Create a discipline toolbox
If you create a discipline toolbox for yourself at home, educating your children will be much easier.
You may have heard many times what is the ‘best’ way to discipline children. In reality, consequences and discipline strategies that work for one child may not work for others. No single discipline strategy is effective when rules are broken.
No child is the same as another and for this reason it is essential that you know your children well in order to be able to choose the discipline techniques that best suit their personality or personal interests. So, while waiting time can slow down your child’s aggressive behavior, taking away privileges can work better when he’s not doing his homework.
It is important and necessary that parents always have a personality discipline toolbox on hand, which is filled with a variety of strategies that they can apply to their children’s misbehavior, always taking into account the context of the situation to know which one. may be better in each case.
As with any toolbox, there will be some tools that you use more than others. There may be some tools that you sometimes forget about. But just knowing that you have tools available to consult whenever you need can give you the confidence to deal with behavior problems of any magnitude.
Index
HAVE MANY DIFFERENT DISCIPLINE TOOLS
It is good to have several options when you are deciding how to best teach your child about appropriate behavior. If your child misbehaves at school, should you take away electronics or do more homework? What if the consequences or discipline tools you choose don’t seem to be working? That having another tool to consult can be key to ensuring that your child receives healthy discipline.
This is not about choosing a tool randomly and applying it randomly, this would certainly be an educational failure. Instead, it’s important to get an idea of what tools work best with your child. You can ask yourself some questions like: does your child need problem-solving skills or emotional education to verbalize his feelings? Think about what your child’s skill deficits are to make the best decisions in the future.
WHAT ARE THE DISCIPLINE TOOLS THAT YOUR BOX SHOULD HAVE
Your discipline toolbox should contain tools that prevent behavior problems before they start, have consequences that teach life lessons, and strategies for teaching new skills.
Skills that prevent behavior problems
These discipline strategies require extra time and effort, but they are an investment that can prevent many behavior problems:
-Positive attention. Daily dose of quality time with children preventing attention seeking behavior.
-Compliments. Watch your child’s behaviors closely and when he has a good behavior encourage him to do it again by showing your gratitude and good words towards him and his behavior.
-Previous notice. Explain to your children the rules and regulations, as well as the expectations you have for their behavior. In this way, he will know what is expected of him and will be able to choose his behavior in time.
Consequences that teach life lessons
When your child breaks the rules, negative consequences should be used to teach him to make the best decisions in the future. Some consequences that are efficient are:
-Ignore negative behavior if it is not dangerous. Actively ignoring attention-seeking behavior, and eventually your child’s misbehavior will stop.
– Waiting time . Remove your child from the situation so they can have a few minutes to calm down and reflect with you.
-Loss of privileges . Take away privileges from your child for a specific amount of time, such as 24 hours.
– Natural consequences . Allow your child to face the natural consequences of their choices.
-Logical consequences. Help your child take responsibility for his behavior. If you break something, you will have to pay to replace it.
-Repair the damage. If your child’s behavior hurts someone else, he or she will have to make amends in some way.
Tools that teach specific skills
If your child is struggling with a specific behavior problem, such as aggression or forgets to do homework, use a reward system that teaches specific skills:
– Behavior table . From the point tables to the reward systems they are good ideas to have a behavior graph and that the children have goals and incentives.-System of token economy. Token economy systems motivate older children to achieve goals through tokens. Tokens can be exchanged for prizes.
WHAT TO DO WHEN A TOOL DOESN’T WORK
If the discipline tool you are using does not seem effective, examine the technique. Are there things you could do differently that can make the tool more effective? For example, are you consistent when applying the tool? Are you clear about the rules and consequences? Have you given enough time to get it for your children?
If it seems like a specific consequence just isn’t effective, switch to a different tool. For example, if ignoring swearing hasn’t stopped his behavior, try rewarding him for using nice language or pausing him for using inappropriate words.
If you are really struggling to find a discipline tool that works well and although you try over and over again it seems like it is not possible, you may need the help of a professional to achieve good and better results. You can talk to your pediatrician or a mental health specialist for the guidelines you really need. A professional can help you rule out underlying behavior disorders and discover the most effective disciplinary strategies.
With persistence and good work, finding the discipline that really suits the needs and interests of your child as well as your family is possible. Be consistent with the discipline strategies you use and above all, assess which ones are the best in each case to repeat them more often. If a discipline tool does not work well for your child, that does not mean that he has a conduct disorder, surely you should use other techniques before assuming something like that.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.