Posts tagged sons

I admit that my daughter is quite willful and tests our patience often. It made me wonder if all parents experience moments that we do where we think, “This could be so much easier if she would just listen.” There is no doubt that my daughter is strong willed, but I wanted to see what the experts have to say about giving children choices and disciplining when they don’t listen.

Robert MacKenzie has a book titled Setting Limits with Your Strong Willed Child. In an article on babycenter.com called “Eight Discipline Experts Reveal Their Secrets,” he claims that “having soft limits and ignoring or overlooking misbehaviors” is one of the cardinal sins that parents commit. In the article, he states, “Don’t do for kids what they can do for themselves,” as his discipline philosophy. 

This seems like sound advice, but it is quite challenging to stay consistent with limits. We have enacted the time out, which worked for a little while until she started to not care about being in time out. We then realized that there need to be consequences for getting time out, especially when we learned that she was going in time out at preschool. Now, if she goes in time out, at home or at preschool, she cannot watch any television for the day. This has been pretty successful.

Of course expert, Jane Nelsen, an advocate of Positive Discipline would not approve of this technique. In the same article, when asked what type of discipline she would like to see banished, she states, “Every form of punishment.” She then goes on to address the parents with the question, “How would adults like it if they were told to go sit in a naughty chair when they made a mistake?”

These experts have really got me thinking about my own discipline techniques and wondering if I am doing the right thing. I certainly want to figure this out before my daughter reaches her teenage years. 

Another expert featured in the article, Devra Renner, also feels that time outs should be banished because they are “utilized incorrectly and under the wrong circumstances.” I could definitely agree with this statement as I’ve found myself threatening a time out when I maybe didn’t need to do so. Sometimes it’s the easy fall back when my daughter misbehaves. 

It seems that many of these experts are advocating for positivity and connection rather than straight discipline. Actually, I find two schools of thought on the issue. One is having clear boundaries and consequences and the other is positive discipline.  Maybe the key is in determining what is worthy of punishment as Sal Severe says in the article, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Possibly the best bit of advice I found in this article was from Linda Sonna, who tells parents, “The word discipline comes from the word disciple. Parents need to do their duty by serving as loving teachers and guides to their little disciples.”

I suppose a balance of both positive discipline and boundary setting might just be the way to go. As Sonna states, “fitting the method of discipline to the child,” is definitely important. After all, there is no one size fits all to disciplining your child or parenting, for that matter.