My Parenting Philosophy My Parenting Philosophy
I have been working with children for many years. When I first started, I obeyed the experts of the time regarding discipline techniques. I used time-out, removal of privileges and reward charts to encourage or discourage behaviors. Over the years, I slowly realized the techniques taught to so many of us not only are ineffective, but created hostility during the parenting day.
After this realization, I decided to re-examine my goals when I discipline the children in my care. My number one goal was to stop the naughty behavior and teach appropriate alternative solutions. I believe in order to teach children appropriate behaviors I must:
By following these basic guidelines, I am laying predictable rules of the household eliminating one of the most common reasons for a child’s naughty behavior, miscommunication.
Next, I examined why we discipline our children, which is to teach a lesson, often one which will benefit our children for years to come. In order for the discipline to become a life long lesson, there are a few “discipline rules” I need to establish, like:
The end goal of my new discipline technique is to teach life long lessons about problem solving and conflict resolution in even the youngest children. I know from years of using this technique, if you teach a toddler to create alternative solutions to the problems they face, as a preschoolers, they will automatically look for those alternative solutions. I will admit, my method takes a considerable more time and patience on the side of the adult, but when the end result is young children who think out their problems and not fight out their problems, that extra effort was well worth it.
Because this concept is unusual for many parents, let me provide an example.
Joe is 3. He’s feeling off today and showing it. He hasn’t obeyed simple requests, he’s been cranky and just now he threw his toy when you asked him to come help you.
TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUE
Traditionally, Joe would be given a “time out” of solitary confinement for 1 minute per year of age. Should Joe not stay in “time out” he would be forcibly returned to the area and the time restarted.
INSIGHT:
As I mentioned before, traditional discipline methods, like time-out create more hostility during the parenting day and does not provide education about the problem at hand. In this case, a parent could realistically spend the next 15 minutes fighting about a 3 minute time out. The attention is placed on the punishment, not the lesson.
Dr. Foster Cline & Jim Fay developed a program called Love & Logic. They teach that during punishments, like time out, children do not reflect on their misdeeds, but on the anger they feel for being punished. They do not regret their actions, but become hostile towards their punishers.
THE LIFE LONG LESSON TECHNIQUE
If you take the same situation and apply my technique, a parent would calmly walk over to Joe and state the rules about throwing toys. During this time, the parent would evaluate Joe’s overall ability to control his emotions. They may then state that he seems out of sorts and talk to him about what’s going on. Together the parent and Joe would talk about appropriate ways of expressing anger, frustration and other overwhelming feelings. They would also talk about the consequences of throwing toys, including the possibility of injuring people, property or the toy. Lastly, the parent would clearly explain to Joe the consequences if the behavior continued, and enforced the rules, should he continue making poor choices.
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