Having a discipline plan

 Inconsistency when disciplining your child is bound to result in confusion within the child. As a result, they are unable to learn their lessons and may not even realize which transgressions that they committed are more severe due to their parents not meting out proper punishment with accordance to the magnitude of their children’s misbehavior. When it comes to discipline, parents should seek to be proactive and establish a protocol or routine for different forms of punishments to take with accordance to the severity of your children’s transgressions. Moreover, having a concrete plan will help us to monitor our children’s progress in their behavior as well as gauge whether our punishments are appropriate and effective.

Refrain from losing your temper

Being angry and raising a tantrum signifies to our children that it is acceptable to be angry and cast aside our manners when we are frustrated. Parents serve as role models to their children and our actions are often replicated by them. This is especially so if they have yet to go to school. As parents, we should not be demonstrating to our children that rage, violence and tantrums are acceptable when we are in the presence of our closest kin. Thus instead of succumbing to our anger whenever our kids misbehave, its best that we take a time out and calm down before attempting to discipline them. Moreover, children are known to be more receptive towards a peaceful, calm and logical approach by their parents. A potential method for parents to avoid succumbing to anger is to memorize a list of good behavior and actions that your child has previously displayed. This would help parents to calm down and they could voice out the list of good deeds to their child so that they can be reminded of the good they are capable of and how they can continue to improve.

Praise them for a positive action

 Discipline is not merely about punishing the transgressions and mistakes your children have made. It is also crucial that we compliment and praise them for doing good deeds. For instance, when your child takes the initiative to perform a good deed such as washing their own laundry, washing their utensils after use or clearing away trash. Children adore attention, especially positive attention. It will certainly motivate them to keep up their if we could constantly shower them with appreciation and gratitude when they are behaving well.

Provide them with objectives that are achievable

For obvious reasons, we should not be punishing our children unreasonably. For instance, we should not be punishing or berating our children for not carrying out their errands when they have excessive amounts of homework. We should only provide them with tasks that they are capable of fulfilling at that point in time. At the minimum, we should provide them with a heads-up of the tasks they have to complete on time. If your kids have displayed the tendency to procrastinate whenever they can, constantly remind them to attend to the task they have on hand. Without being overbearing, parents can increase their aggression to deal with procrastination as it is a serious and common problem among children nowadays.

Avoid conflicts with your partner

If the parents do not present a united front in their disciplinary tactics, it can seriously undermine their efforts. If a child is able to run towards the arms of one parent to seek refuge from the other, it often ruins the credibility of the first parent’s disciplinary tactics. Even worse, if one parent actively overrides the other, he/she makes his/her partner look like a fool in front of the child. If the parents are unable to come to an agreement, they should settle their differences among themselves in a private setting- out of the child’s earshot and sight. Also, disciplining children should be a joint effort between parents. It is not advisable for one parent to take up the effort while the other rests on his/her laurels. The child may lose respect for the parent whom neglects their duties.

Lecturing is ineffective

Giving your child a long-winded monologue of why their actions are deemed as misbehavior usually results in them barely paying any attention and being annoyed. The odds of your child actually learning a valuable lesson is highly dependent on their attention span- which is sorely lacking in young children. Instead of a one-sided tirade, it might be more conducive to parents to engage in a discussion with their children finding out the causes of the misbehavior. A possible scenario would be that a child was caught fighting with his peers at school. However, what the parent does not know is that the child was being relentlessly bullied by the other children he was caught fighting with. Thus, it is unlikely that a lecture by the parent is going to have any discernible effect on the child except anger and provoke him further. What would be more effective is to hear the story and realize that the child is not completely at fault. Then, talking to the school authorities and the bullies’ parents to seek a resolution would undoubtedly be more useful than giving a pointless lecture.

Needless comparisons

 Every child is different from the other. The genetic lottery would always ensure that some children are more gifted than others in areas such as athleticism, intelligence, beauty and height. Thus comparing your child to his/her siblings or peers in school is utterly pointless. Your child may not be as good in basketball as the school or national athletes due to his lack of height or athleticism. However, it may not because of lack of trying that your child is unable to make the cut. Such comparisons only breeds resentment and self-depreciation in the child. It might be possible that your child can harness great potential for dancing and martial arts over basketball. It is also important that parents do not interfere with their children’s hobbies. Although it would certainly be nice if your boy is musically inclined, forcing him to participate in band over his dream of being a football player could induce resentment in him for life. View your child as a unique individual with his/her own ambitions and dreams.