discipline Archives - Advantage4Parents

Sooner or later, you’ll want to go out to eat and take the kids along. Probably you did this quite a bit when your first child was tiny… just a sleepy little bundle in a car seat. But now that your child – or children – is a bit older, and more opinionated, and more mobile, you might be wondering if you’re doomed to take-out forever.

There’s no magic formula for teaching restaurant manners and learning how to eat out courteously takes time to master. But there are steps along the way you can try. Here are 10.

1. Choose your restaurant wisely. Aim for casual dining – even fast food – for first ventures out with children whose self-control is in doubt. You want a child-friendly menu, fast service, and forgiving fellow diners. It also helps if there’s plenty of space between tables.

2. Choose a booth over a table. It’s easier to corral children in a booth and the high backs on booth benches shelter other diners from your kids’ noisiness.

3. Bring along entertainment, in the form of books, small trucks, a stuffed animal or two, and whatever else seems reasonable. Don’t bring the entire toy box, however, since stuff will fall on the floor and need retrieval. Remember that you also are the entertainment. Play along, draw with your kids, play word games, and so on. This is not a quiet evening out for the adults, in case you hadn’t noticed.

4. Bring along snacks. If your children are likely to be hungry and crabby before the food arrives, it helps to have some crackers or string cheese in your pocket. It’s also not a bad idea to feed your children something before leaving home. They’re not likely to eat much at the restaurant anyway.

5. If your child is old enough to order on his own, let him do it. Ordering from the kids’ menu is sensible even if the choices aren’t 100% nutritious. The idea is to have happy children. Finger food is the way to go, if you can.

6. This is not the time to crab about kids’ manners, yell about behavior or otherwise call attention to your family. Your kids are doing that just fine all on their own. Don’t add to the circus by acting like a child yourself.

7. Make sure parents tag team the responsibilities. If you can, take along enough adults so there is one per child but, at the very least, take turns with your partner in cutting up food, feeding a child if necessary, taking kids to the restroom, and so on. It shouldn’t happen that one parent eats dinner while the other’s dinner goes cold. Work this out ahead of time.

8. Leave when you need to. When the kids signal it’s time to leave, it’s probably time to ask for the check.

9. Clean up your space as well as you reasonably can and leave a generous tip.

10. Crazy as it might seem, go out again soon. Practice makes perfect!

As always, model good behavior and try to stay calm and cool. Smile. Laugh. These are what memories are made of.

My younger son nearly set a café’s curtains ablaze by sticking a sugar packet in the decorative candle until the packet caught fire. If your children don’t do worse than that, you’re doing fine!

Diana Baumrind, a Berkeley California developmental psychologist working in the 1960s, developed parenting categories based on parental responsiveness and “demandingness.” She posited – and much research since has confirmed – that there must be a balance between supporting children and controlling them. Baumrind came up with three categories or styles of parenting that reflect different levels of support and control: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative.

In a Three Bears sort of way, authoritarian parents are too hard – too controlling and offering too little support for children’s personalities. In a situation where a child is making a scene in the toy aisle at Target, the authoritarian parent might growl, “Get over here now! Be quiet! You’re acting like a baby!”

Permissive parents are too soft – bending over backwards to give children what they desire and making too few demands. In the same toy aisle situation, the permissive parent might buy the toy to shut the child up or bargain with the child, buying something smaller or offering extra dessert tonight if she will only come away now please…

But authoritative parents – those who balance control and support – are “just right.” And their children tend to be “just right” too. Study after study has demonstrated that American kids do best with authoritative parenting. They do well in school, get along nicely with other children and adults, mostly stay out of trouble, and are well-adjusted and self-disciplined. The authoritative parent in the Target toy aisle might admire the toy the child desires, letting her point out its cool features, and agree with her that, yes, it would be fun to have that someday. “But right now, we’re not buying toys. We came here to get some paper towels. Do you know where to find them in this store?”

So why don’t all parents use an authoritative parenting style? Why is this so hard?

First, it’s hard because “authoritative” – the good sort of parenting – and “authoritarian” – the less good sort – sound a lot alike. The words are very similar. Some authors clear up the confusion by renaming the good “authoritative parenting” as “respectful parenting.” Let’s do that here. I like it because respect is the key element in effective parenting.

