Disciplining the children how do you do it ??

Lunar_Eclipse

Caroline_a wrote: »

I was pretty strict on my children when they were small, making sure that if I said 'no' it meant no, and not oh all right then. They were smacked if they were naughty, but 99% of the time the threat of a smack was enough to make them stop whatever they were doing, and they always had a warning first!

I think that often people forget that as parents we need to teach our children how to make wise choices, they cannot do that for themselves until they have had experience and guidance. I often hear people offering their children far too much choice, with the result that the child is very often making an uninformed choice and then often inappropriate.

Punishment has to be something that 'hurts' the child, be it stopping a planned day out, removal of toys for a fixed period, etc etc. Additionally, it has to be reinforced by both parents. You mentioned a 'family meeting'. In my eyes, that has to be a discussion for you and the other half.... followed up by a 'this is how it is going to be from now on in' to anyone else living in the house! It may sound harsh, but I feel you will have to be doubly tough initially to regain any sort of control of your youngster.

From what you've said, I think my parents raised me in a similar way. They basically made all the decisions, and my sister and I behaved ourselves and did what we were told to do, always. To be honest, I totally resent them for it. I call it fear based parenting (that was popular in the 70's), something I have little respect for as an adult and parent myself, because it seems to be the easier parenting option that can be lazy, controlling and at its extreme, disrespectful of children in general (I'm not saying you were/are.)

Giving up the urge to control our children and taking on board their needs, is so much harder. But so much better (for them) in the long run, as they learn how to make decisions (without punishment) by taking risks and dealing with natural consequences of good and bad decisions etc.

A family meeting involves all members of a household. Why does one person get to say 'this is how it will be from now on?'

And before you wonder if I'm some New Age hippy with children that behave like street kids, DH & I are often praised for our children's behaviour. They are kind and considerate, polite children. They are capable of giving me a very hard time at home, pushing my patience to the limit often, but I'm trying to do the right thing. As we all are by the way; I realise that and appreciate people do things differently.

In summary, I'm in the 'assume they will behave camp' with no formal discipline system in place. I have high behavioural expectations of them ; they're 9 and 10. I expect them to be reasonable most of the time and make wise choices. Obviously, they are sometimes selfish ones, and we simply point out the consequence of 'well if you behave in that way, we probably won't feel like .... with/for you later.' Or if they shout at us (it happens!), we ask them if they think that's a good way to get what they are after (eg help with homework.) Works most of the time.

But it's really hard work whatever you do I think!

eezer

It's easy to sit here and offer solutions and I don't want to sound judgemental in any way:

It sounds like he's just trying to get your attention and has got into the habit of doing it negatively. Then he's bound to get a response from you and any attention is better than none. You get angry, smack him and he wins!!

Are you too busy to notice him and spend time with him doing things he wants to - kiddy things like lego/board games etc? Have you taken an interest in his football team and asked about his Match Attax collection?

You should try as far as possible to ignore the negative and focus on the positive. Does he get any praise for doing even the smallest thing right?

Spend some quality time with him each day on his interests. Focus on what he does well and do something together that he likes. His rooms a tip - don't let it bother you, or at least don't let it show that it bothers you. Build a relationship with him and then begin to set the groundrules. I'm sure you find him much more responsive if you take the time to develop this relationship.

Of course you need discipline and consequences if he steps out of line, but as others have said he needs a consistent approach and to know where he stands. If you say something - follow it through, but it'll be 10 times easier if he loves and respects you. It sounds like at the moment he may be feeling unloved and the respect has gone.

It's not too late, but you are the adult and it's your responsibility to manage him in a loving, consistent way. All kids need attention, just make sure it's positive.

That's enough of sounding like supernanny...

Caroline_a

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

From what you've said, I think my parents raised me in a similar way. They basically made all the decisions, and my sister and I behaved ourselves and did what we were told to do, always. To be honest, I totally resent them for it. I call it fear based parenting (that was popular in the 70's), something I have little respect for as an adult and parent myself, because it seems to be the easier parenting option that can be lazy, controlling and at its extreme, disrespectful of children in general (I'm not saying you were/are.)

Giving up the urge to control our children and taking on board their needs, is so much harder. But so much better (for them) in the long run, as they learn how to make decisions (without punishment) by taking risks and dealing with natural consequences of good and bad decisions etc.

A family meeting involves all members of a household. Why does one person get to say 'this is how it will be from now on?'

