Discipline

Want my advice? Don’t have kids. Seriously. Don’t. They are hereditary anyway – you can only have kids because your parents and their parents and their parents before them did.

 

It may sound trite, but the best form of discipline is to bring your children up not to misbehave in the first place. Kids have a natural tendency to push to see how far they can go and how much they can get away with – stop this at the beginning at a really early age, define the boundaries when they are old enough to understand but young enough not to argue back and you’ve won. The older kids get the harder they are to control and the more severe the punishment has to be to bring them into line. If you cannot control them by the time they become teenagers you might just as well give up – because by then they will be running your life.

 

I come from an age where corporal punishment was the norm – smacking was used for minor misbehaviour and a damn good thrashing for anything major, not just from parents, but from neighbours, teachers and even the village policeman (yes, that really did happen – you got caught doing something wrong and they really did smack you around the ear). As barbaric as it now seems, it worked. I’m not condoning it – I vowed that when I grew up I’d never to smack my children and true to my word, I’ve never raised a hand towards my daughter (though she’s belted me a few times when anger and lack of argument has gotten the better of her).

 

The problem with non-corporal punishment is that it is a lot of work – a grounding is as much a punishment for the parent as it is for the child – when you ground them, you’ve effectively grounded yourself too – that hour of peace you once enjoyed while they were at Brownies or Football practice has gone. And as a deterrent it has little value – no kid lives in fear of losing computer privileges for a week or of being bored to tears in a family discussion. Taking possessions (toys) away – that’s a waste of time too – I still have a marble-race game I took off my daughter when she was 5, she never apologised so she never got it back, after waiting13 years I don’t think that apology is coming any time soon. Harsh? Of course it is - and that’s the point – a punishment has to serve as a deterrent against future misbehaviour, not just as a punishment for the current one – it has to be excessive and totally unreasonable in their eyes to have any long term value(negotiate punishment?? That’s just crazy talk) .

 

The trick we found is to stay calm and unemotional – never raise your voice or start yelling – talk quietly and softly, be reasonable and logical – express your disapproval and disappointment rather than just showing it. If they are yelling, just walk away – it is impossible to reason with someone who’s already lost it.

 

Perhaps we’ve been lucky and this philosophy is a load of rubbish – my daughter was never really naughty or prone to bad behaviour as a child. It wasn’t until she became ill that we started having discipline problems and it was that change in behaviour that signalled that something was wrong – a cry for help if you want to see it that way, or a smoke-screen to hide the real problem if you take the other view. The advice we were given by countless child psychologists and trick-cyclists was the approach to use in that situation was one we’d been using all along (yeah,  confused the hell out of me too at the time until they explained to us that her problems were not from her home life, home is her sanctuary). That advice was: no matter how bad her behaviour don’t overreact or let emotion dictate what we do. Whether that was good advice or not I cannot judge - after 3 years of this she's certainly getting better, but on the rare occasions now when she loses it it can be really ugly and my patience and resolve is not what it was. I'm not perfect - I have yelled (very, very loudly - I can out yell her with ease) and the shock-value after being calm for so long had a dramatic effect, but I know it was a one-shot that would have no effect a second time.

 

 

The only one from the list I cannot get my head around is humiliation – that’s just cruel – I’ve seen university lecturers in college and managers in the workplace use that and I will not stand for it – that’s bullying plain and simple.