But mostly parents struggle to use respectful parenting with their children for two reasons: they misunderstand the parenting role and they too often want a quick fix.

Raising bright, responsible kids takes a long while – at least 18 years. But our lives are lived in the moment… and right this moment we want things to go smoothly. So, depending on our own inclinations and our child’s temperament, we smooth things out at any given time by caving in to the whining and the tantruming or by screaming for it to stop. We buy a moment’s peace by being a tyrant or a pushover but we also set ourselves up for another round of the same behavior later. The respectful parent takes the time to listen to a child’s point-of-view and then explains her own position and why that is the position that will stick. Treated this way, the child learns to express his ideas civilly and to accept mom or dad’s decision with grace. The parent doesn’t just control behavior or ignore it, he teaches the behavior he wants to see.

But many of us think it’s our job to control behavior. We’ve got the parenting thing wrong. So if control comes easily to us, we try to order our kids around. We try to parent by enforcing rules with punishment and by manipulating good behavior. We’re in charge and our children are not. That’s how we act if we mistakenly think that the parent’s role is all about control.

Or, perhaps we think the parent’s role is all about control but we reject control and do everything we can to avoid being controlling. But when we deny control we leave a hole in our relationship with our kids. We have little to say. So children, without the guidance of adult control, run amok. Four- and six-year-olds are now running the family. The parent and child roles are reversed.

As Baumrind pointed out, parenting is not just about control and control is not always a bad thing. But control must always be tempered with support and respect that guide children in the ways they should go. The true role of the parent is one of teacher. To teach, one must listen, explain, and maybe even agree. Teaching is a process. It’s not a quick fix.

Effective parents have high standards for their children, standards that are appropriate to each child’s age and abilities and temperament. They have rules. But they also understand that their children are individual people with individual needs and wishes. Each child must be treated with respect. It’s not easy. But over the course of 18 years, being an effective parent pays off.

True personal story:

When my oldest daughter was about 8 months old, she got over-stimulated and grabbed an adult relative hard enough to cause pain. We pulled her off, apologized, went into another room and helped her calm down. About 20 minutes later, I apologized for my daughter’s behavior again to my relative. Her response surprised me. She said:

“Are you going to let her get away with that? Shouldn’t you give her a little swat on the butt?”

At the time, I think I simply said that no, I wouldn’t be spanking my infant. But, years later, I still often think of that brief exchange because of the stark contrast between “conventional” parenting wisdom and what–thanks to research–we now know.

To start with, did you know that when a child is upset, the part of their brain that learns best is turned off? When they are crying, dysregulated, hungry, overtired, “wired,” or “fried,” they can’t really learn. So all the words, all the lessons, all the good advice you give them during that time? It pretty much goes in one ear and out the other.

And it’s not their fault, either. Their brains (and yours and mine, too!) are hard-wired to work this way. Furthermore, in those over-stimulated situations, the part of the child’s brain that IS working is a primal, emotional, impulsive, defensive part of the brain. You aren’t going to change the fact that the primal brain is primal, trust me… what you can hope for instead is to help your child improve their skills at managing their own dysregulation, so that they can get better and faster at bringing their more evolved brain back online. That’s not going to happen for any 8 month old: we’re lucky if our 8 year olds can do it some of the time.

So, the next time your child is really upset, don’t try to “teach them a lesson.” Instead:

Press the pause button on your own words and reactions.
Take a deep breath and help yourself either stay or return to calm.
Then, share your calm energy with your child, with the simple goal of helping them get back to their normal, higher-functioning self.
And for those children old enough to take your advice, save it for a later time, when your child’s brain and body are back in their normal, peaceful state. That’s the very best time to teach!

When we rely solely on punishments to change behaviors, we either end up unsuccessful (think: the prison system) or somewhat successful with negative side effects (for example: poor relationships between parent & child, aggression in the child towards others, increases in lying and hiding behaviors, etc.) To create a life-long positive relationship with our children, we have to approach shaping their behavior with gentleness, consistency, flexibility, and understanding. Punishments don’t do any of those things—at 8 months, 8 years, or 18 years.

What we now know… is to limit our lecturing, work to understand why our kids misbehave, create an environment that supports the behaviors we want, create cooperation and mutual respect, and focus on the positives. This creates healthy adults, better parent-child relationships, and it works.

