opportunities to handle things on their own. Otherwise they’ll never learn how and you’ll be rescuing them as adults.
• When you rescue, you think you are helping your child, but you may actually be hurting them.
2. Set limits and stick to them.
• This is vitally important. Having limits with no consistency is just as bad as having no limits.
• If you set limits and don’t stick to them you are essentially teaching your children to be persistent in getting their way with you.
3. You’ll never get the right behavioral response without the right verbal response.
• You’ll never see what you want unless you know they understand what you’re after.
• Talking can get dysfunctional fast – go ahead and talk with them, but keep it short and to the point.
4. Effective discipline is always about questions.
• Ask questions like – how did we get here? What was your job? How is that working out for you? Could you have done this differently? etc.
• The goal with discipline is to break through the habit barrier and get that little mind to think about what’s just happened. Questions are a great way to do that.
5. Most kids tend to meet the expectations you have for them.
• Most kids want to please. Set your expectations high (appropriately of course) and begin the process of teaching your little human how to do this for him or herself.
These top tips are a great way to start off right, or to tweak a method you’re already using. For more information, other tips, or for consultation, feel free to contact us at anytime!
Blessings,
Jonathan Hodge, M.S.
jonathan@tatescamp.com
Jhodge.counseling@gmail.com
865-690-9208