Posts Tagged ‘discipline’

• A Different Take on Spoiling

  Date: 2011.11.21 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 15

  The other day a reporter asked me to respond to a few questions about spoiling, and what it means for our kids.  With the holidays coming up, this seems like a pretty timely subject.  Here’s how I answered the reporter’s questions about what spoiling is, and just as importantly, what it’s not.

   

  WHAT IS SPOILING?  DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH MONEY SPENT?  TIME? NEVER SAYING NO? ALL OF THE ABOVE?

  Let’s start with what spoiling is not:  Spoiling is NOT about how much love and time and attention you give your kids.  You can’t spoil your children by giving them too much of yourself.  In the same way, you can’t spoil a baby by holding her too much or responding to her needs each time she expresses them.

   

  SO HOW DO WE SPOIL OUR KIDS?

  The dictionary definition is “to ruin or do harm to the character or attitude by overindulgence or excessive praise.”  Spoiling can of course happen when we give our kids too much stuff or spend too much money or say yes all the time.   But it’s more than that.  It’s also about giving them the sense that the world and people around them will serve their whims.

  Again, it’s impossible to spoil children with too much nurturing or love or attention or time.  Nurturing your relationship with your child or giving them a sense that they are entitled to your love and affection (or holding them when they’re little) is exactly what we should be doing.  In other words, we let them know that they can count on getting their NEEDS met.

  Spoiling, on the other hand, occurs when parents (or other caregivers) create their child’s world in such a way that the child feels Read the rest of this entry »

• Proactive Parenting: Getting Ahead of the Discipline Curve

  Date: 2011.10.10 | Category: Parenting | Response: 12

  When your kids misbehave, your immediate reaction may be to offer consequences with both guns blazing.

  You hit your sister? That’s a time out. 

  You broke the book shelf while climbing to reach the matches?  You just lost your playdate this afternoon.

   Your kids act, and you react.

  If you’ve heard me speak, or if you’ve read other pieces I’ve written about discipline, you know I’m a big believer in setting and enforcing boundaries.  At times, giving consequences may be the best response in order to teach lessons about appropriate behavior and observing boundaries.

  But here I want to make the case for stepping in before things escalate, before you have to start thinking about consequences.  I’m talking about proactive parenting, as opposed to reactive parenting.

  When we parent proactively, we watch for times when we can tell that misbehavior and/or a meltdown are in our kid’s near future, and we step in and try to guide them around that potential landmine.  Sometimes you can even Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Ten Bites of a Quesadilla: Transforming Moments through Creative Discipline

  Date: 2011.09.06 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 14

  My new book with Dan Siegel, The Whole-Brain Child, comes out on October 4, four weeks from today!  So starting today, and for the next four Tuesdays, I’ll post an excerpt from the book, so you can get a sense of what you’ll find there.  The story you’ll read below, about the ten bites of a quesadilla, appears in the new book (although there, Dan and I make a slightly different point from the one that appears here). This post’s main point, about viewing everyday parenting challenges as opportunities, is one of the principles central to The Whole-Brain Child.  I hope you enjoy reading it.

   

  —————

  Few experiences any of us undergo are as transformative as parenting.  By definition, parenting is about transformation.  One of our most important jobs as parents is to witness and influence the evolution of our children from wrinkly newborns with raw nervous systems into integrated, whole humans who know who they are and how to be in the world.  And parenting obviously transforms us as well.  There are smaller transformations—we learn to do most things “one-handed” while carrying a baby on our hip; we begin to eat at McDonalds; we memorize the names of dinosaurs; we learn to play video games again; we even buy a mini-van (which for some is a bigger transformation than for others).  And there are huge, life-changing transformations—we adjust our priorities; we make sacrifices that cost us greatly; we learn to live with worrying and “what ifs”; we forever expand our hearts.

  Along the way, we become more creative than we ever knew possible.  I’m not talking about the creativity of artists, song-writers, or novelists.  I’m talking about the creativity that’s required for survival for anyone caring for children.  I knew I’d been forever transformed by my role as a parent when, in my attempt to get through to my non-compliant little streakers, creativity sprung forth from desperation and I made up a song with a chorus that began, “No naked butts on the furniture.”  (Unfortunately, it was so catchy that one day I actually Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Five Reasons I’m Not a Fan of Time Outs

  Date: 2011.08.23 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 17

  More and more, I find myself questioning time outs as an effective discipline strategy.  I’ve written some about this already, but now I’d like to go into my reasons in a bit more depth.

