Laziness in parenting can creep in just the same as laziness creeps into any other area of our lives; you slowly taper off from doing right and there you go down that slippery slope. Like a bell curve, you suddenly look around and see you are on the downward slide of the curve and the polite well-mannered dinner time has turned into a three-ring circus; “Who taught you to use a fork that way!?” ”Why are you talking with your mouth full?” ”You need to say, ‘please’ when you ask for that to be passed.”
Starting out a day, week or month with great gusto to make sure everyone behaves well, accomplishes their work, and keeps their attitudes in check can slowly decay into chaos, so slowly that you suddenly wonder how things got so bad around here.
Solutions that aren’t:
1. Time out. Stuffing a small child on a chair in a corner or against the wall, “now turn around and face the wall and think about what you’ve done,” and then freeing them after some arbitrary time is, well, pointless.
2. Counting. So… when you reach 9 1/2, 10, will you finally get up and do what you should have done in the first place?
3. “I mean it.” No, you don’t or you’d get up and do something about it.
4. Ignoring the ugly scene. Pretending you don’t see or hear the screaming fit going on turns your child into a small tyrant and makes you look like a wimp.
5. And of course, the tried and true public behavior mode. Mom or dad won’t do anything about this because we are out in public, and they don’t.
Using these not solutions ensures that your children remain holy terrors that nobody wants around including you the parent.
Every day you wake up and start anew, you do not need to cover the ground rules again before taking swift action for bad behavior; yesterday you did not allow the little guy to hit his brother and just because it’s a new day you do not need to cover the basics again. Yep, new day same old rules, bam. Or, a screaming fit today in the grocery store is still not acceptable, bam. Deal with it swiftly and move on. ”I know someone who could use a nap,” is a way of accepting and excusing bad behavior; it is an escape route than any conniving child knows how to use, “You bet I need a nap and in the meantime I get to act like this!”
Now this might sound like a lot more work but it is only more work initially. In very short order everyone is happier because everyone knows the rules and that the rules are there to be followed. There is a peace that prevails when your children know what is acceptable and what will not be allowed. It is pleasant for everyone. It is more work to make sure your child does not touch, pick up and tear everything in their reach but eventually with a quick, “no, don’t touch that,” the training is done and you aren’t busily running around at every new home you enter and doing a clean sweep of all fragile items.
It is always amazing to see parents who are totally oblivious to their own poorly behaved children while all around them is the rest of the world watching and wondering, “why they don’t do something?” It is initially more work to get up and deal with misbehaved children but soon they aren’t misbehaving with the regularity they had been and they slowly turn into very pleasant company to have around.
Nicely said, Terri. I remember using Nancy Wilson’s “reign of terror” strategy at various points in my children’s young lives. It was exhausting doing so much correcting, but life with the kids soon became much calmer.
My comment to my children used to be, “If you are willing to embarrass me with your behavior, I am willing to embarrass you with correction in public.” Everyone, even the children who are corrected, are much happier with boundaries they know will be enforced. “Reign of terror” strategy sounds intriguing…
I am scared to have to discipline Freyja– is seems so daunting! When she first arched her cute little body into rigid deffiance in her carseat and SCREAMED, I thought “I’m not ready for this!”. But thankfully I’m already seeing good responses from her when we lay down the law.
When I talked about discipline, I didn’t mean my own grandchildren! They are practically perfect…
Ok, what did Taite do recently that made you write this?
Wonderful post. Thank you for that! Now how did you “Deal with it swiftly and move on”? How did you “embarass” them? What did you do?
Another post, please. *groan*
Dealing swiftly with the misbehavior meant immediate spank, talk and hug. It just makes sense; the child has done something wrong and receives quick punishment and then he/she is told that they are loved and that’s why you have bothered to interrupt your day to take care of their character adjustment and then a hug.
This way there is redemption from the wrong done instead of just sitting on a chair indefinitely or not loving them enough to help them want to change by showing that bad behavior brings something negative. I see children today who are so ill behaved and they have this look of, “Help me! I am out of control!” And no one is willing to love them enough to make them lovely. That is really what the aim is, to make them lovely NOT to make them not an annoyance in your life. “Andrew has always been WAY better at this whole process than me.
The “embarrass part” was that if whomever was going to scream, throw a fit etc. in public, then I, in public, would reprimand or spank them. And I would also take the opportunity when we’d see some child slapping or talking back to their parent and I would point that child out to mine. I would say, “They think they are so clever slapping and sassing their mom, but look how ugly it is.”
We practically have a nanny state now where anyone who so chooses can call the authorities and have you investigated for supposed abuse so I really feel for parents today who have to live with a certain fear when out in public.