GOOD DISCIPLINE FOR
ACTING OUT KIDS
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
Below you will find general instructions for good discipline practices
that, while not comprehensive, can be very helpful in creating peace and
harmony in your home. Please understand that these are general
guidelines and that everything stated below has exceptions, or must be
modified to some extent, for your specific situation. Nevertheless, it can
be helpful to understand just a few key elements of discipline.
1. Consistency. Probably the single most important aspect of
parenting an acting out kid is consistency. There are two main difficulties
with being consistent.
a. Some parents love their kids too much to see them “suffer” or go
without. That is, they do not like it when their children cry or throw a
tantrum and these parents will do anything to make it stop. Of course,
that leads to the child thinking that he can get away with everything just
by acting upset. Kids learn to use their emotions at an extremely early
age. If you know it’s not hurting your child to go without T.V. (or
dessert, etc...), then acting like the tantrum is ridiculous is exactly what
you should do.
b. Some parents have a hard time agreeing on consequences and
thus each undermines the authority of the other. If the father is strict and
the mother is not (or vice versa), then of course the children are going to
seek out the help of the non-strict parent when they are told “no” by the
strict parent. Sometimes parents are simply struggling to be the one in
control, in which case both might vary their styles (too strict or too
lenient) based on what the other parent is doing. Such wrangling leads to
utter chaos with children.
c. Sometimes the problem is a combination of the two above. A
loving parent sees her partner as too strict and thus undermines him.
Unfortunately, this circumstance leads to even more strict behavior from
him, which then leads to even more lenient behavior from her, and so on
and so on and so on.
d. Finally, generally kids do better if they feel their environment is
predictable. They like to know what to expect from their parents and
they will always respond to what they predict will be their parents’
reactions. Your children are better off when they know what makes you
mad, sad, and pleased, and they can only know that if you act
consistently mad, sad, and pleased by the same behaviors.
2. Consequences.
a. Consequences should always be as short as possible. Taking
things away for a long time results in the consequence losing its meaning.
With younger kids (1-4) it can be adequate to take things away for ten
minutes or even less at times. With older kids (4-10), typically one day is
enough to make your point. With pre-adolescents and teenagers
(anywhere from 9-17) usually one week is enough.
b. The chance to win back what has been lost should be made clear.
When kids really miss something and then are given an opportunity to win
it back, they are highly motivated. The good behavior that is reinforced
by getting back what was taken away, should also get reinforced by your
praise of what they’ve done to get it back.
c. Give praise as often as you can. If your child has had problems
that you’re trying to correct, praise them as often as possible when they
are NOT engaging in undesirable behavior as well as when they ARE
engaging in desirable behavior.
d. Follow through. If you are giving a consequence and then giving
in when you can’t stand your child being without, then your child is
learning that consequences are not real. If you give your kids three
warnings then you are teaching your children that they get three warnings
(that is really not a problem – stating things only once should be enough in
the real world, but, in that same real world, we love our children too
much to be so clipped and abrupt in our discipline).
e. Whenever possible, the consequence should be specifically related
to the thing that the child did wrong. If a child doesn’t clean his room, the
consequence could be as simple as daily checking of the room. If a child
goes outside without permission, he could be prevented from going
outside for an hour. If a child doesn’t go to bed on time, the consequence
could be reporting to her bedroom ½ hour earlier the next night.
f. Whenever possible, do not use a consequence that is outside your
control or which you cannot observe. Just making room for cheating can
often bring about such cheating.
g. Let consequences, not your mood or attitude, be the reason your
child wants to improve. If you are going to let your mood be involved, let
the emotions be sadness, worry, and your own hurt, rather than anger and
frustration.
3. My view on physical discipline is that it does not work.
a. If your child is responsive to physical discipline, it is because she
fears your anger or knows you really mean business when you hit.
b. If your child needs you to hit to know that you are serious, then
you are not following through on consequences.
c. If the only thing they needed to worry about was the pain you
inflict, then it would be, by far, the most preferred discipline. Any
physical discipline, short of abuse, lasts only a few minutes and then the
pain is gone. What lingers is the fear of either your wrath or your
disappointment.
d. If it is your mood that is the consequence, then find other ways to
let your mood be known – as stated above, better sadness, worry, hurt, or
even frustration, than anger.