Here’s the thing about children’s melt-downs: they don’t know how to stop them.

Once a child loses control and is on the floor screaming or throwing blocks around the room or biting her sister and breaking the skin, it’s all over. Her emotional control has fallen off the cliff and she has no way of getting it back on her own. What you do next is the most important thing.

Most of us react by melting down ourselves. We scream, we hit, and we lock our kids in their bedrooms. We act like children. None of this helps a child find her calm again. Most of this simply escalates things. Instead of fixing the day and helping to make certain this sort of episode becomes less frequent, we ruin the day and make certain this sort of episode will happen again tomorrow.

If we want something to change, we can’t do the same things we’ve been doing. We have to show our child techniques for regaining control.

This is exactly the sort of training provided to children in Head Start who have been identified as suffering from early trauma. Children who are angry at the world, who have been hurt deeply even as preschoolers, need help to find their emotional center. Head Start has created a program designed to actively teach calming skills. We parents of less injured children can do the same thing.

It helps to recognize that young children really don’t know how to calm themselves. We see this in babies, who are very difficult to soothe once they’ve reached the screaming-meanies phase. But toddlers and preschoolers (and even older kids) still haven’t mastered self-soothing skills either. They need our help. Here’s what to do.

Give a child the gift of your calmness. Your child is standing on an emotional ledge, ready to jump. Any good negotiator knows you don’t yell at someone on the edge, you talk with him calmly. You lend your own calmness to someone who doesn’t have enough. So take a deep breath. Speak calmly and slowly. Helping your child means giving her your quiet strength.
If you need to restrain your child, do so with love, not anger. Enfold your child securely but gently. Keep in mind that you are giving calmness, not fighting. This is not easy to do. It will take all your physical strength and your emotional control to keep a child from hurting himself or others while not hurting him yourself.
As your child quiets, direct her attention to her heart rate. Show her how to take her pulse at her wrist or to feel her heart. Notice how fast it’s racing. Challenge your child to getting her heart rate down.
Show your child how to take deep breaths. Do this together. Three or four calming breaths will steady her pulse and help her to settle. She will still be shaky, so don’t be too quick to ask questions. Let her take the time she needs to get back to calm.
Congratulate your child on settling himself. Put off asking what set him off until later; probing into this now make reignite his anger and upset. Instead, suggest a different activity altogether. He may want to go lie down for a few minutes in a quiet place, or he may want to watch TV for a little bit. If he was really out of control, he’ll need some time to feel himself again.

If you are consistent with this pattern, your child will eventually learn how to calm herself without your intervention. It will take time. But even in the short term, you and your child will both feel better about the day and you both will feel like you’ve grown emotionally and in your shared relationship.

A meltdown doesn’t have to derail everything. It doesn’t have to be an everyday occurrence. Take the time to teach your child another way to be.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

A popular talk show host recently featured a story about mothers who used social media to punish a child. One mother posted a photo of her daughter holding a sign that explained the bad thing the child had done. Another posted a child’s punishment to her own and to the child’s Facebook pages. When others commented, the child was made to respond, saying what she had done to earn the punishment.

One of the mothers justified shaming her child by saying that this is no different than her own parents, back in the day, telling the neighbors about a dumb thing she’d done. Is it the same? And whether it’s the same or not, is it a good thing to do?

Raising teens is as frustrating today as it ever was and it’s still difficult to get a teen’s attention. One of the mothers the talk show host interviewed said that publicly embarrassing her daughter on Facebook was the only way to get a response from the child. So what do you think: is public embarrassment and shaming a terrible idea or an ideal technique for managing your teen?

Let’s start with the job of a parent of teenagers. It’s our job to help a kid make the transition from being 10 to being 20. The ten-year-old is dependent on his parents, he can’t make many decisions on his own, and he definitely needs someone to keep him on track in a lot of ways. The 20-year-old person is nearly an adult. He’s making most of his own decisions and may even be living on his own. He still needs the guidance of Mom and Dad, of course, but only for major decisions and only along with the guidance of his friends and other adults. A lot happens in the decade between childhood and adulthood. If you want your 10-year-old to grow into a capable and responsible adult, then you have to work on that every day until he turns 20.

