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November 4 - November 5, 2020
You really can discipline in a way that’s full of respect and nurturing, but that also maintains clear and consistent boundaries.
You can discipline in a way that’s high on relationship, high on respect, and low on drama and conflict—and in the process, you can foster development that builds good relationship skills and improves your children’s ability to make good decisions, think about others, and act in ways that prepare them for lifelong success and happiness.
When we’re angry, we may feel like we want to punish our child. Irritation, impatience, frustration, or just being unsure can make us feel that. It’s totally understandable—even common. But once we’ve calmed down and cleaned the raw egg out of everyone’s hair, we know that giving consequences is not our ultimate goal.
The word “discipline” comes directly from the Latin word disciplina, which was used as far back as the eleventh century to mean teaching, learning, and giving instruction. So, from its inception in the English language, “discipline” has meant “to teach.”
whenever we discipline our kids, our overall goal is not to punish or to give a consequence, but to teach.
The root of “discipline” is the word disciple, which means “student,” “pupil,” and “learner.” A disciple, the one receiving discipline, is not a prisoner or recipient of punishment, but one who is learning through instruction. Punishment might shut down a behavior in the short term, but teaching offers skills that last a lifetime.
Essentially, we want caregivers to begin to think of discipline as one of the most loving and nurturing things we can do for kids.
Our children need to learn skills like inhibiting impulses, managing big angry feelings, and considering the impact of their behavior on others. Learning these essentials of life and relationships is what they need, and if you can provide it for them, you’ll be offering a significant gift not only to your children, but to your whole family and even the rest of the world.
No-Drama Discipline, as we’ll describe it in the coming pages, will help your kids become the people they are meant to be, improving their ability to control themselves, respect others, participate in...
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It begins with rethinking what discipline really means, reclaiming it as a term that’s not about punishment or control, but about teaching and skill building—and doing so from a place of love, respect, and emotional connection.
every child is different, and no parenting approach or strategy will work every time. But the most obvious goal in all of these situations is to elicit cooperation and to help a child behave in ways that are acceptable
Effective discipline means that we’re not only stopping a bad behavior or promoting a good one, but also teaching skills and nurturing the connections in our children’s brains that will help them make better decisions and handle themselves well in the future.
Saying No to the Behavior, but Yes to the Child
consequences and punitive reactions are actually often counterproductive, not only in terms of building brains, but even when it comes to getting kids to cooperate.
the first step in effective discipline is to connect with our children emotionally. Our relationship with our kids should be central to everything we do. Whether we’re playing with them, talking with them, laughing with them, or, yes, disciplining them, we want them to experience at a deep level the full force of our love and affection, whether we’re acknowledging an act of kindness or addressing a misbehavior. Connection means that we give our kids our attention, that we respect them enough to listen to them, that we value their contribution to problem solving, and that we communicate to them
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When we discipline we want to join with our kids in a deep way that demonstrates how much we love them. In fact, when our children are misbehaving, that’s often when they most need connection with us.
Part of truly loving our kids, and giving them what they need, means offering them clear and consistent boundaries, creating predictable structure in their lives, as well as having high expectations for them.
Children need to understand the way the world works: what’s permissible and what’s not.
Our children need repeated experiences that allow them to develop wiring in their brain that helps them delay gratification, contain urges to react aggressively toward others, and flexibly deal with not getting their way. The absence of limits and boundaries is actually quite stressful, and stressed kids are more reactive.
when we say no and set limits for our children, we help them discover predictability and safety in an otherwise chaotic world. And we build brain connections that allow kids to handle difficulties well in the future.
When we avoid bringing extra chaos and drama to disciplinary situations—in other words, when we combine clear and consistent limits with loving empathy—everyone wins.
The research is really clear on this point. Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life—emotionally, relationally, and even educationally—have parents who raise them with a high degree of connection and nurturing, while also communicating and maintaining clear limits and high expectations.
Our kids don’t usually lash out at us because they’re simply rude, or because we’re failures as parents. They usually lash out because they don’t yet have the capacity to regulate their emotional states and control their impulses.
that when we discipline, we must always consider a child’s developmental capacity, particular temperament, and emotional style, as well as the situational context.
Sometimes we assume that our kids won’t behave the way we want them to, when in reality, they simply can’t, at least not in this particular moment.
a person’s capacity to handle situations well and make good decisions can really fluctuate according to the circumstances and the context of a given situation. Simply because we’re human, our capacity to handle ourselves well is not stable and constant. And that’s certainly the case with a five-year-old.
The stress hormone cortisol, released with such a disorganized internal state and repeated interpersonal experiences of rage and terror, can lead to long-lasting negative impacts on the brain’s development, as cortisol is toxic to the brain and inhibits healthy growth.
Harsh and severe punishment can actually lead to significant changes in the brain, such as the death of brain connections and even brain cells.
angrily forcing the child to go off and sit by herself for a long time can feel like abandonment to a child, especially if she’s feeling out of control already. It may even send the subtle message that when she isn’t perfect, you don’t want to be near her. You don’t want to send the message that you’ll be in relationship with her when she’s “good,” or “happy,” but withhold your love and affection when she’s not.
As you learn new principles and strategies, the goal is not to berate yourself for missed opportunities, but to try to create new opportunities.
When we know better, we do better.
Every time we give a child the experience of exercising his upstairs brain, it gets stronger and more fully developed. When we ask him questions that develop insight into himself, he becomes more insightful.
When we encourage her to empathize with someone else, she becomes more empathic.
When we give a child the opportunity to decide how he should act, rather than simply telling him what he should do, he becomes a better decision maker.
Our ultimate goal isn’t that our children do what we want them to do because we’re watching them or telling them what to do. (That would be fairly impractical, after all, unless we plan on living and going to work with them for the rest of their lives.) Rather, we want to help them learn to make positive and productive choices on their own in whatever situation they face.
When we set limits, we help develop the parts of the upstairs brain that allow children to control themselves and regulate their behaviors and their body.
However, if we truly love our kids and want what’s best for them, we need to be able to tolerate the tension and discomfort they (and we) may experience when we set a limit. We want to say yes to our children as often as possible, but sometimes saying no is the most loving thing we can do.
When kids are given whatever they want all the time, they lose opportunities to build resilience and learn important life lessons: about delaying gratification, about having to work for something, about dealing with disappointment.
Spoiled children often grow up to be unhappy because people in the real world don’t respond to their every whim. They have a harder time appreciating the smaller joys and the triumph of creating their own world if others have always done it for them.
What we’re saying is that parents are right to worry about spoiling their kids. Overindulgence is unhelpful for children, unhelpful for parents, and unhelpful for the relationship. But spoiling has nothing to do with connecting with your child when he’s upset or making bad choices. Remember, you can’t spoil a child by giving him too much emotional connection, attention, physical affection, or love. When our children need us, we need to be there for them.
Connection is about walking through the hard times with our children and being there for them when they’re emotionally suffering, just like we would if they scraped their knee and were physically suffering.
