Method To Discipline Your Child
Children bombard parents with many challenging behaviours. We are delighted if their behaviour is mostly positive. But what if your child constantly demonstrates negative behaviour? How are you going to deal with it?
Discipline for the majority of the twentieth century was adult-centred and relied heavily on punishment as a way of keeping children on the right track. Discipline was based on the principle of severity and terms such as punishment, obedience and compliance were commonly used.
Often I hear parents say that they ***** or yell at their kids. This is not because these parents do not care for their children but because they really don’t know any different. If you look at the world today, what do you see as socially more “acceptable”; yelling at a child doing something “bad”, or creating a “yes” environment for that same child? The first of course, it’s the way it’s “always” been done, right?
Second, is there anything else going on in your child’s life that might be causing stress or is there anything else going on in your life that might be causing stress to your child? Children are creatures of habit. While they enjoy the new they also crave routine.
If he still refuses to follow the instruction, the parent follows up by saying, “That’s two.” At this point it would probably be a good idea to once again repeat the previous directions. If the child stops the inappropriate behavior and follows the instruction, then the problem has been solved. If the child still refuses to follow instructions than the parents simply states “That’s three,” and follows with the consequence stated at the start of the counting.
Parents need to acknowledge and provide positive responses every time a child follows the rules by giving some form of encouragement or reward. Otherwise, the child should be informed of the consequences for breaking the established rules. Children learn from experience, and it is therefore necessary to let them experience the consequences rather than submerge them into punishment. Most parents confuse parenting discipline with punishment, but it should not be the case. Instead, mistakes can be a turned into a venue for learning.
Be careful when using threats. You tend to say things you do not mean when you get angry. Too many threats will effect your child behavior too. They will learn from you and use your words to threat other people thus leads to bad manner.
We need to obviate the reliance on this method quickly, especially as one sensible alternative exists. Some experts have suggested that natural consequences be applied to correct action. For example, if your child breaks your favourite dish, it is better that the child is punished by having to sacrifice his weekly allowance or do extra chores as a consequence.
This seems to be one of the most overlooked methods of discipline but yet the very word discipline means instruction or teaching and the most effective way to teach or instruct is to open dialogue between you and your child. Speak with them and decipher the reasons behind their behavior
