produce irrational reactions in parents. Understanding your child’s feelings and your reactions to them can lead to greater self-understanding. Disciplining your child becomes a personal discovery in how you were parented. A mother once told us, “I notice my own mother’s voice coming out of my mouth.” Problems from your past may surface in your relationship with your child and infect your ability to discipline. If you had a childhood full of dysfunctional discipline, you are at risk of passing on these problems. The desire to discipline well compels you to heal the unhealthy parts of yourself so that you can be a healthy parent to your child.process you go through with a child. The newborn who cries a lot is seen as a tyrant whose noises should be squelched rather than as a little person who needs help. The toddler is a manipulator who is out to dominate the parents if they aren’t careful. This sets up an adversarial relationship between parent and child, and confuses taking charge of the child with controlling the child. Authoritarianism creates a distance between parent and child, for two reasons: it is based on punishment, which can easily create anger, and thus distance the child from the parent, and it makes little or no allowance for the temperament or developmental level of the child. Wise disciplinarians become students of their children and work to know their children well. Controllers often find this consideration demeaning to their authority and therefore do not believe it belongs in their discipline package. Because authoritarian parenting is not geared to the child as an individual, this style of parenting seldom brings out the best in parents and child, even when a warm heart is behind the heavy hand.
The communication approach. This philosophy teaches that communicative rather than punitive parenting is the way to discipline. Dissatisfaction with the authoritarian/ punishment approach to discipline spawned several schools of discipline based on teaching parents how to better communicate with their children. Most of today’s discipline books and classes are based on this approach. This philosophy suggests there are no bad children, just bad communication; and that children are basically good; parents just have to learn how to listen and talk to them. The good news about this “modern” approach is that it respects the child as a person whose actions result from feelings and encourages parents to delve into the feelings behind the behaviour. Parents learn constructive ways to convey to their children what behaviour they expect. Parents also use empathy and understanding to create a generally positive atmosphere in the home, so they can limit the use of the word “no”. The communication approach emphasizes parenting skills that lessen the need for punishment. Psychology replaces punishment. Smacking is taboo.
The main problem with the communication approach is that parents tend to lose their authority, instead taking on the roles of amateur psychologist, negotiator, and diplomat. Children may end up not respecting authority because their parents do not expect them to. This lack of respect for home authority carries over into lack of respect for others, including, for example, teachers and police officers. And if it is overused, most children regard this approach as phoney. The dialogue sounds like nothing more than a list of emotionally correct phrases mum and dad learned at last night’s parenting class, not true communication at all. Instead of saying, “Don’t hit your brother”, communicative parents tend to address their child’s feelings: “You must be very angry with your brother.” This sounds right, and to many parents feels right, but what happens if after identifying his anger the child continues to hit? What do you do then? Another problem is that parents often become so worried that they will damage their child’s psyche if they don’t react in the “psychologically correct” way, that they end up unwilling to take a stand. This style of discipline, therefore, runs the risk of being over-permissive.
The behaviour modification approach. Behaviour “mod”, as it is known, teaches that children’s behaviour can be influenced positively and negatively according to how parents structure their child’s environment. If the child continues to hit other children even after you have given him all of the psychologically correct communication you can provide, you simply remove him from the group. Most children respond well to behaviour modification; some regard the techniques as contrived. Although somewhat mechanistic in its approach (it’s strikingly similar to training pets), behaviour modification gives parents techniques, such as time-out, positive reinforcement, and the teaching of natural consequences, which can be called on when the authoritarian and communication approaches are not working. Behaviour modification may be especially useful for children with emotional problems or difficult temperaments who don’t respond to other methods. The trainer focuses on shaping behaviour, conditioning the child without judging her.
The bad news about behaviour modification techniques is that sooner or later you are going to run out of them, or run out of the energy it takes to apply them consistently. The greater danger of behaviour modification is that it focuses on external techniques rather than on the parent-child relationship, so that the child is approached as a project rather than a person.
The attachment approach. Parents who rely on any of the three above approaches to solve a discipline problem may find that their child’s behaviour improves, but only temporarily. Without a secure grounding in parent-child attachment, the other discipline approaches are merely borrowed skills, communication gimmicks, techniques that are grabbed from the rack and tried on in hope of a good fit. None of these approaches incorporates the idea that discipline must be custom-tailored to the age and temperament of the child and to the personalities of the parents. Every family, every child, every situation is different, and parents must take all these things into account when they are working to correct their child’s behaviour. To do this, they must know themselves and know their child.
We use the best from all of the three approaches outlined above, but only after going much deeper to construct a firm foundation: Discipline depends on building the right relationship with a child. With a firm grounding in a connected relationship, a parent can use the other three approaches to discipline (authority, communication, and behaviour modification) in a balanced way. If your child is having discipline problems, you can use your close relationship with her to figure out what to do. Ask, “What is going on inside my child, and how can I help her deal with these problems?” rather than, “How can I get her to behave?” This approach helps parents and children to work together rather than clash. Picture the attachment approach as a pyramid: the foundation is wide and strong, and it takes longer to build, but as you go up you have to use less energy and material. The structure is solid and stands forever. Other approaches may appear convenient initially, but without that broad foundation you will always be making tricky repairs later on.
consult the experts
When I counsel paediatric students about to enter practice, I tell them: “Surround yourself with wise and experienced parents, and learn from them.” These are the true discipline experts. In fact, much of the material in this book comes from veteran parents in our practice who shared their successes and failures with us. In formulating our own philosophy of discipline we took note of what these wise disciplinarians did and how their kids turned out. This is what we learned: wise disciplinarians spend time and energy keeping one step ahead of their child and setting conditions that promote good behaviour, leaving the child fewer opportunities to misbehave. Wise disciplinarians
• stay connected to their children
• develop a mutual sensitivity between parent and child
• spend more time promoting desirable behaviour, so they need less corrective discipline
• have a working understanding of age-appropriate behaviour
• use humour to promote cooperation in the child
• are able to get behind the eyes of their child and redirect behaviour
Love for your child makes you vulnerable to any advice that promises to create a bright and well-behaved
