My Personal Discipline Manifesto

Every so often--probably about every month or so--I find that I need to step back and take a refresher course on the fundamentals principles I have learned about discipline.  These ideas are simple really, but somehow they are also really easy to forget and mess up.  I believe these principles are universal, but this list is far from complete.  If you have any to add, I'd love to hear them!

1.  Establish and maintain a close and loving relationship.  Your relationship with your child sets the tone for your discipline.  When I find myself struggling with naughty or grumpy children, the first thing I ask myself is, "How much time and attention have they gotten from me today?  How have I been treating them lately?"  Too often the answers aren't positive.  Before I start throwing fits of my own, I take time to tell my girls how much I love them, snuggle with them, maybe read together a little, and listen lots.  When we have a good relationship with our kids, they trust us and want to please us.  This gives them much stronger and more positive incentives to listen and obey than fear or force.

2.  Speak sweetly.  In accordance with the first principle, I have learned for myself the absolute necessity of speaking to my children in a soft, sweet, and gentle voice.  I'll be honest here:  I struggled with this concept for a long time.  I was the mom that was demanding, ordering, yelling, and arguing with my kids all the time... and this was when she was two!  I was the mom that would hear other moms talking in that sickeningly sweet mommy voice and I would roll my eyes and think, "How is that ever going to get them to listen?"  Well... I've repented of my ways, and here's why: just as my relationship with my kids sets the tone for their discipline, the tone of my voice sets the tone for our relationship.  When I used my angry voice all the time, I found that we were always at war, always at odds.  My daughter saw me as her enemy and she was inclined to either be afraid or rebel.  Neither of these were the outcome I was looking for.  In addition, I found that when I started talking sweetly to my girls, I suddenly had the capacity to have a danger or warning voice.  When mom uses that voice, they know I'm serious--that I really mean it.  But in general, I've been pleasantly surprised by their willingness to obey when I speak kindly but firmly and with clear expectations.

3.  Make sure everyone is well-fed and well-rested.  Again, if you find yourself with grumpy, whiny babies, and you feel your patience running thin, stop and consider whether both you and your children have eaten recently enough, and especially whether any of you might be suffering from some sleep deprivation. So many times when I thought my discipline world was falling apart, the solution turned out to be as simple as adjusting some bed-times or nap-times.  Be sure to check often how much sleep your child should be getting for their age and plan accordingly.  Don't take too many liberties or mess with their schedules or routines too much.  Be as consistent as you can as this will help them to sleep better in the long run.

4.  Start the way you mean to go on.  This is one of my all-time favorite discipline principles.  By now you've certainly caught on that to me discipline is far more than just punishments and rewards.  Discipline is about all of your interactions with your child, especially the ways in which you teach your children right from wrong and how to obey.  In fact, the root of the word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina which means "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge," (source.)  So as I consider my own discipline habits, one of my prime concerns is whether I am making choices today that can be continued and sustained into the future.  I establish routines that are particularly framed so that they can change as little as possible over the coming months and years as our family changes and grows.  I try to make all of my decisions for my children based on this same criteria even when they are newborns.  It has served me well; consistency is a parent's best friend, so of course principle number five is...

5.  Be consistent.  Okay... so maybe this principle could have been combined with number four, but my separating it out hopefully indicates just how key I believe consistency to be for the well-being of your family. Now, this is not to be confused with rigid inflexibility.  I hold the virtue of flexibility right up there with consistency.  But there must be a balance.  To me, this idea is best illustrated by the difference between no-plans, routines, and schedules.  In a no-plan world, everything is in chaos.  Anything goes.  Nothing can be counted on.  This is frustrating and confusing to little ones who I believe recently came from a place of perfect order.  Their brains are working incredibly hard to make sense of the world around them, and they can best achieve this when activities are repeated in roughly the same order every day.  This is the beauty of routines.  Schedules are on the other end of the spectrum, with everything being planned into a particular time-slot and rigidly held to for dear life.  This is not healthy because we feel like failures every time something falls out of place, which it will--probably everyday.  Besides, your children have no concept of what time it is.  Consistency means deciding what is most important to fit in daily, when it makes sense to do it, and then following through everyday in essentially the same sequence.

6.  Let them have as much agency as is possible considering their age.  This principle avoids SO many head-butts in my house.  Instead of constantly ordering my four-year-old around, I try to remember to give her choices, preferably only two of which either is acceptable to me, and with the implied third option: making no choice in which case mom decides.  For instance, if she is playing and I want her to come to the table for lunch, (and especially if I know this is a normal trigger for a tantrum,) I ask her if she'd like to have her food right now or come and have it in five minutes.  When she chooses in five minutes, I set a timer and she comes when it goes off.  If she doesn't come when she has said she would, I let her know that I'll happily eat her food for her, or that lunch will be over in another five minutes and she won't be able to eat anything if she doesn't come now.  (See principle #8 below.)

7.  Pick your battles.  Some are worth it and some are not.  This certainly will vary by family.  You get to decide what really matters to you.  Does it really matter to me if my daughter leaves the house in terribly clashing clothes?  No, not really.  Does it matter if she talks back to me?  Absolutely.  I deal with the serious things and laugh off the rest.

8.  Natural and logical consequences.  When worse comes to worse--as it inevitably will--and you have to deal with disobedience, teach your children about consequences.  Teach them that there are both positive and negative consequences and that they get to choose which they would prefer to experience.  Whenever possible, allow natural consequences to take their course and teach the lesson.  If your child got hurt because they were being naughty, is it really necessary to punish them in addition?  If they don't finish their lunch the natural consequence is hunger.  Don't save them from their learning experiences, though it may mean having to cope with some tears and tantrums.  The great thing about consequences is that they can become the bad guy.  You can be gentle, loving, and concerned for your child, but you can't take away the consequences.  There are of course circumstances which require you to impose logical consequences, such as making them clean up the mess they made.  And at times there is nothing left to be done but resorting to a good ol' time-out.  (I nice rule-of-thumb is one minute per year of age and always have them sit in the same corner.)  Avoid spanking if at all possible.  I am a believer in spanking being reserved for the once-in-a-blue-moon last resort, especially effective when the child's disobedience could lead them into severe danger, such as darting into the road despite your warnings.

9.  Remember the difference between a no-no and being naughty.  Before the age of two I believe that disobedience hardly exists and that discipline is only found in the form of removing the temptation.  Around the age of two, when I see that mischievous look in their eye, I begin really enforcing what I have been teaching.  When my daughter pulls all the books off the shelf the first time, that's a no-no.  When she does so again the same day, that is naughty, and that calls for a consequence.  In other words, be understanding of the learning curve.  It's pretty steep for these little ones.

10.  Follow through.  Let your children know what the consequences are for certain actions, and then swiftly follow through when they test you.  If you fail to deliver when you have warned, you have in essence lied to them and they are going to struggle to respect or trust you.  On the other hand, when they learn immediately that you cleaning up the blocks all by yourself is going to result in the blocks being put up high out of their reach for a day or two, they are inclined to take you seriously the next time.  Again, as a parent we hate to listen to them cry and feel disappointed.  But you can feel free to be as sympathetic as you like.  "I'm so sorry that you can't play with those blocks now!  But you'll remember to help me next time, won't you?"