merrill@rex.DEC (01/04/85)
The word "discipline" comes from "disciple" which is a good guide to parents that "discipling" involves many forms of examples as well as occasional consequences (disciplining). My method that I've used successfully with 4 of 5 kids is this: after two or three years of age before which we never spank them, they each begin to show their defiance of parental authority. Often this takes the form of delaying tactics or simplying ignoring parental cajoling. This can get really agrivating to said parent! Rather than "bust 'em" right then and there, I say "I really mean what I am about to say. If I count to three and you have not done ____ ___ ____ then I shall spank you." Now MY word is on the line, so I'm not going to count so fast as to make it impossible, but if there is no action, I count! ** With the first 4 I only EVER got to three ONCE! ** Really! Thereafter they know that I mean it and yet will give them a fair chance to comply. With the last one however, when I thought her time had come the others wanter to protect her from my (three hard swats -- they made it sound like a federal case) that they Begged her to comply! And she has ever since. Now, realize that this is for "blatant defiance". ( I confess to giving each approx. one more spanking for unsupervised misdeeds. ) And I do have to get as high as "two" on occasion! The thing I like about this approach is that it proves you mean what you say; it gives the child/children feedback on How Quickly to move; and it keeps me calm! I can stay calm because I know it works and because I know it makes the situation clear. [oops! replace numbers "4" and "5" with "3" and "4"! #5 is only 6wks!]
tim@ccice5.UUCP (Timothy G. Becker) (01/09/85)
In article <116@decwrl.UUCP> merrill@rex.DEC writes:
My method that I've used successfully with 4 of 5 kids is this: after
two or three years of age before which we never spank them, they each
begin to show their defiance of parental authority. Often this takes
the form of delaying tactics or simplying ignoring parental cajoling.
This can get really agrivating to said parent! Rather than "bust 'em"
right then and there, I say "I really mean what I am about to say. If
I count to three and you have not done ____ ___ ____ then I shall
spank you." Now MY word is on the line, so I'm not going to count so
fast as to make it impossible, but if there is no action, I count!
** With the first 4 I only EVER got to three ONCE! ** Really! Thereafter
they know that I mean it and yet will give them a fair chance to comply.
The thing I like about this approach is that it proves you mean what you
say; it gives the child/children feedback on How Quickly to move; and it
keeps me calm! I can stay calm because I know it works and because I
know it makes the situation clear.
I agree. I use this count-before-spank method with my almost-3 year old.
He usually starts to cry immediately and then does the desired action
(go to bed, pick up toys, etc) before I finish the count. I occasionally
have to spank, but then usually no "beating" is required, just 1 swat.
(This is certainly no cook-book aproach. What works this month, may not
the next. Isn't parenting fun...).
Tim Becker.
..!{allegra,seismo,decvax}!rochester!ccice5!timian@darwin.UUCP (03/02/85)
[Mikki writes...] > ... Even though my class (karate) is supposed to teach > discipline, I often find parents asking me to take care of their > child's reading problem, sibling problems, classmate problems, etc. I > even had one ask me to smack their kid for them because of the child > being unruly in the car on the way to class. [Colonel replies...] Karate supposed to teach discipline! That sounds like a figment of pedagogical mythology. Karate-do teaches the one kind of discipline that matters, that is, self-discipline. See below. When applied to kids, "discipline" means one of two things: 1. Do what I tell you, not what you want to do. 2. Beating kids for not doing what you tell them. Here's the crux of the difference. Colonel thinks that discipline is about coercion; Mikki and I think it is about learning to make decisions and take responsibility for them. The former is the kind of discipline that public schools and conventional wisdom on child rearing teach; the latter is what karate-do and many kinds of alternative schooling teach. Major premise: you can learn discipline only from a truly disciplined person. Minor premise: a truly disciplined person does not teach discipline. Conclusion: ??? Conclusion: check your premises.
sed408@ihlpg.UUCP (s. dugan) (09/11/85)
The current discussions about corporal punishment have reminded me of a project I did in college. I was taking developmental psychology and had to write a term paper. The term paper was about juvenile delinquency. I learned some pretty interesting things about the profile of a "typical" juvenile delinquent. There seemed to be very little correlation as to age, sex, socio-economic background or FORM of DISCIPLINE in the home. THE ONLY REAL CORRELATION WAS THAT THE CHILD HAD EITHER ***INCONSISTENT*** OR ***NON-EXISTENT*** DISCIPLINE IN THE HOME. All the material I read stressed that inconsistent discipline was as bad, if not worse than non-existent discipline. It even went as far as to say that children who were harshly and physically disciplined (as long as the discipline was consistent) were better off than the children who had inconsistent/non-existent discipline. I just thought I'd throw this up for thought/discussion. -- Sarah E. Dugan "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince." ########################################################################### # AT&T Bell Labs IH 1D-408 The Forest (home) # # Naperville-Wheaton Rd. 1353 Crab Apple Court Apt. 101 # # Naperville, Illinois 60566 Naperville, Illinois 60540 # # (312) 979 - 5545 (312) 355 - 0445 # ###########################################################################