Discipline - How tos?
When you have younger children in the home, life can be very unpredictable, fun, and exciting. However, life can also be something of a nightmare if the younger child has not been properly disciplined, and is running amok causing havoc and doing pretty much whatever he or she wants. Discipline means different things to different parents, but it is important that when you discipline your child you use the correct type of discipline in order to help them learn rather than to force them into a certain type of behaviour without actually showing them the rights and wrongs of what they are doing.
When it comes to disciplining your child, there are a number of things to bear in mind:
- Make sure that you combine verbal discipline with actions: this means that you should ensure that you practise what you preach. Don’t tell you child not to do something and then go ahead and do it yourself or let another family member get away with it.
- Use positive discipline wherever possible: Positive reinforcement and discipline is a great way of teaching your child what’s right and wrong, and this means rewarding them for the good things that they do rather than simply punishing them if they do something wrong.
- Explanations and understanding: Simply punishing the child is not enough, and often with younger children the child may not even know why he or she is being punished. You must clearly explain to the child what he or she has done wrong, and why it was wrong.
- Communication: Communicating effectively with your child is a large part of the disciplinary process, and it is important that you talk to the child as well as listen to what he or she says. Often this can stop many problems from arising in the first place, as well as making disciplining your child more effective.
- Avoid physical discipline: Smacking and other forms of violent and physical discipline will serve only to frighten younger children rather than to help them to learn what is right and wrong. Your disciplinary processes should combine understanding, communication, and where necessary effective punishment such as the loss of a privilege, like television, pocket money, or something similar.