8 Top discipline mistakes parents make

You know those precious little angels who never get their clothes dirty, wash their hands  before every meal, and always do as they’re told?  Nah, neither do we.  Children can be grimy, grumpy, selfish, stubborn and often very naughty.  As parents, we know it’s our job to help them keep their grubby little feet on the straight and narrow, but before we yank out our prematurely grey hair, or do or say something we’ll regret, let’s make sure to avoid some of these common discipline mistakes: 

1. Not trying to find the real cause of misbehaviour

“Why you so harden?” we like to yell, but do we really try to find an answer to the question?  Clinical psychologist Isolde Ali Ghent suggests that before we even begin to think of punishing a child for repeated misbehaviour, we should try to find out if the child has an underlying disorder. “Learning disabilities, attention disorders or school failure can be extremely traumatic. It causes frustration, the teachers get irritated, and peers can isolate the child.  You’re going to get acting out.  That’s how they get a sense of power.”  

2. Underestimating the effects of family disharmony

A child cannot behave as you’d like her to if she’s living in a war zone.  If mommy and daddy are constantly screaming at each other, or, worse, breaking up, a child will be devastated.  “Children process divorce or separation as they do death,” says Ali Ghent.  “There’s a sense of loss.”  The children will misbehave as a way to express emotions they don’t understand. In situations where the warring parents stay together but try to maintain appearances, the child will be warned not to talk of what they hear and see within the home.  “The child feels torn between parents, and is witnessing arguments, yet she can’t talk about it.”

3. Inconsistent parenting styles

Daddy won’t let you eat cookies for breakfast?  Fine, ask Mommy.  When parents don’t take a united stand, discipline can crumble, as children quickly learn to play one parent off against the other.  

4. Lack of follow-through

When you make a promise, stick to it.  If your child understands that there is a consequence to his actions, whether positive or negative, make sure he gets his just rewards.  “If you set a limit for a week, and the kid has done well with it and you let him off the hook after two days, the message is it really wasn’t that important after all.”

5. Lack of structure

All right, you don’t have to set your clocks to military time, but children feel comforted and secure with routines.  When meals are served on time, and they have to stick to regular bath-times and bedtimes, they feel that all is well with their world. “An erratic schedule can throw a child’s equilibrium off.  Homework time, playtime, extra-curricular activities need to be regular, or the child is knocked off balance.  This can cause acting out.”

6. Physical punishment

In West Indian circles, the ‘don’t hit’ policy is often met with a chorus of protests and gruesome details of ‘the worst cut-tail ah ever get’.  But it’s well established that hitting a child only teaches a child to hit. It also doesn’t work as a training tool, says Ali-Ghent, because it teaches a child to ‘be good’ out of fear, rather than because it’s the right thing to do.  “It only works as long as the threat is there.  You teach the child that this behaviour is not desired as long as you are there to intimidate him.  The important thing is to educate the child on why the behaviour is destructive, why you don’t hurt people, and to apologise when you’ve hurt someone.”

7. Trying to shame them out of their behaviour

“Shaming just lends to further trauma.  Instead, look at the underlying reason for the behaviour.  If a child has an attention disorder and is impulsive and has difficulty with frontal lobe functioning, and you shame him, it’s like shaming a child for sneezing if he has allergies.”  

8. Not letting go of the past

As parents, we need to let go of the bad memories of our own upbringing, and forgive the mistakes our parents made.   We need to overcome some of our cultural beliefs about how children should be raised, and recognise that many of these old-fashioned methods don’t work.  In our minds, we need to make the words ‘discipline’ and ‘love’ interchangeable, a sure way to guide us as we shape our pliable, but delicate saplings into the majestic trees of tomorrow.