So every interaction you have with your teenager is an instructional moment. And in every instructional moment, two things are taught: what to do and how to do it. When your child makes a mistake or disappoints you, you want to teach her a different thing to do. And you also want to teach her how to confront someone who has made a mistake, how to guide someone in choosing a better path, and how to not let her anger and frustration take over.

This is where public embarrassment of your child fails as a technique. It may indeed be effective in stopping whatever it was that you didn’t like. But it does nothing at all in teaching your child how to react to another person’s failings. Adults do not go out of their way to purposely embarrass or shame someone else. A friend who did this to you would quickly become your enemy. Embarrassment and shame may stop a behavior but they also destroy trust and create hard feelings. This is not what you want for your child or for the relationship you have together.

The years between 10 and 20 are important in shaping the sort of adult your child will become. But these years are also important in shaping the bond between you and your child for the future. If it is important to you that your child trust you, that she think kindly of you, that she respect your opinions, and that she come to you for advice, then the teen years are the time to build these feelings. These years are too precious to waste on childish displays for all the world to see of her missteps and of your frustration.

Ultimately, resorting to embarrassment and shame reveal the parent as the one who is immature and petty. Be above that. Show your child and show your friends what real grownups look like.

Have you ever spanked your child? You know: hit, slapped, shoved, shaken, or spanked a child on the bottom? Lots of parents have, even if they won’t admit it. And those who do admit it think that spanking is no big deal. They claim it’s effective. Is it?

Well, certainly spanking has the effect of stopping whatever is going on pretty quickly. It directs a child’s attention away from whatever she’s been doing back to you. So it’s effective in that way. But does spanking effectively develop a child’s ability to know right from wrong and to get along better as a person? All the research says “No.”

Spanking ranges on a continuum, of, course, from the very occasional swat all the way up to daily beatings. Obviously, daily beatings are bad. But that occasional swat isn’t good either. A long-term, large scale study reported in the medical journal Pediatrics found that children who were spanked the most at age three had the most behavior problems at age five. The lead researcher reported, “The odds of a child being more aggressive at age 5 increased by 50% if he had been spanked more than twice in the month before the study began.” More than twice in a month: three times. That’s occasional. And that has a strong negative effect. And the study accounted for the children’s natural differences in temperament. “It’s not just that children who are more aggressive are more likely to be spanked,” the lead researcher said.

Spanking doesn’t teach good behavior. It doesn’t teach kids what they should do. Spanking teaches bad behavior. It teaches that when you don’t like what you see or aren’t getting what you want, the adult thing to do is to hit. That’s what Mom and Dad do.

How often do you spank your child? For many parents, it’s just about every day. A couple times a week. Why?

Parents spank because spanking is quick. It requires no thinking, no conversation, no teaching. One doesn’t actually have to do any of the hard work of being a parent when one spanks.

What parents don’t realize is that spanking is bad for their children and it’s bad for them. Spanking raises your blood pressure, heightens adrenaline levels, and increases your stress. Notice how you feel after you administer a spanking: notice your heart rate, your own level of upset. Violence takes its toll. (And if hitting your child makes you feel good, then you have serious psychological issues.)

Many parents defend spanking by saying, “He was asking for it.” Not even big children want you to hit them. But older children may like to provoke you to the point of violence. When older kids do that, it has the effect of reducing your power. They know that when you hit, you are acting like a child yourself. You have destroyed your own authority. When you spank your child, he can ignore you because you don’t deserve his respect.

If you are a spanker, it won’t be easy to stop. You will need to try to get through each day, one at a time, without hitting your child. It helps to have an alternative strategy in mind. There are many good books and sites on positive discipline. Seek these out.

But stop the spanking. Even a little bit is way too much.

A lot of parents tell me they’ve tried using logical consequences to manage children’s behavior but with not-very-good results. They can’t figure out why this supposedly fool-proof method doesn’t work for them. Usually it’s because they’re not using it correctly.

Logical consequences was popularized by psychologist Rudolf Dreikurs in the 1940’s and 50’s. Dreikurs’ most famous book on child guidance, Children: The Challenge, emphasized developing children’s self-discipline and self-control in a supportive parenting environment. According to Dreikurs, logical consequences allow children to learn to limit themselves without putting parents in a controlling role.

