Discipline is a tricky topic. It's very broad and can mean many things to many different people. And to top it all off, a lot of times there is no correct way to deal with a problem. It is a trial and error process that depends mainly on the situation and temperament of your child. Within your family you probably deal with each child differently at times. And that's fine! They are unique to how God made them, so it makes sense that a "one size fits all" approach to discipline will not work. So keep that in mind as you read over the discipline topics presented. Some may work for you and some may not. You are the parent, and you know what's best for your child.
In this post I want to introduce you to an alternative to time-outs. Something you can do when your child makes an inappropriate choice. A few months ago Bryan and I were facing a time where we felt like nothing was working when we disciplined our oldest child. We had decided some time ago not to resort to spanking because we felt like it was leading to aggression in our child and was hard to do with the right attitude, devoid of anger. So we relied mainly on time-outs as our "go to" discipline option. But they just weren't working anymore and we were beyond frustrated.
I don't even know how I heard about it, but I came across a book called Just Tell Me What to Say by Betsy Brown Braun. The book covers many different topics that can be perplexing to parents, such as bad habits, siblings, illness divorce and death, etc. But the chapter on discipline techniques really caught my attention. The author introduced the idea of logical consequences as a way to deal with misbehaviors. The difference between a punishment and a consequence is two-fold. A punishment doesn't always fit the crime (i.e. taking away TV time if a child hits his sibling). A punishment is also seen as being imposed by the parent. It's the parent's fault that the child does not get to watch TV, therefore the child doesn't always relate the consequence to their actions.
A logical consequence comes as a natural result of a child's action. It is obviously related to the crime and makes sense. For instance, if a child forgets to put his toys away each day after being told to do so repeatedly, the toys are taken away for a day.
Now we used logical consequences at times without even knowing what we were doing. But we realized we could be practicing them more often. Using logical consequences takes more time and effort than time-outs, not to mention creativity. But we found that the ability to have a choice of discipline beyond time-outs was very freeing.
Our frustration came when Ben would repeatedly hit or slap Luke's cheeks when he was angry about something Luke did. So we put our heads together and came up with the idea of mittens. Whenever Ben chose that action, he would have to wear mittens for a set period of time to help him remember to be gentle with his hands. And let me tell you, it's hard to do most things when you have mittens on! That method worked a million times better than a time-out. And although we still deal with it at times, Ben actually stops and thinks before proceeding with his reactive behaviors many times. And that's a major improvement!
So think about whether or not logical consequences would be something useful to have in your parenting toolbox.
More on this idea to come in the next post. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!
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