Discipline is all about teaching children to behave properly and the the right way. There could be a lot of ways as a parent you could teach and train your child to learn the basics of a decent behavior. Basically it will depend what age your child is and then you could learn various ways on how do you discipline your children.
I have seen a lot of parents neglecting their children’s ill behavior since they claim that “it’s okay the little one is just home, he could do what he wants and would not repeat it outside else where, I am pretty sure!” If you are one of such parents – then just don’t assume, you are wrong to say he would not repeat it else where! And remember to correct the child at home. Hence it is said that charity begins at home. Teach your kid to behave and stop the kid right away if you feel it’s wrong whether at home or outside – it should not matter really.
And yes, a lot of parents ask this question “How do you discipline a child without yelling” – Let me tell you, there are all ways in which you do not need to yell really . Yelling is a very bad practice. I will tell you in details why and how yelling affects the kid in my article below.
There was an incident just the last week when it was kids day at my workplace. No wonder, the proud parent did want their kids to take a walk at their office premise and show off how their parent’s work and what it looks like. So, this one kid who was trying to be extremely curious about whats what, should be just about 4 years old. This story was told to me 15 minutes after I walked to my desk to see all the papers at my desk torn and thrown to floor as though I was a garbage bin! I was furious to see it was a kid’s job and those were my very important documents. But I had to really calm down as the parent (apparently my colleague) came running to me to apologize saying “ She usually does this at home with the newspapers and thought it could be the same types here”. I immediately realized that it was the parent’s mistake more than just the kid who did not know what it was all about really. Wanted to give some good talk on how do you discipline your child, but just ended up saying “Happens, It’s okay”.
It is time we do not end up neglecting our kid’s ill manners and call it cute!
Here are some ways on How do you discipline your children:
1. Kids of different age need different ways to learn and cope up to this disciplinary behavior.
Babies under a year age do not understand what is right or wrong. If the baby starts to pull your hair, you could just say a “no” politely or show him how to do it gently. And do it more than once as the baby would not remember this the next time.
However, Toddlers do understand a bit what it is to behave but might just ill behave to seek your attention or maybe to see you react! Try to keep your calm and teach him not to do that.
Preschoolers have a very good understanding of what is acceptable behavior and what is not. They surely do learn good and bad from other places as they are most of the time away from homes. So they could try harder to test your patience by behaving exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to.
2. Firstly praise your kid’s good behavior by saying “wow! You have done a brilliant job by putting your toys away” . They would obviously feel good about it and want to do it every time after they are done playing. This gets a positive attitude I them towards such things and also that the siblings end up learning the same from one another. Use this as your primary way to defend against the bad behavior by encouraging the good habit. This works miracle for all age but mostly worthy for Preschoolers as they could be told exactly what is good and what isn’t.
3. You need to give examples and explain the kid in a easy simple way. You cannot use sarcasm to let them know they did something wrong and that they need to improve. Give example being disciplined yourself. You cannot tell you child to not use bad or slang words where as you leisurely move around and use it in public! Tell the kid why is it bad to do it this way and what happens when he does it the other disciplined way. Do not use the negation strategy to tell him you knew he would do it this way. Instead just simply say this is not right and do it like this even if it takes a couple of times to understand, just re-iterate.
4. Do not resort to YELLING! Say no to yelling.
It is very important for a parent to know how to discipline a child without yelling.
I agree raising your voice is important and necessary at a certain point, especially when you try to gather the kid’s attention and get them to listen to us. But it is usually said avoiding screaming is the best ways to start teaching your child discipline. Experts suggest that screaming makes a human feel humiliated and or physically threatened. It will only scare your child the first time and by the second or the third time you do it, they would really act ineffective. Kids want to overcome this humiliation and hence become great mimics, which annoys the parent than no better! In a lot of cases, kids learn that yelling is the best way to make someone listen or persuade and use it as their common practice. It might even traumatize kids in a lot of ways.
5. Take some time-outs. This is a pretty smart and successful way to take time-offs to teach the kid discipline when they do wrong. Send the child to a corner or a seat secluded and remember not to their room. If you end up sending your kid to his own room during the time-out, he evidently will have toys and distractions right next to him letting himself out of the grief of having done something wrong. This strategy gives them time to re-thin what just happened and why is he being punished. In case the kid just refuses, sit with the child and do not speak to him. Or just monitor them while its a time out. Time-in could be an effective strategy too to sit with your child and talk about his behavior, discuss and explain.
6. Do you spank? Never every do it. All it does is only teach aggressiveness. It is not considered to be very productive. And the statistics suggest that parents do it anyway. Even though it looks harmless but studies have proved that it has a side affect to teach kids to be antagonists.
7. Take a breather! As a parent it could be highly disturbing looking at your kid ill behaves and shows indiscipline. But you need to maintain your calm and take a breather. If the child is screaming at you and screaming back will make it only worse and prove the child’s point. It is okay to wait and send the child to the room back and take a cooling period. Approach him to calm him down and speak about what went wrong.
8. Never hit your kid, not only will that remain ineffective after a couple of times but also teach the kid to be aggressive when there are situations out of your control. Keep aside everything, imagine the kid being hurt and goes into a state of shock. Resort to discussions which could lead into a productive learning rather than arrogance and ignorance.
9. The take away act is another effective one. If the kid looks to hardly paying attention to you and is not behaving, just take some near and dear thing to him. Usually a stuff toy that he could be fond of or a toy, a gaming device or cell phone or TV! If your warnings have fallen into a deaf ear, take things away from the kid. Let him realize what went wrong and make a point to not repeat it. Until then you know what you have to do now!
10. It is absolutely okay to let them win. Every single issue does not need to be a fight or an argument. The kids learn a lot of things through out their life and you cannot compare it to what you want it to be like always. For example if the kid wants to wear a particular t-shirt while going out and you had something else in your mind, just say it once and if it doesn’t work, let him wear what he likes. It is okay to let it go. Your child will pick up your taste soon and learn to appreciate having some authority in his own life. This lets the kid to think independently and not dependent on others to fight their own battles.
Fairly depends on your own personal belief sometimes of what is right and what is not. There are a lot of cultural beliefs that we want to force it on the kids which is wrong. Allow him to make his own understanding of things. Try to avoid yelling, hitting or grounding your kid at any circumstances, best is to take some time off like explained above. These are the most effective lessons on how deal with child does not listen. Studies have over and over again proved that punishing negatively will only make the child imbibe the negativity than the positive message out of it. Also affects the child’s self esteem unknowingly.
Reward your child when he does something right after being told he was wrong the last time. This way he is motivated to do better and good.
It is a long process cannot be done in a day or two, iterative process, takes its own time.
Thanks for reading. Do share ahead. And write to us, share your experiences. We love to hear from you.
