OK, so I opened a can of worms with my last post. I suggested that you should avoid bribes and increase rewards. And that rewards typically occur when you are in a "happy place" with your child and that bribes typically occur when you're in a "not so happy place" with your child. So you're in that not so happy place and it's too late for rewards. What do you do?
This is where negative disclipine steps in....punishment. Uggg, this topic alone makes me want to go grab the chocolate covered pretzels. Why? It's a really hard subject. But maybe if I break it down into three settings, I get can somewhere with the subject.
So let's consider there are three different settings:
1) Home - where you typically have the resources to be consisent; to take the time necessary to see the punishment through; and you have the privacy to not have all the other moms staring you down
2) In a Public Place where you still have some leverage and abilty to punish in typical ways - eg, the park where you can go home if necessary; a friend's house, where you can put your child in a time out
3) A time or place where you have no leverage - eg, the airport, mall, or grocery store; trying to run out the door; anywhere you can tell the child "we'll have to go home" and they'll say OK
So let's address each setting individually.
At home with the time and ability to discipline
This is where you should be making it clear to your child that you mean business. Get this right and you'll be faced with settings 2 and 3 less and less. Just your verbal reprimands will signal to your child "she ain't messing around". Home is where you do whatever it takes to make sure the punishment is felt. And I don't mean physically. I do not believe in spanking. Bu the punishment needs to be "unfun" for your child. And the more serious the misbehavior or the more the child should know better, the more severe the "unfun" should be. While your child is in a phase of testing you, this is your time to shine. Expect a lot of tears. If your child's not sad over their punishment, I'm not sure it's considered punishment.
Each child is different. I don't believe there is a one size fits all type of punishment. Plus, you have to match the punishment with the child's age and ability to connect the dots and learn from their punishment. I don't think you can truly start punishing children with any long term benefit until they are at least two. Their ability to understand cause and effect is just too immature before then.
I was very lucky with my son. Being sent to his room was a huge deal - and if we had to lock the door, it would send him in a tailspin. So he was easy. It only took a few occasions of long spells in a locked room until he got the message. And now I can proudly say that I can't remember the last time I had to lock his door. He still gets sent to his room on occasion but escalation isn't really necessary any more. He gets it.
My daughter is different. We send her to her room and she starts singing. You raise your voice at her and you get a very sad lower lip and a voice-breaking "I'm sorry". (Can you start to see the softie in me?) So we've struggled with finding that silver bullet but fortunately, we're not needing to punish her much. She's a pretty good listener and has her big brother to set a good example.
So in a nutshell, find the punishment that you think is fair and causes your child some "emotional pain". Once you have something that works, use it alot until your child knows you mean business. Then you should find you need to punish less and less (with a few refresher courses every now and again).
And I hope I don't have to mention follow through. If you threaten a punishment, give yourself a goal of instituting it about 25% of the time. Any less, and you're probably not following through enough. The threats become hollow and your verbal reprimands bear no weight.
In summary, "be really mean and be really nice". Reward more than you punish and make the rewards fun and celebratory. But when you have to punish, make sure your child will take a vested interest in avoiding that punishment in the future. If you don't, you're going to find yourself searching for answers to #2 and #3 and your options will be a lot more limited.
In Public with Leverage
OK, I need to speed this up. If you're out and your child is acting up and isn't listening to your reprimands, do whatever you can to invoke a punishment. Give a warning that you will have to leave the playdate. And then be sure to leave on occasions. Then when you threaten it the next time, they'll know you mean it. Do whatever you can to make your discipline strategies portable.
In Public with No Leverage
This one is the worst and the hardest. This is when you are most apt to bribe because it's all your left with. These are tantrums in parking lots and obsintance at the grocery store.
I don't have any simple solutions here. This is where I usually end up holding my children's arm, looking them straight in the eye and say "I need you to listen to me right now" in a stern voice. If you think your child understands delayed consequence, you can try taking away some privelege but I'm not a huge fan of delayed consequence. The punishment and its association with the negative behavior can get lost. That's probably something that starts working after the age of 5 or so.
But I promise that if you can nail the first two settings, you'll rarely find yourself in a situation where you can't get them to listen simply by using your "I mean business" voice. Because they will know from experience that you do.
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