  I know lots of loving parents who use time outs as their primary discipline technique.  I’m not saying that time outs are completely unhelpful; more that I don’t think they’re the best alternative we have when it comes to discipline—the goal of which, remember, is to teach.

   

  Reasons I’m Not a Fan of Time-Outs:

  #1.  What we know about the brain. 

  Because I know that brain connections are formed from repeated experiences, I don’t want my kids’ repeated experience to be isolation, which they may view as rejection, when they’ve made a mistake.

  What I DO want them to repeatedly experience is doing things the right way.  So, instead of a time out, I’ll often Read the rest of this entry »

  

• If I Could Tell You Only One Thing about Discipline

  Date: 2011.08.09 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 15

  Discipline is a complex and complicated subject.  I could write a whole book about it.  In fact, I’ve already started working on one.

  But when we talk about effective discipline and how parents can achieve the results they want when they interact with their kids, it can actually be it pretty simple.  If it were a math formula, it would look like this:

   

  WARMTH  +  AUTHORITY  =  EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE

   

  The research is really clear on this point.  Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life – emotionally, educationally, and relationally – have parents who raise them with a high degree of warmth and nurturing, or what I like to call emotional responsiveness, as well as a high degree of authority, where clear boundaries are communicated and enforced.  Their parents remain firm and consistent in their boundaries, while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion.  Warmth and authority are the two sides of the effective-discipline coin.

   

  The first side of the discipline coin:  Warmth

  When we nurture our children and attune to their internal world, we allow them to know and believe that they are seen, heard, loved, and approved of by their parents.  Then they’ll interact with the world around them based on that belief, so that their brains are wired to expect that their needs will be met in intimate relationships.  On the other hand, if a parent repeatedly Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Upstairs and Downstairs Tantrums

  Date: 2011.08.05 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 16

  Summary Bullets:

  • A child’s tantrum may originate in the upstairs brain, meaning the child is in control and is using the moment to intentionally achieve a desired end.  In moments like these, parents should respond with love, but set clear boundaries and avoid rewarding manipulative behavior.
  • If, however, the tantrum originates in the more primal downstairs brain, and the child is truly out of control, then the parents’ response should be less about setting boundaries, and more about nurturing the child and guiding him back into a state of calm and control.

  If you’ve heard me speak before, you may have heard me talk about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain.  Or maybe you’re read about the concepts here, where I help you teach the basic information to your kids.

  Right now I want to apply that information in a way that can help us deal with one of the most unpleasant parenting issues we all face:  the dreaded tantrum.

   

  The Downstairs Brain and the Upstairs Brain

  The basic idea is that we can think about our brain as a house, with a downstairs and an upstairs.  The downstairs brain includes the brain stem and the limbic region, which are located in the lower parts of the brain, from the top of your neck to about the bridge of your nose.  Scientists talk about these lower areas as being more primitive because they’re responsible for basic functions (like breathing and blinking), for innate reactions and impulses (like fight and flight), and for strong emotions (like anger and fear).

  Your upstairs brain, on the other hand, handles much more sophisticated thinking.  It’s made up of the cerebral cortex and its various parts—particularly the ones directly behind your forehead, including what’s called the middle prefrontal cortex.  In other words, it is literally the higher (and thus upstairs) part of your brain.  This is where more complex mental processing takes place, like thinking, imagining, and planning.  Whereas the downstairs brain is primitive, the upstairs brain is Read the rest of this entry »

  

• When a Parenting Expert Loses It: How NOT to Discipline a Preschooler

  Date: 2011.07.26 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 17

  Here are some things parents say to me about their discipline frustrations:

  –I feel like I just put my daughter in time out all the time and don’t know what else to do when she’s misbehaving.

  –I don’t feel like I have an overall theory of discipline.  It’s more that I just do whatever comes out at the time.  Sometimes my reaction or instinct is really good, and other times I’m being just as immature or reactive as my toddler.  I just feel like I need to give more thought to it and have a plan.

