Disciplinary Mistakes Parents Make

Our children’s attitudes in future are shaped by amongst a host of other factors, the kind of discipline they receive today. To raise peaceful and peace-loving children we must therefore instill and uphold proper discipline from childhood.

Learning how to discipline a child in a most effective way can seem like an impossible task. This is because parents make some basic mistakes with discipline from the onset. Some of these mistakes are highlighted below.

 

Not giving the right kind of attention

Positive attention reduces attention-seeking behaviour such as whining, temper tantrums and other intentional annoying behaviours. When children don’t get attention for positive behaviours they often act out just to get any kind of attention.

Giving your child your undivided attention for a reasonable amount of time per day can help reduce a lot of negative behaviour in addition to building a positive relationship.

Praise is another way to give children positive attention. Others are (material or financial) reward systems.

Short-Term Solutions

Another mistake parents make is focusing on the short-term. Good discipline techniques should also have the long-term in focus.

For example, just to get him to behave well for a specific duration or for a specific purpose, a parent may be tempted to give in to a whining child. This, unfortunately, teaches the child that whining and complaining is a good way to get his needs met; a lesson which may go on to affect the child in other areas of his life.

Since he now believes that whining will get his needs met, this child will most probably have a lot of problems with his siblings and peers who are more likely to get annoyed than to give in to his whining.

When parents stick to limits and provide fair, consistent, authoritative discipline strategies, children will learn that there are negative consequences for their actions and behaviours.

Lack of Clear and Consistent Rules

When there are not clear rules, a child can get quite confused as to what is expected from him. Sometimes the problem is that each parent has a different rule or interpretation of the rule, resulting to the child viewing one parent as “good” and the other parent as “bad.”

Other times, a parent does not consistently follow through with limits and consequences. For instance, an overworked parent may feel too tired to make the child do his homework some nights. This can be confusing to the child who may argue with the parent on nights when the parent compels him to complete his homework.

Establishing rules helps children have more structure. When children are clear what the limits and consequences are, they know their limits and can make more informed decisions.

It is also important that children have assigned chores and clear rules about money, to teach them responsibility.

Not Having a Discipline Plan

When it comes to managing behavioural issues it is better to be proactive rather than reactive. Take some time to develop and spell out comprehensive behaviour management plan. When problems are tackled with a clear plan, it is much easier to track the child’s progress and make changes when necessary.

Without a clear plan, parents sometimes struggle to deal with or curb bad behaviour. For example if a child hits others, a parent may not know how to deal with the child’s aggression. As a result, the parent may use multiple punitive measures; the parent may “ground” the child at one time, or may spank the child out of exasperation another time. This inconsistency will be confusing to the child and ultimately ineffective.

Parents need to develop and maintain a consistent (mis)behaviour management plan with their children to ensure that children receive clear messages about their behaviour.