Catch 'em in the act

One of my favorite ways of teaching my kids how to behave is to catch them in the act.  So often, parents will try and preempt good or bad behavior by reminding them before the kids have a chance to show them what they will do.  The goal is to catch them doing the right thing and then give them proper kudos.  If you catch them doing the wrong thing, rightfully correct them or whatever is commensurate with the offense.  But preempting them from making up their own mind will result in a slower learning curve because it lacks the affirmation of postive and negative reinforcement.

The goal is to get children to carry out your wishes when you aren't around, not when you are.  If you want to teach a child to look both ways before crossing the street, tell them a few times and then give them a chance to show you what they will do.  If they look both ways, go give them a high five and tell them how proud you are.  If they don't, go over to them and tell them they need to look for cars and show them what you mean.

When you're sure your child has it down, catch him in the act when he doesn't realize you're looking.  Then give him kudos. More and more, you want to wean your child from having your presence influence his behavior and, rather, cement that it's just what he does.

The dreaded topic of punishment

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.

Bribes: Proceed with caution

Let's admit it, bribes are convenient.  I'm guilty of them, especially the "eat your dinner and you can have a treat" bribe.  But bribes are tricky business.  If overused, they can teach your child that when they act out, they get rewarded.

I consider a bribe to be dangling a carrot to get a child to stop acting out and/or start listening.  Bribes are typically a reactive measure once you are in a contentious situation.  "If you will just put on your shoes, I will give you a gumball."

I consider rewards to be treats that "thank" a child for acting as they should.  Rewards occur in the absence of negative behavior.  Bribes usually occur in the presence of it.  Another way to think about the difference:  you're happy when you're giving rewards;  you're frustrated when you're giving bribes.

I'm a strong believer in rewards and positive reinforcement.  I believe they work better than punishment.  Rewards work best when they are unexpected -- something that will suprise and delight a child.  "Great job making your bed this morning. I didn't even have to ask you.  We should have some ice cream tonight to celebrate."

Bribes only get in the way of reinforcing positive behavior.  "If you go make your bed, we can have ice cream tonight."  If I'm a kid, I'm thinking "Awesome, if I don't make my bed every day, maybe I'll get some ice cream everyday."

If you want your children to do what you ask, amplify the rewards and turn down the bribes.  So what do you do when you're in that frustrated place and it's too late to introduce a reward?  A topic in and of itself.  I'll get to writing.

The power of "I don't care"

Obviously kids are very different.  Some are a little more "tough" and need to learn to be kinder and some are a little kinder and need to learn to be tougher.  In the case of the latter, I have find that it's important to teach the power of "I don't care".

My son is two years older than my daughter.  Yet, because he's more sensitive, he is more easily riled by her chastising.  So I had to teach him the power of "I don't care".  At first, this was just a tactic to get him to not escalate a particular issue or argument.  Maybe they would be arguing about whether or not it was swim day.  He was right in saying it was and she was wrong in saying it wasn't.  But at 3 years old, you can't reason with her.  And my son has an absolute desire to express his knowledge when he's right.  Sure, I can intervene every time this occurs and declare the winner but that's not building a life long skill.  I would just be teaching them to come to me with their arguments.  Instead, I taught my son the power of "I don't care."

Nothing diffuses an argument more than "I don't care what you think. I know what I think and that's all that matters to me."  Now, clearly there is a time and place for this.  This would not be acceptable as something to say to an adult.  But fast forward 3-5 years, when your child is being picked on by someone at school.  Wouldn't it be handy if your child could say to the other "I don't care what you think."  There's no escalation.  Your child didn't have to involve an adult.  He was self-sufficient, confident and brave.

Certainly, this is not the end all be all.  Nothing ever is.  Everything has it's time and place.  But teaching your child the power of "I don't care" can sure come in handy.

If it makes them laugh, do it again

Raising children should be fun.  It's hard, no doubt, but it should be fun too.  But even more, it should be fun for the kids.

Can I tell you how completely bored it makes me to play "kitchen" or Chutes and Ladders?  Unfortunately, I'm not one of those "the kid in me" kind of people. I'm all business. I'm  like "let's crank out this game, see who wins and then I can get back to doing the dishes."

But is that in line with my goal of raising happy adults?  No.  Kids need your attention.  They need you to play on their level and enjoy what they're doing.  They need to learn that laughter is a wonderful thing and that they should always feel comfortable laughing and expressing themselves.  They need to learn to be silly by observing you being silly.  They need to know what it means to have a sense of humor, to be original and to be lighthearted.

So dance with your kids, make funny faces with your kids, tickle their toes and wiggle their nose.  And if it makes them laugh, do it again.

Lying is the ultimate offense

When my kids grow up, I hope they will trust me with their inner thoughts and secrets.  I'd rather hear from them that they are struggling with an issue at school or that they have experimented with something they shouldn't have. 

So if that's what I want say 5, 10 years from now, how can I foster that now? 

Praise telling the truth more than the punishment for the misbehavior itself. Encourage your children to tell you the truth about something they did and when they give you the honest answer, hug them and tell them how proud you are that they told the truth.  Tell them how important it is to tell the truth.  Explain that they are still in trouble and must go to their room (or whatever the punishment is) but that when they are done, you want to give a jellybean (or some other reward) for telling the truth.  Eventually, telling the truth is easy for them because it's better than not telling the truth.

Conversely, if you think they should know better, punish them for telling a lie more than you would have punished them for the misbehavior itself.  Lying is the ultimate offense.

Some kids will take to it easier than others.  But by the time they are able to keep big secrets from you, hopefully they will have learned that they can trust you to be fair.

By the way, I have no idea what I'm going to DO with the information that my teenager spent the night drinking and partying.  But I figure I've got some time to figure that one out.  For now, I'm just focusing on getting them to tell me that when the time comes.

You don't have to yell to be heard

When it comes to disciplining, you have to separate yourself from the offense.  Your child made a bad decision and you just happen to be the enforcer of the rules. Her punishment doesn't have anything to do with you.  It has to do with your child and her decision.  You can be mildly sympathetic to her bad decision but the consequence still stands.

"Please put the cat down"..... "I don't want to have to tell you again, please put the cat down."...... "OK, go to your room.".... "I'm sorry you're sad.  I'm sure next time you will listen better".

All of this can be communicated without raising your voice.  You don't have to be mad that she didn't put the cat down.  She simply chose not to listen and, therefore, there was a consequence.  There's no need to belabor the reason for the punishment. All they know is that when they don't listen, there is a negative consequence. It's that simple.  When consequence is over, there's no need to linger on what happened.  The reset button has been hit.  Get back to what we were doing, give hugs, whatever. 

When you raise your voice, you are telling your child that they have wronged you and that you are the reason they are being punished.  Instead, take yourself out of it.  It's between your child and their decisions.  It's like you're the referee of a game.  The ref doesn't take personal offense that you fouled another player.  It's just the rules and if you don't follow the rules, there's a penalty.

The other benefit of not raising your voice when disciplining day in and day out?  When you do, it goes a long way.  Save it for when your child's about to put himself in danger.  Save it for when the offense is so defcon 5, that you have to pull out all the stops. 

Oh, and you don't get as riled.  There's something to be said for lower blood pressure.