  –I feel disempowered.  I think I’ve been told a list of things that I should NOT do –spank, yell, etc. – but I don’t know what I CAN do, other than just take a toy away.  So I find myself making empty or meaningless threats (“Do that again and you’re going to be in BIG trouble!”) and then I’m just so frustrated.  I don’t know what to do in the moment.

  Do these parents’ comments resonate with you?  I can certainly identify.  I remember how clueless I felt as a new parent, and even though the stories often end up being funny in retrospect, I’m embarrassed at how I responded at times when my kids acted out.

   

  The Parenting Expert Gets Taken Down by Her Own Reactive Brain

  One day my three-year-old got mad and hit me.  I guided him to his time-out spot at the bottom of our stairway, sat next to him, and smiled.  I lovingly (and naively) said, “Hands are for helping and loving, not for hurting.”

  While I was uttering this truism, he hit me again.

  So I tried the empathy approach:  “Ouch!  That hurts mommy.  You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

  At which point he hit me again.

  I then tried the firm approach: “Hitting is not OK.  Don’t hit any more.  If you’re mad you need to use your words.”

  Yup, you guessed it.  He hit me again.

  I was lost.  I felt I needed to up the ante.  In my most powerful voice I said, “Now you’re in time out at the top of the stairs.”

  I marched him up to the top of our stairs.  He was probably thinking, “Cool!  We’ve never done this before. . . I wonder what will happen next if I keep hitting her?”

  At the top of the stairs, I bent over at the waist, my pointer finger wagging, and said, “NO MORE HITTING!”

  He didn’t hit me again. Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Does Your Discipline Ever Move From Consistent to Rigid?

  Date: 2011.07.05 | Category: Parenting | Response: 15

  There’s no question about it:  consistency is crucial when it comes to raising and disciplining our children.  Many parents I see in my office realize that they need to work on being more consistent – with bedtimes, limiting junk food, or just in general – when they interact with their kids.  But there are others who have placed such a high priority on consistency that it’s moved into a rigidity that’s not good for their kids, themselves, or their relationship.

  Let’s begin by getting clear on the difference between the two terms.  Consistency means working from a reliable and coherent philosophy so that our kids know what we expect of them, and what they should expect from us.  Rigidity, on the other hand, means maintaining an unswerving devotion to rules we’ve set up, sometimes without having even thought them through.  As parents, we want to be consistent, but not rigid.

  Kids definitely need consistency from their parents.  They need to know what the rules are, and how we will respond if they break (or even bend) those rules.  Your reliability teaches them about cause and effect, and about what to expect in their world.  More than that, it helps them feel safe; they know they can count on you to be constant and steady, even when their internal or external worlds are chaotic.  In this way, we provide them with safe containment when they’re exploding because they want an extra scoop of ice cream.

  So how do we maintain consistency without crossing over to rigidity?  Well, let’s start by acknowledging that there are some non-negotiables.  For instance, under no circumstances can you Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Do You Discipline on Auto-Pilot? (revised)

  Date: 2011.05.31 | Category: Parenting | Response: 14

  Auto-pilot may be a great tool when you’re flying a plane.  Just flip the switch, sit back and relax, and let the computer take you where it’s been pre-programmed to go.  Pretty great.

  But I’ve found that auto-pilot is not so great when I’m disciplining my children.  It can fly me straight into whatever dark and stormy cloudbank is looming, meaning my kids and I are all in for a bumpy ride.  So instead, I’m always working on DECIDING how I want to interact with my kids when I discipline them.

  For example, let’s talk about consequences.  For most parents, when we need to discipline our kids, the first question we ask ourselves is, “What consequence should I give?”  That’s our auto-pilot.  But through my years of parenting, I’ve begun to significantly re-think my use of consequences.

  My four-year-old, for instance, hit me the other day.  He was angry because I told him I needed to finish an email before I could play legos with him, and he came up and slapped me on the back.  (I’m always surprised that a person that small can inflict so much pain.)

  My immediate, auto-pilot reaction was to want to grab him, probably harder than I needed to, and Read the rest of this entry »