| Product: |
How to Discipline Children |
| Date: |
22/06/02 (138 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Treating children as individuals helps you work out what works best on them, Gets results!, Parents have a knack at controlling their own children (well, most of them anyway!)
Disadvantages: Can be frustrating trying to figure out what works, Sometimes they go against what usually works, er, just because they are kids and it is their job to annoy you sometimes!
There are as many schools of thought on the bringing up and discipline of children as there are parents. Most of us who are parents will have realised that a sure way to cause arguments between parents is to offer advice about other people's children. Yet, this category is one of the few opportunities where people can read opinions without being forced to, so if you choose to read this, please don't get too het up with me!
The debate over whether or not to smack children has been raging for years, and I don't expect it to end with my humble opinion, but I personally have smacked my child on occasion, although do prefer to avoid it where possible. Before I get a load of comments about what an abusive mother I am, I would like to clarify that; my daughter is three and a half, and has been smacked to my recollection 3 times; once when she was putting foil in a plug socket and refused to stop so I smacked her hand away, once when all other attempts at getting her to stop trying to put the cat in the microwave had failed (!)and once, OK, I will admit it, because Mummy had had a really trying day with her and enough was enough.
But my main reason for telling you this is not to salve a guilty conscience, but to illustrate that, at least in my opinion, there are occasions when a smack is not only tempting to a parent but required to stop the child from endangering him/herself.
Despite this, it is a fact that in psychological research, it has been shown that on the whole people and animals alike respond and learn much more quickly and readily when an action-reward system rather than an action-punishment system is operated. In plain English, kids will generally behave better if you reward them for their good behaviour (a 'well done' is enough...I'm not suggesting you bankrupt yourself with treats or rot their teeth with endless sweetie bribes!)rather than punish them for their bad behaviour. I tend to use a mixture of
this, rewarding for good but also taking away 'privileges' e.g. TV timje for bad behaviour, and on the whole I haven't had too much difficulty with my daughter...well, nothing out of the ordinary for a three year old anyway!
Another worthwhile thing I have found is talking to the child...wait, I can hear you all groaning 'soppy mother, child gets away with everything..'but no, she doesn't; on the whole talking to her is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, but sometimes bad behaviour can be a sign that the child is upset about something; talking about it and sorting it out can solve the bad behaviour, where, if it is them being upset that is causing you problems, smacking them won't as it just makes them more upset!! Sounds mad when I try to explain myself but if you manage to decipher it it does make sense!
But I think the most important thing to remember in this 'debate' is that children are all individuals. Whilst advice can be useful, it is also true that what works with one child may have no effect on another. This leaves you with a bit of a nightmare when you have to care for children you don't really know, but it also how many different parents with different ideas manage to bring up reasonable adults!
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