If you're new here you might want to check out our top recommendation for parents. You can get a copy of The Total Transformation Program for free for a limited time, and it truly is a fantastic resource.

When dealing with a misbehaving child, one of the first things parents learn is that it’s difficult to find working child discipline methods. The methods that we may recall from our own childhood simply don’t mean the same thing to our own children; after all, every child is different, and where one child may be terrified at the prospect of a parent’s disapproval, another may simply not show much interest in avoiding discipline at all.

One of the most unproductive mindsets, one that has wormed its way into the cracks of our culture from every direction, is that punishment is the end-all and be-all of consequences. Discipline is not about forcing your children to suffer, so they will avoid the behavior that preceded their suffering; this is never an effective method.

What truly instills discipline is the understanding that the child is in control of what happens… and that any consequence is a direct result of the child’s own actions. A major part of this is to keep the consequences simple, and tie them to accountability. Child discipline methods that involve accountability are more often successful.

In the end, what your child needs is not some emotional aversion to certain behaviors because Bad Things happened when he did them before. You simply can’t make enough Bad Things happen; you’ll never catch every misbehavior, and you’ll just end up teaching the skill of “not getting caught.”

What your child needs is the appropriate social and intellectual skills that enable him or her to identify what makes a behavior proper or improper, and choose the proper behavior because it signifies his or her degree of skill. This is what discipline really is – the conviction and desire to do the right thing, the proper thing, even if it is inconvenient.

In James Lehman’s popular Total Transformation Method, he recommends a system of simple consequences that foster a sense of accountability – and, with it, responsibility. Children do not learn from what their parent says, but from what their parent does… and the Total Transformation Method focuses on real actions, rather than empty words.

When your words explain that you’re teaching responsibility by putting your child in a chair, while you clean up the mess left behind yourself, and your child simply sits and waits… your actions don’t teach responsibility. Rather the opposite.

An action-based consequence would be having the child clean up the mess himself or herself, as a direct result of having made it. It is clear to the child that there would be no mess to clean up if one were not made, and the correct behavior is encouraged.

If you enjoyed this article on child discipline methods you’re likely to enjoy what James Lehman has to teach you in his system, The Total Transformation Program.

Tagged with: •

Filed under: articles

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!