How’s your approach working out?
Edit: I appreciate all the responses. My parents were fans of yelling and physical punishment. I turned out ok (I think) but I’ve learned through my own experiences and over time that those things only instill fear, leading to a lack of respect and negative behaviors ultimately becoming hidden. My relationship with them is pretty solid now, but it was especially rocky through my teens.
As an expecting dad, I want to earn the respect, trust and open line of communication with my child while also promoting a good work ethic and moral compass.
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My kids are 3, 5, and 9 years. If I see them misbehave I first tell to them to stop using specific language. If they don’t or they’re being dangerous, I gently remove them from the situation. Then, tell them the axiom of behavior that they’re not following and then explain or demonstrate the appropriate alternative.
Hitting your kids or yelling at them only works in the short term and ultimately leads to worse behavior.
You want them to feel safe and comfortable with you, so they’ll be most likely to behave the way you model for them.
Small things like: she left mess in a kitchen- she must clean it (i don’t even consider it a punishment).
His grades at school got worse: no access to computer/ phone/ tv, for a week or longer (depending how serious it is).
>how do you discipline and punish your children?
Like we used to do with witches, if the kid is good s/he will drown/burn/hang, if the kid is bad s/he will not drown/burn/hang.
>How’s your approach working out?
So far i’ve only had good kids, too bad none of them is alive tho.
It really depends on the kid and what we are talking about. Different kids respond well to different things. If you kid is a people pleaser, then showing displeasure in what they have done may do more than an actual punishment. Others need to see or feel the punishment though. For instance, I set my kids to their rooms at one point, and one wasn’t taking it seriously – slams the door, turns the radio up, starts playing games, etc., so I flipped the breaker off to his room, and he had no power while he was in there.
I’ve got more games than Milton Bradley.
I spend mass time with them to show them how to do things and involve them so they aren’t bored and useless. My ten year old can weld, hang siding, pull a building permit, etc because he does whatever dad does. The five year old knows what every tool in the house is because he is the gopher (go for). Idle hands. They’re involved in everything that I do so they can learn and fill their time. Often they’ll build things with me not around, granted these are scaled . The 10 year old likes miniatures and fiddling with his tower fort. The 5 year old has his own craft bins.
Order. Step 2 is order. You can’t raise children in chaos unless you want them to be chaos. There is a schedule. All the child’s clothing, toys, tools, etc have a place. Gear adrift is gear a gift and thus becomes dad’s when left out of place. Impounded items have to be bought out.
When they do act out, the fun begins. That’s when I devise appropriate games. Did you drift your four wheeler on the lawn? Time to conduct a funeral for the grass. Your brother and I are going to enjoy this lemonade in the pool while you rake out and reseed every bald spot in the whole lawn. Did you knock a brick out of the retaining wall? Bricky is your new best friend and will go everywhere you go until we get to learn pointing this weekend. Dress up your little buddy and every time I say “Bricky” I better see Bricky. Cue my son carrying a brick in swaddled like a baby everywhere he goes for four days until we can get some mortar and time to repoint the whole retaining wall. Make it memorable.
2/7 left in the house. Of the 5 that are grown all flourishing. My least successful grown child is in the Marines which is exactly what I was doing at his age.
Consistency is key. The “how” matters less than the “what”. The child needs to be able to predict the consequences of their actions.
I explain why something is wrong to do, reiterate the correct way.
If they continue to make the same mistake then there is reduction of privileges. I know confiscating game controllers or cellphone is a much greater deterrent than scolding or spanking ever could be! So I do that
And if they protest (which they do) I remind them the choice to do the right things is entirely up to them – so “who are you really mad at?” Ya know?
I am blessed though, my kids for the most part are very well behaved and good kids at heart.
I feel like its better to encourage them to engage in some other behaviour. For example if they dont clean their room you dont punish them until they clean it. You reward them for cleaning it. Punishing your kids will just make them resent you. Encourage and reward positive behaviour instead.
usually an RKO into the walls of jericho help get my point across
You must Pavlov the shit out of them and never tell them. Let them go crazy from the ringing in their ears.
I’m lucky enough to have a steep logging road behind my house it’s about 1/4 mile to the top and my kids know it very well 😂 that and I keep a big pile of wood for them to stack
“So anyway, I started blasting”
I usually end up not having to. I have four kids and maybe once every few months one will have their phone in my desk or be in their room for a day.
Usually, just knowing I’m upset with them is almost punishment enough. I’m on my own with them a little over half the time and we’re like the five amigos but when one acts up they almost break down as soon as I look their way or get home from work. From there, we usually just discuss where things went south and how we can do better the next time around.
I have a pretty well behaved kid, so I don’t have to deal with it too much. When I do we start with a timeout. If he pushes it after that or during that then he loses his video games for awhile. Which is apparently the “WORST THING EVER!”
Edit: Absolutely no spanking ever. I went through that shit enough as a kid.
