I'm no expert. When my oldest was still quite young we hired an expert to teach us some tools to help us raise her. It was a tremendous help to my wife and I and the lessons we learned from this expert have stuck with us through all these years. I thought I'd jot down some of these guidelines on how to handle your little ones. Perhaps you can benefit as we have.
1. Respect for you (the parents) as leaders of the family is key. If they don't see you as being in charge it leaves them confused and they will act out in trying to understand boundaries.
2. Fear is not respect.
3. Corrections in behavior need to happen immediately and consistently.
4. When correcting, it is not enough to point out what is bad/wrong; you have to show them what is correct.
5. Praise for good behavior works better than disciplining bad behaviors.
6. Never discipline good behaviors.
7. Never reward bad behaviors.
8. They are constantly learning state. Everything you do with them will be observed and will modify their behavior either directly or indirectly.
Now, most of you seasoned parents will regard this list as statement of the obvious. To me, however, they were tremendously helpful. By always having these guidelines in the back of my mind I've been able to deal with my children in much more consciously and in ways that I feel are much more healthy for my kids. Don't get me wrong. I am by no means the perfect parent, but I am getting better as I learn to implement these guidelines.
I guess I should tell you who this expert is. She is a dog trainer. Oh, and when I mentioned my "oldest", I was referring to my dog. Yes, these are guidelines for dog training. As we were being taught how to train our dog I had this moment when I realized that the basic rules would apply to children as well. It just might be crazy enough to work. So far, so good.
As time has passed, I've met couples who have had the most obedient and well trained dogs, but their kids were complete brats. I've always thought in those moments that their kids would be happier and more well adjusted if their parents would only use some of their training knowledge. Some of you may be incensed, thinking that I treat my kids like dogs. No, I don't swat them on the nose with a newspaper, nor do I have them crate trained (hey! there's an idea!). These are guidelines, not hard-fast rules. Don't think of it as treating your kids like dogs - think of it more like treating your dogs the way you should be treating your kids. But what do I know? I'm no expert. To be honest, though, I don't think there is such a thing.
-Brother Brett
Alexandra and I are at the stage with our daughter (Anabelle) where we need to start thinking about tactics. You know, timeouts...spankings (i don't think i can do it)...30 days in "the box"...whatevs. I try to make it a rule to really engage with her, especially when she is acting out. I had heard somewhere that all children really need is to be noticed and be loved, and that real eye contact, real physical contact can make all the difference in reducing the frequency of outbursts. But still, there are those times when nothing works. During these times it becomes a battle of the wills and all I have left in my arsenal is what I call "the cage" (which is actually a big extended hug). I scoop her up (usually struggling) and walk away from the problem until before long she is completely content being carried around and has forgotten all about the idea of sticking her fingers into the light socket, throwing my iphone out the window, or beating up old ladies for their pension money. I know that, even as effective as a big, hairy hug from me can be, it is not going far to correct bad behaviour...rather it is a form of redirection...so now we have to agree on some tactics, Alexandra and I. Here is a link from one of my favorite short stories...it is about what happens when a parenting tactic goes wrong - or maybe just about how powerful a little kid with a big, huge iron will (and little concern for personal well-being) can be :) http://www.jessamyn.com/barth/baby.html
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of "the cage"! I wish I'd thought of it a few years ago. At this point I think my kids are too big for it. They'd just beat me up. I would suggest developing lots of different disciplining methods for different kinds of misbehavior. I don't think that there is one ultimate end-all tactic. A tactic used to correct deceit might not work on tantrums, etc.. I'm a big believer in eye contact as well, if for no other reason than you know you have their attention when your trying to reason with them.
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