In today's post we will be talking about how to discipline your children in a healthy, safe and effective way. There are many components that play a big part within this whole concept of discipline so let's get into it.
First lets go over different parenting styles.This will help you to identify how you parent and how that will affect the way your child reacts to disciplinary actions. The four main parenting styles include, Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive/Indulgent and Indifferent. Authoritarian parents are demanding and have a philosophy of my way or the highway. They also may lean towards the phrase, “do it because I said so.” Authoritative parents tend to have a good balance between responsiveness and demandingness. They discipline their children in such a way that the children are usually most responsive to this style. This one way of parenting is considered to be the best parenting style because of the disciplines but in a healthy way. They explain why they may be disciplining in such a way to give the child understanding. The next is permissive parenting. This parenting style responds very well but doesn’t demand their children to do much. They are care free parents and have no authority or control over their children. And lastly we’ll talk about Indifferent parenting. These parents are low on both responsiveness and demandingness. They are not interested in being a part of their child's life.
Okay, now that we have taken a look at different parenting skills and maybe you’ve put some thought into which style you reside under let's look into discipline actions. And how to parent the best in order to receive the best behavior from your own children.
As a parent you need to go about discipling your children in a healthy way and a way that promotes communication. Children will be less inclined to listen when their parents are controlling them with no explanation. As they develop it is important to remember they are learning and growing and to give them grace. But to also remember that you are the parent. That if you have certains rules and standards then they need to be able to follow them. There is a healthy balance and this will take time to find. To build a trusting relationship with your child is most important when you expect them to follow your rules.
“The foundation of effective discipline is respect. The child should be able to respect the parent’s authority and also the rights of others. Inconsistency in applying discipline will not help a child respect his or her parents. Harsh discipline such as humiliation (verbal abuse, shouting, name-calling) will also make it hard for the child to respect and trust the parent. Thus, effective discipline means discipline applied with mutual respect in a firm, fair, reasonable and consistent way. The goal is to protect the child from danger, help the child learn self-discipline, and develop a healthy conscience and an internal sense of responsibility and control. It should also instill values.” (Paediatr Child Health. 2004 Jan). Children respond well when they understaned why a parent may be discipling. It would be extremely difficult as an adult to blindly do what someone told you to do if you hadn’t buillt a solid foundation of trust yet.
Guidance is a great way to help your children follow your values and your directions. This is a way of not controlling or forcing but simply what it is which is guiding. “Guidance should not be thought of as a weak alternative to traditional discipline—it’s being a good coach who doesn’t give up on any member of the team.”(Gartell, 2020 Mar)
Guidance is so important because it allows respect and trust to form. On the other hand we have to take a step back and look how punishments such as spanking, controling and yelling will produce negative results. If these sort of reactions enter the parent to child relationship then trust and peace will be broken. In a study from an article, “Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children” Robert D. Sege states, “Young children who were spanked more than twice per month at age 3 years were more aggressive at age 5 even when the researchers controlled for the child’s aggressive behavior at age 3, maternal parenting and risk factors, and demographic factors.25 A follow-up study26 assessed these children at 9 years of age and noted correlations between spanking at age 5 years and higher levels of externalizing behavior and lower receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.” These results make sense. If a child experiences punishment they will see it as necessary when getting others to listen to them. There are more effective/healthy ways to effectively get your child to understand and listen to you. This is not one of them. Sege talks about how pediatricians are wonderful people to reach out to when learning how to discipline or counseling is also another amazing option. These resources help you navifgate the complexities of raising children and they are there for moral support!
Below I will list some resources that you can check out! It will also include the resources I used for this blog! Don’t be afraid to reach out to others when learning and educating yourself on the topic. When you learn more you will be able to show up for your kids in the most healthy way.
References:
Instead of discipline, use guidance. NAEYC. (n.d.). https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/feb2020/using-guidance-not-discipline
The goal of this study is to show parents they can guide their children rather than control and force without reasoning. The participants for this study included Jeremiah the student and Beth Wallace the preschool teacher. They were trying to find out why Jeremiah had anger outbursts in the middle of class. They found that their students needed trusting relationships. And constant guidance and consistent behaviors made all the difference. This article will help parents learn how important consistency is within a childs life.
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2004b, January). Effective discipline for children. Paediatrics & child health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719514/
This article gives insight to how a parent should act and why a child will respond well to specific actions. They give information on how to discipline each stage of life such as infants, early toddlers, late toddlers, preschoolers, school age children and adolescents. They talk about how children need to have respect for their parents but discipline starts with the parents. This article will help parents learn how to discipline their children throughout their lives.
Sege, R. D., Siegel, B. S., Flaherty, E. G., Gavril, A. R., Idzerda, S. M., Laskey, A. “Toni”, Legano, L. A., Leventhal, J. M., Lukefahr, J. L., Yogman, M. W., Baum, R., Gambon, T. B., Lavin, A., Mattson, G., Montiel-Esparza, R., & Wissow, L. S. (2018, December 1). Effective discipline to raise healthy children. American Academy of Pediatrics. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/6/e20183112/37452/Effective-Discipline-to-Raise-Healthy-Children?autologincheck=redirected
This article provides information about why pediatricians are crucial and so important to learn from and reach out to as parents. The article brings light as to why physical discipline is not necessary or beneficial. There is plenty of research that has been put into this article about punishment and why it negatively affects all children. This article will help parents to see why physical discipline is not okay and alternative ways to discipline.
Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative. College of Health. (2024, April 11). https://health.oregonstate.edu/opec
This website is so great! It provides so many different resources that parents can use in order to become the best parenting version of themselves! It provides parenting education that dives deep into issues, concerns or questions that parents have. It is a great resource to explore if you are a parent and want to parent well.
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