So why do many parents struggle to make this work? It’s because they have trouble letting the Universe be their child’s teacher.

Logical consequences is effective because it’s impersonal. Nobody inflicts punishment or teaches anybody a lesson. In fact, in a logical consequences situation, the parent can sympathize with the child and share in her disappointment in how things worked out. The parent is not the disciplinarian. But giving up this role is hard for many moms and dads.

Here are four principles to keep in mind that will make logical consequences work better for you.

1. The consequences have to be logical. They have to arise from the situation and not be something created by the parent. So a logical consequence of leaving your jacket out in the rain is that you have to wear a wet jacket (or no jacket). It’s not a logical consequence if leaving your jacket out in the rain results in no dessert tonight.

Parents get frustrated here because if their child has another jacket to wear the consequence doesn’t bite hard enough to suit the adult. But if leaving a jacket out is no big deal, then it’s no big deal. That’s logical.

2. The consequences have to be immediate. Especially for young children, who have such an imperfect understanding of time, an effective consequence has to activate the moment a mistake was made. Throwing a block at the wall leaves a mark, which the child must work to fix – now. Staying home on Saturday from a planned trip to the zoo in order to fix the mark on the wall is not immediate and so seems disconnected from the act of throwing a block.

Parents delay consequences because stopping everything to let the consequence have its effect is often inconvenient. But teaching children is always inconvenient. It would be so much easier if they already knew everything!

3. The consequences have to be neutral. Consequences are not good or bad, they just are. Trying to make them worse or more dramatic than they have to be inserts into the experience a parent’s wish to punish. But once you take sides, you’re lost. This is not logical consequences then but just an elaborate method of exerting control.

Staying neutral in the matter of consequences is not easy for most parents, who are afraid that their child is “missing the point.” But again, if you have to jack up the consequence in order to make it more noticeable, then maybe the whole thing was no big deal to begin with.

4. Your role as a parent is one of lending sympathy. If your best friend left the top of her convertible down and then it rained and ruined the upholstery, you wouldn’t say “I told you so! I told you to watch the Weather Channel!” No, you would say how awful that was and wonder along with her how much it will cost to fix things and where she might find a good person to do the work. Your role with your child in a logical consequences situation is exactly the same.

If you have to be “right” and point out how you could see this coming but your child was too thoughtless and pig-headed to listen, then your problem is not one of discipline but a problem of good manners. Be nicer!

You might see now where you’ve been applying logical consequences in ways that pretty much guaranteed failure. You might also understand that this technique is really a way of seeing yourself and your child. It’s a valuable method that leads to good child outcomes. But for most parents, it’s not easy.

Thanksgiving is on the way. How can you manage all the holiday hoopla that’s runs from now into January, reduce the stress and increase the happiness for you and your kids? Here are some simple tips that might keep the season bright.

Get lots of sleep
Make sure your kids – even your teenagers – get 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night. Toddlers and preschoolers need even more. It’s difficult to get sleep when there’s so much going on but try to keep regular bedtimes throughout the holiday season.

Try for a nap or quiet time on days that are filled with events and disruption. Stop the action for everyone for at least 30 minutes – 45 minutes or an hour is even better. The little kids can sleep and the bigger kids can read or watch quiet television and just chill out for a while. If you’re out and about and things are getting hectic but there’s no time for a break, stop anyway, get a snack, run around on a playground. Getting everything done is not so important as having a pleasant time. Do what you can to ensure your kids are rested and not overtired or overstressed.

Watch the sugar and chocolate
Each person who offers candy knows only about this candy. It’s up to you to keep track of the mounting total. Practice saying, “How nice! We’ll save this to enjoy later!” And remember that “later” need never arrive. Your child is under no obligation to eat all the junk she’s offered and you are under no obligation to permit her to do so.

Make certain that meals and even snacks are nutrient dense and healthful. Remember that nutrition is a zero-sum game and tummies full of junk food have no room for foods that are good for them and will make kids feel better longer. This might mean that your children will need kid friendly meal alternatives at least some of the time. So take some string cheese or peanut butter crackers or a carton of yogurt with you when you go out and about. Fuel your child’s holidays with good food and you’ll get better behavior.

