Spanking -- The "Bottom Line"

Spanking remains a controversial topic when it comes to disciplining children. Over my years of working with young children, the subject has come up more often than I can count.

The bottom line is that spanking simply doesn't work. It may stop a given behavior for the moment, but it doesn't teach. The only lesson learned by the child is that it is okay to hit someone as long as you are bigger than they are. Ask a child months later about a spanking and he will remember the spanking, but probably not what he did to get the spanking!

I'm not saying you're a bad parent if you have ever spanked your child. What I am saying is in terms of correcting the child's behavior over the long term, it is a wasted effort and therefore can cause more harm than good.

Your Discipline Plan

Merriam-Webster defines discipline in the following way:

1: punishment

2 obsolete : instruction

3: a field of study

4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

5 a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c:self-control

6: a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity

As a parent, your goal is reflected in #4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

The problem is, in addition to everything else you have to do as a parent -- running the household, providing income, taking care of your child's health, schooling, nutrition and social needs; an effective discipline plan is a lot of work!

Testing is Your Child's Job!

It may help you to keep in mind that testing the rules is a part of your child's development. It is part of your child's emerging personality for her to discover her place in society. That process begins at home. She is becoming aware of herself apart from you, her parent. She begins to form her own opinions. Her goal is to discover where your control ends and hers begins.

A child is almost driven to find out about consequences. Send your child in to clean their room. You have an important appointment in an hour. Your child is likely to dawdle and accomplish nothing in the hopes that your appointment time will come and the cleaning will have to be put off. For the hurried parent, this ploy frequently works because in the meantime you were rushing to get in a load of laundry, pay bills, and a host of other chores before you have to leave.

When this happens, be sure that when you get home from the appointment, the child is right back in their room to finish the task. Kids have a longer memory than we give think and your child will get it that putting off a chore doesn't make it go away.

Effective Discipline Involves Logical Choices

A child is anything but a logical being! But as the parent, you need to construct reasonable consequences that will make sense to your child as well as leave room for the child to make their own choices.

My daughter went through a period when she would unbuckle her carseat belt when we were out on errands. She knew since I was driving, I couldn't turn around and rebuckle time and time again. I have had many many parents bring up this particular problem!

So, what is the logical consequence? In this case, I told her that when the seatbelt was off, the car would not go. As soon as I heard the "click" of her belt, I found a safe place to pull over and there we sat. Now, my daughter wrote the book on STUBBORN! I didn't want her to lose a trait that I knew with maturity would become the more empowering "perserverence." Still, seatbelt use was not a matter to negotiate.

So, we sat. The choice was hers. The car would go again when she buckled up. I missed my appointment that day. We sat on the side of the road for thirty minutes. I did not allow her to engage me in conversation during that time, and made sure her toys were out of reach. She had nothing whatever to do but sit. Eventually, she quietly put her seatbelt back on and we continued on our way. We never had to deal with that particular problem again -- but there were lots of new ones to come!

Melinda, the Shoeless Girl

One morning one of the parents brought her four year old to my preK class. Mom was exhausted and "Melinda" was puffy eyed from crying. They had been battling all morning because Melinda flatly refused to put on her shoes. A sound spanking had been no help. It had only magnified Melinda's resolve that shoes were not an option! She would curl her toes in such a way that her mother couldn't get the shoes onto her feet. Not knowing what to do, Mom brought a barefoot Melinda to school and handed shoes and child over to me.

I had nineteen other children in the room to take care of. So what to do?

I started by asking Melinda why she didn't want to wear her shoes. Sometimes it turns out that the shoes pinch or the child has a blister, in which case I was prepared to offer a pair of slippers I kept in the classroom for emergencies. But Melinda announced she just didn't want shoes, period.

I then got her a chair. I told her it was okay for her to decide not to wear her shoes. However, it was not safe for her to wander around with her feet unprotected. The choice was completely hers. She could sit in the chair, shoeless, or put on her shoes and join in our activities.

Well, Melinda spent half the morning sitting in the chair. She wasn't upset because she knew she could get up at any time. But she was testing me to see if I would give her extra attention or change my mind. I didn't. I simply carried on with the business of the day.

When it was time to go down to the bike room, I offered to take the chair with us. At that point, Melinda decided that maybe she would wear her shoes after all. We buckled the shoes, she went off to play and not another word was said.

