Parents: Discipline Ourselves Before We Discipline the Kids!

Shaping children’s behavior is not difficult, but it is challenging. Effective discipline requires self-discipline from parents. We can’t really raise cooperative children unless we are able to discipline ourselves.

The first step is to ignore negative behavior, especially attention getting behavior like whining, making noises and begging for things. Remember, the principle is that your attention is your child’s prime motivator. You will get more of whatever behavior you pay attention to – that includes nagging, coaxing, reminding and threatening. That is all attention – all like giving your child a lollipop for misbehavior.

Planning ignoring – that is ignoring the behaviors you want to decrease – is just what it sounds like. You decide that you are tired of the whining, so you let your child know – when she is not whining – that you will be talking to her only when she talks in her big girl voice. Ignoring is not rolling your eyes, putting your hands on your hips or sighing loudly. It might mean going into a different room, moving a few feet away, putting your attention elsewhere or just breathing deeply as you drive in the car and your son insists you stop at McDonald’s.

In the short run your child’s behavior may get worse. You child is accustomed to a certain dance – they whine, you remind them to stop. It is a reliable way of getting contact with you. When this changes, they may temporarily escalate the behavior that used to work or they may try something more dramatic. Instead of whining, they throw a toy into the front seat of the car. So now we have a safety problem. Yes, you will want to respond, but in a quiet, robot-like way – because remember your expressive, noisy expression is attention, a reward. If you need to carry out a consequence – like stopping the car for two minutes and not speaking, do it calmly. Let your child know – speaking quietly and calmly – that throwing things in the car is not safe and he can try again in two minutes to be a safe passenger. After waiting silently for two minutes, resume your trip without criticizing or complaining. If you get a couple of minutes of time without whining or throwing, you can increase this positive behavior with praise.

In addition to ignoring misbehavior, effectively praising its opposite is one of your best tools. If your attention is the prize, then giving it for the specific opposite of misbehavior will get your more of that positive behavior.

The Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic has completed thousands of hours of research on children and parents focusing on behavior management. The use of effective praise is the core of their approach. It sounds something like this, “Peter, great job using your grown up voice in the car and staying safe at the same time!” Yup – if you didn’t grow up with praise, it will feel strange and unnatural, but when done properly and consistently, it works. Remember, children want your attention and effective praise will reinforce those behaviors that you do want.

Here are the characteristics of effective praise:

1. Give immediately and every time after target misbehavior (that is the opposite of the misbehavior you are trying to eliminate)
2. Close to child when delivering praise (not as effective from across the room).
3. Enthusiastic and sincere (the more enthusiastic the parent is in his praise, the quicker the child offers the positive behavior and the longer this change lasts)
4. Use specific, positive words – “Thanks for sharing your blocks with Sarah.” (In contrast to using negative words – “Good job not hitting your sister.” That gives your child an idea!)
5. Includes visual and physical gestures – thumbs up, high five, hug, mommy dance, daddy cheer, etc.

As you can see, ignoring negative behavior and praising its opposite is pretty easy. However, remaining calm, thinking before we act and delivering effective praise consistently for the opposite of 2 or 3 misbehaviors will require us to discipline ourselves before we discipline our children! Please let us know if you are trying these new approaches and how they are going as your summer unfolds.