And before you wonder if I'm some New Age hippy with children that behave like street kids, DH & I are often praised for our children's behaviour. They are kind and considerate, polite children. They are capable of giving me a very hard time at home, pushing my patience to the limit often, but I'm trying to do the right thing. As we all are by the way; I realise that and appreciate people do things differently.

In summary, I'm in the 'assume they will behave camp' with no formal discipline system in place. I have high behavioural expectations of them ; they're 9 and 10. I expect them to be reasonable most of the time and make wise choices. Obviously, they are sometimes selfish ones, and we simply point out the consequence of 'well if you behave in that way, we probably won't feel like .... with/for you later.' Or if they shout at us (it happens!), we ask them if they think that's a good way to get what they are after (eg help with homework.) Works most of the time.

But it's really hard work whatever you do I think!

Obviously everyone is different, but my girls now who are 23, 30 and 32 all tell me that they are really glad I brought them up as I did. They tell me that they detest seeing badly behaved children running around screaming in restaurants and shops when parents are allowing them to do whatever they want, and giving in to their every whim.

I can assure you that my children were'nt afraid of me either - I did ask 2 of them this when I read your post, and they laughed and said no, not fear, just respect. Also, it really isnt lazy parenting, I promise you, the easy way out is to say yes to everything! Or at least that's how it seems at the beginning.. I have watched recently some of the Supernanny programmes. Her style is very similar to how I brought my children up, with rules and structure laid down by adults, rather than toddlers. Some people think she's got it somewhere near right..

kafkathecat

Lunar, your parenting sounds a lot like mine and people often comment on ds's maturity. I do think different families need different things and what is important is to work out what is right for your family. Whe ds has been difficult in the past we have always discussed what he is trying to achieve and pointed out a better way of getting there.
Caroline, Ds has been going to restaurants and the theatre from an early age and has always behaved but I have always had a plan b in case he was bored.

jennikitten

I think my parents must have been pretty amazing then, because I was allowed to make every choice as a kid, even choosing my own primary school. Yes there were times when I was 'guided' into making the decision they wanted as well, but there was a lot of leniency. The only rule I remember there being in our house was 'no sweets, except at parties'.

Looking back I think it's because me & my sister both had proper routines, and that's just the way things were. I'd be in bed for 9pm until I was about 12 or 13, because that was just what happened. I never questioned it or argued with it. My mum had an extremely laissez faire style of parenting, although we did get the occasional smack.

To be honest it was great, until I started to revise for my GCSEs & my parents didn't really understand why I had to work so much...they tried to stop me working on a few occasions! You might think it was reverse psychology, but it wasn't...they were genuinely focused on having mine and my sister's happiness before anything else. Which meant that we had early bedtimes but were encouraged to do interesting (but cheap) things so as not to get bored. We didn't have tons of toys and didn't have car access for most of my childhood, but it meant that we focused more on doing things in the local community, going round to friends' houses, visiting the local library and so on.

Can't imagine it will be anything like that if I have kids though!

poppyscorner

eezer wrote: »

It's easy to sit here and offer solutions and I don't want to sound judgemental in any way:

It sounds like he's just trying to get your attention and has got into the habit of doing it negatively. Then he's bound to get a response from you and any attention is better than none. You get angry, smack him and he wins!!

Are you too busy to notice him and spend time with him doing things he wants to - kiddy things like lego/board games etc? Have you taken an interest in his football team and asked about his Match Attax collection?

You should try as far as possible to ignore the negative and focus on the positive. Does he get any praise for doing even the smallest thing right?

Spend some quality time with him each day on his interests. Focus on what he does well and do something together that he likes. His rooms a tip - don't let it bother you, or at least don't let it show that it bothers you. Build a relationship with him and then begin to set the groundrules. I'm sure you find him much more responsive if you take the time to develop this relationship.

Of course you need discipline and consequences if he steps out of line, but as others have said he needs a consistent approach and to know where he stands. If you say something - follow it through, but it'll be 10 times easier if he loves and respects you. It sounds like at the moment he may be feeling unloved and the respect has gone.

It's not too late, but you are the adult and it's your responsibility to manage him in a loving, consistent way. All kids need attention, just make sure it's positive.