For weeks afterward, Melinda would arrive at school and show me her shoes first thing. "Look, Mrs. Silva! My feet are all protected!"

Two things happened here. First, the consequence - no shoes, no play for safety reasons - made sense, even to a four year old. Second, Melinda remained in control of her own choices. By giving her a choice, even though it was a very narrow one, the ball was in her court as to which action she would take.

Kids Have Great Timing

In the classroom, it was easier for me to enforce the rule of sitting in the chair. At home, there are other issues to consider. You may have to pick your older child up from school, or run an errand that can't wait. Children know this and will pick these times when you are in a bind to test the rules.

Tantrums at the grocery store are a prime example. The child knows you are embarrassed by the public display and more likely to give in to the demand for a toy or candy just to get some peace! Again, one time of announcing, "I'm sorry. This is not okay and we are going home." Leaving your full shopping cart behind and removing the child may be inconvenient, but you won't have to do it more than once or twice.

The child will get the message - especially when dinner that night is less than exciting. You can explain that since you were unable to complete your shopping, you couldn't prepare the favorite meal you had planned. The consequence is connected to the behavior. It doesn't take long for kids to catch on -- as long as you are consistent.

Teaching a Child to Self-Discipline

By giving children some room to make their own choices and helping them to connect their choices with the logical consequences, you are giving them a real gift. You are teaching them how to make good decisions. As they grow, they will learn to think of possible outcomes to their actions on their own.

When children can choose when they've had enough of a self-imposed consequence - i.e. getting out of the chair and putting on the shoes -- you avoid the drain of high emotions. You escape feeling like the "mean parent" because you are not imposing your will. The child may do some whining, but it won't be as potent, especially if you remain calm and give gentle reminders of the choice to be made.

The Challenge of Appropriate Discipline

In reality, the challenge lies in the fact that your child will come up with what seems like umpteen different transgressions. It isn't likely that you will be able to come up with one set of consequences that will apply to all the situations your child concocts.

The most general consequence is the classic "time out." This is an effective technique when you are unable to redirect the child to a more constructive activity. The object of time out is to interrupt a persistent behavior that may be destructive or intrusive in some way.

When you have guests and your child throws a ring-tailed tooter fit, time out is appropriate. The explanation is short and sweet. "If you are angry, you may be angry in your room. It is not okay to interrupt the conversation the grownups are having. When you have calmed down and can be a part of the group, you are welcome to join us again."

Putting your child's emotions into words serves as a calming technique. If you show understanding of the child's anger, fear, frustration, sorrow - whatever the underlying emotion may be, it validates the feeling, while giving the right and wrong way to deal with it.

It can test your own creativity to constantly come up with connections between one thing and another. My husband and I would get together about once a month and pick the top three areas we had to address with our (God love her) handful of a daughter. If we didn't narrow down the field, the child would have spent her life in "time out."

Choosing Your "Battles"

Often, parents will embroil themselves in a battle of wills with their children over things that don't really matter in the long run. If your child is learning to dress themselves and they put together a mismatched outfit, who cares? It's not worth fighting over. Instead, praise the child for taking responsibility by getting dressed on their own.

If the child refuses to wear a coat on a winter day, stop and breathe deeply. Instead of forcing the child to put the coat on, simply take the coat with you. When the child gets cold enough, the coat will go on and you have saved yourself an unnecessary problem.

The same applies to a missed meal -- the consequence will occur naturally. It won't harm your child to be hungry for a little while. With snacks included, children usually eat several times a day. Just be sure if a nutritional lunch was missed that the snack is just as nutritional. You don't want the lunch to be replaced with a cookie!

Concentrate on the things that really matter.

After any kind of disciplinary action with your child, be sure the episode ends with a hug and affirmation of love. Remind your child that while you do not like certain kinds of behavior, it has nothing to do with love. And it is from love that you want to see the best parts of your child nurtured and developed.

The "Bottom Line"

The main points to remember:

• spanking does not effectively connect action and consequence
• part of your child's development involves testing the rules
• find out if there is an underlying reason for the behavior - the child is ill, the shoes hurt, etc.
• put the child in control of ending the consequence
• the more logical the connection of consequence to action, the more effective the discipline
• choose your battles
• end every episode with a healthy dose of loving