Stay on top of behavior
Set the parameters ahead of time. Let kids know what’s going to happen in what order and what sort of behavior is expected in each situation. If you’re going to the Nutcracker ballet, for example, let your child know what’s going to happen, how she’s supposed to behave and what she can do while she’s there. She doesn’t know, so help her out just a little bit.

Alert your child ahead of time about relatives your child will encounter but maybe won’t remember. Great Aunt Susie might expect that your 10-year-old remembers her from last year. But children’s memories are pretty porous. So give your kids some help. Take out the photo album and look at Great Aunt Susie’s picture, remember the names of her cats, what town she lives in and other things that will give your child a way to connect with this person even before she shows up. The older your child, the more social skills are expected of him, so throw your child a conversational lifeline.

Use tools to help children understand when things will happen. You can make a paper chain and cut off a link every day until you get to the target event. An Advent calendar works well here too. On those days that are just packed with events or errands, help your child know what’s going on by making a list on a piece of paper or a chalkboard. Even children who are nonreaders like to know that there is a limited list of things that are going to happen and they can cross items off as each one is accomplished. It helps children feel less like baggage and more like participants.

Pay attention to the good stuff
Notice self-control, sharing, turn taking and so on and let your child know you appreciate his efforts. We get the behavior we pay attention to so pay attention to what you want to see more of. And don’t wait until your child is completely round the bend before trying to rein him in. Try to catch things before he acts out. Then redirect him – give him a job to do, read him a story, or start a sing along – anything to break up the mood and get your child back on track. Help your child feel successful and in control and then thank him for being so grownup.

Get your kids outdoors even on days of celebration. Being inside too long is too much for just about any child, so wherever you go make sure that you take along outdoor clothing and get the kids out to play. Even going for a walk is a help.

And, finally, filter things through your understanding of your child’s temperament. If you know your child is a bit bouncy and little impulsive and then maybe the ballet is not the best event for your family. Maybe going caroling, or ice skate or sledding would be more fun for your child. If you know your child has difficulty in a crowd of strangers, give her some things to talk about or some tasks to do that will give her a role without making her feel self-conscious. Make sure your child feels as happy about all of the events and all the people she’s going to see this holiday season as you’d like her to be.

As you make your plans for the holiday season, keep in mind what your children like to do and what they need to know to be successful. By thinking ahead, you can be thankful for more serene, joyous holidays.

Does it sometimes seem that talking to your child is like talking to a brick wall? The problem might be that you missed a key communication step.

I watched a father of a very active four-year-old the other day. The child was on a couch with her feet in her older brother’s lap. On those feet were hard-soled shoes with sharp corners at the heels. The little girl began waving her feet around, perilously close to her brother’s face.

Her father used a stern voice but at a normal volume. He called the child’s name. He said, “Please look at me.” He asked, “Are you listening to me?” and waited until the girl nodded “yes.” He then said that she was in danger of hitting her brother with her sharp shoes. He asked her to look at her shoes. He asked he to feel the edges of the heels. He said, ”When you put those shoes close to your brother’s face you could hit him. You could cut him.” He said, “Do you understand what I just said?” The little girl nodded yes.

At no time did the Dad restrain the girl or raise his voice. But his tone and his words demanded her attention. And that is the key: making certain one has a child’s attention before making a point. The child moved her feet away from her brother’s face and the problem did not come up again.

Too often we act hastily. We bark direct orders: “Keep your feet still!” without ever getting a child’s full attention. We reach and grab the shoes instead of grabbing the mind first. This dad was supremely effective because he got his daughter’s attention and held it while he made the correction that was needed.

Kids are used to tuning us out. We tend to blather on and on until our voices are just background noise. How often does it happen that you tell a child something only to have him ask about the very same thing in a minute or two? How often do you give a direction, only to have a child do something wrong and then ask why you didn’t tell him the right way? It’s not that we don’t talk about what we want our kids to do. It’s that we don’t make it easy for them to hear us.

So do as this father did. Stop the action and get the child’s attention first. Do not continue until you are certain you’re being heard. Then say what needs to be said as simply and as clearly as possible. Finally, ask if the message was understood.

By getting a child’s attention first, you help him to learn to listen to you. You make it clear that you say important things. And you and your child will get along better, with less frustration and less hot air.

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