4. Time Out. The time out is one of the most popular consequences
used these days. The idea of a time out is to take a child away from
rewarding feedback for long enough to get him to realize he has done
something wrong.
a. Time outs cannot be spent with an adult or anyone else, because
that is rewarding to the child (even, or perhaps especially, if the child is
crying).
b. But time outs do not need to be long. With young children (2-3, I
do not recommend time outs with children under 1 and ½ years of age) a
time out need only last 30 seconds.
c. Even with children who are 4-6, a time out need only last 2-3
minutes. What a child understands while in a time out is that she wants to
get back into a fun situation. This puts pressure on her to say what she
needs to say.
d. Once she’s said it, you cannot be sure she has learned from the
time out anything other than that she needs to say the right thing.
e. On the other hand, until children are capable of much more
complicated thoughts your chances of getting them to be “truly sorry” do
not increase with longer periods of time. At that point (age 7 and above)
time out may well become sending the child to her room where the time
out is actually more of a punishment with possible positive side effects.
f. If your child simply cannot do a time out of any length, don’t
worry about completely taking them away from positive feedback. But
do make the positive feedback non-interpersonal. For example, you can
have the child in a time out where they must stay in front of the television
for 3 minutes. Although not ideal, such a time out helps some children be
successful in meeting your expectations when being completely
unoccupied is almost impossible for them. Remember, success needs to
be easy. Any action that contributes to your child’s frustration in meeting
your expectations takes you one step backward in meeting your goal of
creating a responsible child with good self-esteem.
5. Positive Feedback. One other key to good discipline is positive
feedback.
a. With children who have had many troubles, it is necessary to try
to tell them they’re doing well every time they are not making trouble.
b. Even with good kids, the more often they hear praise, the more
likely it is they’ll feel good about themselves.
6. Reward Systems – The Big Hitter.
a. When things are really out of hand, quite often it can be helpful to
introduce more specific consistency. One way of doing that is to create a
reward system. I will discuss a basic structure that can be modified to fit
your particular situation.
b. Picking a good reward. Examples include money, stars, and check
marks (with small children coins of any kind, meaning pennies, can be as
rewarding as the worth of the coins. With older kids it is important to
realize that the whole point is what it adds up to at the end of a week,
rather than how much each amount is worth).
c. When using money with small children, it can be a good idea to go
with them to the piggy bank to let them drop the money in.
d. Charting. Once you have determined what is rewarding to your
children, decide what they will need to do to earn the reward and how
often it will be given. Chart the whole thing on a reusable paper
(Sometimes people use a Xerox sheet, so it can be reproduced, and
sometimes people laminate the chart and use dry erase markers).
e. Once the chart has been produced, make sure your children are
the ones keeping track (for kids 7 and above, keeping track is typically
possible, but if your child seems to have difficulty with keeping track, this
is a minor issue). In order for motivation to develop within them, they
have to seek out the reward for themselves. When they have finished
what they will be rewarded for, they need to come to you to report that
the job is done and for you to check it and give the reward (this
sometimes takes a little training with younger children – those between 7
and 9).
f. Break the day up into parts and allow each part to represent one
reward for each. A typical number of parts is three or four (three could
be: morning to lunch, lunch to 3:00PM, 3:00PM to dinner, dinner to
sleep).
g. Each part of the day will have several activities that are expected
to be completed. If you’re using stars, it works well to use small stars for
each of the smaller things and a big star for the whole period.
h. In general, the more activities that can be rewarded, the better
(thus a star or check system works well).
i. It’s also important to mention that success should be easy at first
and slowly become more difficult. That is, at first the reward should be
given for half (or maybe even less) of the things on the chart being done.
j. It’s also important to mention that you cannot use “attitude” as
something that is rewarded. Behaviors that are being targeted must be
spelled out very specifically. You can use “said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
when communicating,” or “rolled eyes at others less than three times,”
etc…
k. Finally, it’s important to start fresh after each period. If your
children did not get the reward for the last period, that should have no
bearing on whether or not they get a reward for the next period. They
should be made acutely aware of this fact as well. That is, you should tell
them at the end of a period (even if they have not sought you ought for
the reward since they know they didn’t make it), that they can get the
next reward if they do what’s on the chart.
l. Your child’s school will help you by telling you how your child did
for the first two parts of the day. Often you can get them to even
complete your chart for that period of the day. Teachers really want your
child to succeed, not only because they care, but also because your child
doing well helps them effectively run their classroom.