That's enough of sounding like supernanny...

lol Am trying not to take offence I promise

But I'm certainly not to busy to notice him I make time for them both each and every day. I take him to all of his football practise's and his match days I'm there too we talk about his team what he thinks he did well what he may like to work a bit harder on and his match attax I sat with him and put them all in the wallets in his collectors book 2 weeks ago and we discuss them regularly honestly I am the girliest girl ever and football really isn't my thing but given his huge interest in it I think I know more about football than some blokes do lol I have too otherwise he would just bamboozle me.

Admitedly though he talks with OH about it more than me but thats because he can tell him the history of the game and I don't have that knowledge I'm just up on current players and teams and I have to know the results of the midweek matches because when I get him up in the morning we have to talk football and he wants to know the scores lol honestly he's the only kid I know around here who would rather watch sky sports news instead of cartoon network.

I do try to ignore his negative behaviour as far as possible but I think to some extent you also need to point out to him that his behaviour is not right and he needs an explanation as to why it isn't which we try and work through together of course I'm not perfect and the times we discuss it and I'm still raging he just pushes the buttons and it ends in shouting and where it very quickly escalates.

Of course I'm the adult and the parent and therefore should be in control and sometimes I just feel like I'm not.

I don't think for one moment he could possibly feel unloved even on our bad days I always make sure when I tuck him in at night I hug him and kiss him and tell him I love him and I frequently tell him this through the day too, however this decreases when he is playing up so maybe thats it ?

I don't really know tbh he isn't the worst kid in the world he's a bright little boy and he can be loving and caring and great fun to be around I think somewhere along the line we just lost our way thats all.

poppyscorner

So we had the family meeting last night after school was over and the boys were changed out of their uniforms.

OH and I had discussed previously what were going to have as the rules before hand and the kind of things we wanted. I wanted the kids to take some ownership of the rules and consequences so I started with the rules I made one then OH did one to give them the idea then DS1 came up with loads of relevant ones and we agreed to make them rules, closer to the end DS2 was also chipping in too with his ideas for the rules and we agreed those too we have started small and have 5 rules.

We then moved onto consequences of breaking the rules and they came up with a list of priviledges they would loose if the rules were broken DS2 broke a rule almost straight away and had to go to bed 10mins earlier last night and we talked it through with him why that had happened and he accepted it.

DS1 tidied his room as per the rules and he did the best job i've ever seen him do of it he was of course praised lots and lots for this he was super helpful last night too all in yesterday was a good day

Of course we're in the honeymoon period and he's yet to face a consequence so we'll see how it goes but the consequences we decided on are all easy enough for us to follow through with taking on board what a few people here said about not making consequences on the spur of the moment and making them something we can carry through

We'll see how it goes i'll post back as and when things crop up

Thanks to you all for your input

xx

DVardysShadow

poppyscorner wrote: »

Our house is chaos :o

At present we have rules that neither of the kids really stick to and I don't know what punishments to dish out.

Stop it right there. Your assumption is that it is all going to go wrong and you have to apply punishment.

Your thread is about disciplining. But punishment is actually an outcome of a failure to discipline. If you had discipline you would not punish.

Your approach to this is reactive. If it goes wrong, how do I punish? You need to start at the other end and plan for it to go right.

Lunar_Eclipse

Caroline_a wrote: »

Obviously everyone is different, but my girls now who are 23, 30 and 32 all tell me that they are really glad I brought them up as I did. They tell me that they detest seeing badly behaved children running around screaming in restaurants and shops when parents are allowing them to do whatever they want, and giving in to their every whim.

Me too (who does?) Yet strangely enough, I have noticed that children who behave as you described above, are often the ones who have parents who shout at them and dish out punishments loudly, in public (possibly in an attempt to redeem themselves?)

I've also noticed that I usually feel for the child in these circumstances, because often they aren't doing anything wrong, they are simply misguided in their actions and then heavily criticized and punished in an aggressive manner, by a stressed parent. Or maybe that's just how it always looks when they're someone else's children. Apologies if you start to notice it now I've mentioned it; it does make me feel a bit sad!

And I quite like Supernanny. Although I'm sure they must show the worst bits to make good TV.

I think what I was talking about is something a bit different to routine, high expectations, loving guidance and respect.

Lunar_Eclipse

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Stop it right there. Your assumption is that it is all going to go wrong and you have to apply punishment.

Your thread is about disciplining. But punishment is actual an outcome of a failure to discipline. If you had discipline you would not punish.

Your approach to this is reactive. If it goes wrong, how do I punis?. You need to start at the other end and plan for it to go right.

Brilliant observation; totally agree.

I think it gets a bit lost though when you feel things aren't going right.