Punishments tend to be losing privileges, cancelling fun plans, taking away screens or video games…stuff like that. Usually it’s tied to whatever they are doing – fight over the tv, you both lose the tv. Fail to do homework, from now on there’s no screens or toys until after all homework is caught up. Misbehave in public, we go home and have quiet time their rooms.
But the nature of the punishment isn’t what matters, really. What matters is consistency and credibility. I never tell them what to do or not do, unless I intend to follow through. I never make a threat I don’t intend to keep.
I see parents constantly yelling “Stop, don’t do that, stop fighting, stop hitting, we’re going to go home! I’ll take us right home! I’ll put you in time out! One more time and I’ll put you in time out!!”. It’s ridiculous. They are training their kids to ignore them.
If I tell them “One more time and we are going home”, then I consider it my job to make sure that we are going home if they do it one more time. If I’m not going to do that, I shouldn’t make the threat.
The result is that my kids can be a little wild (I don’t stop them from doing what they want unless I have a reason), but the second they are told to rein it in, they do.
Works well, so far.
I was raised in an era of ass whooping for every single thing that your parents thought you were doing wrong. I don’t subscribe to that. Yelling and screaming at them and beating the piss out of them does absolutely nothing. For example, I tried it one time when my 10 year old daughter was 5, she had destroyed the living room, toys and messes everywhere. I was angry that she had made this mess, and she had zero intention of cleaning it up, so out of frustration I screamed at her for 60 seconds about how that was not okay. She spent the next 10 minutes crying. I learned that it’s easier to talk to them, to instill an understanding that making messes was not the right thing to do. I have 5 kids, I can count on one hand how many times I have ever been in a situation that required me to do something more than talking to them, that example being one of them. They listen when they’re asked to do something, it might not always be right away but they will do the task and they are respectful in public and at friends houses. I’ve been doing my best to raise them in a better environment than I was raised in, and I’m not perfect but they all know that I love them and I’m always here for them no matter what. My only hope is that they will look back at the example that was set forth and not be disappointed with how I raised them.
My dad used to just scream at me until I’d cry
I coach them.
From a young age, I talked them through exactly what behavior I want from them and why. This gives them tools to understand exactly what the path is if they don’t or do what I told them to.
This isn’t a democracy, they don’t get to choose not to. However, this enables us to be a rational family that doesn’t resort quickly to punishment or a lame ‘because I told you to’. Now they’re young adults, and need a lot less
Discipline. Also, they come to us (parents) for advice.
Try not aiming to discipline and punish, but see it more as opportunity to teach
Its really hard, because I was a bad kid. I don’t want “rules” I just want them to make good decisions. The best piece of advice I have is make sure they know why you’re in the state you are; angry, disappointed, frustrated, etc.
Thank god for the ipad, you can take it away for an hour and the kid acts like you yanked some teeth out.
“Natural consequences” work pretty well. One little kids takes the cookies from another little kid, you don’t like beat them or something, you just take the bad kid’s cookies and give them to the good kid making it clear thats what happens if you steal, even four year olds seem to understand this.
A little fuzzy on discipline vs just acting like a civilized human being. I don’t give long lectures on self discipline if thats what you mean.
Take the iPad and snacks away and double the study time.
Taking away electronics works the best
Execersises and work. Makes sure they understand that all actions have a cost and negative ones are very costly.
Honestly I’ve struggled to find a consistent approach. Unfortunately my first instinct is to yell (probably because my dad was a yeller) but I know that doesn’t help in the long run, I’ve been getting better about that.
Lately we (because it’s a team effort with the wife) have been finding more success with carrots than sticks. If you get your chores done, then you get to play video games. If you finish your homework all week, then you get a playdate with your friend on the weekend. It’s a subtle shift from threatening to remove privileges vs offering them as a reward, but the kids have been responding well.
As far as punishment, I’ve learned the hard way that my kids don’t learn much from being yelled at or grounded or having things taken (aside from learning the valuable lesson that Dad is an asshole), so I’m trying to use more positivity like “let’s fix the problem”. If you broke something, fix it. If you made a mess, clean it up. If you hurt someone’s feelings, apologize and try to make them feel better.
I’m far from perfect but I’m doing my best to keep learning and growing as a parent.
I took some queues from Boot Camp and applied them to discipline: made them run laps around the house until I got tired while spraying them with a garden hose each time they passed to prevent overheating, jumping jacks, holding static positions during “time out” etc.
I’d recommend reading about positive reinforcement (that also goes with negative reinforcement, positive/negative punishment).
If you have a household filled with love, then simply withdrawing some of that affection will feel like severe punishment to your children.
If you have a household that is *not* filled with love, then you have to be actively cruel to your kids to make them feel like they’re being punished.
Basically, your default setpoint determines how harsh your disciplinary methods need to be.
PS. Yes, I know, this post contains an implicit accusation against parents who believe that harsh or violent disciplinary measures are necessary. And you can trust me when I say that was intentional.
Try waterboarding