“Too often, we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioral consequences." - Daniel J. Siegel
Key Concepts:
- Managing your child’s behavior is connected to their temperament, your parenting style, and your connection to each other.
- Great behavior at school/sports and more challenging behavior at home? This is actually a good thing. It takes a lot of energy to hold it together when our children need to, and "falling apart" at home shows safety in the parent-child relationship.
- The influence of peers at this age is strong. Your child might try on and imitate some behaviors they’ve seen at school, practice, or on the playground. This is a normal part of development.
- Logical consequences: directly connected to the action and “fit the crime.” This helps teach your child a lesson on better decision making. For example, your child sneaks extra TV time and loses the privilege of TV for the rest of the day.
- Natural consequences: your child learns about responsibility for their actions through these consequences. For example, if your child breaks a toy, it’s gone.
What to Try:
- Ask for the behavior you want by using specific and clear language. For example, “please unpack your backpack and put your stuff away.”
- Give attention to what you want more of. Comment on the behaviors you like, for example “I noticed how you played that game so nicely with your brother. Thank you.”
- Use logical and natural consequences. This is different from an illogical consequence (like keeping your child home from a birthday party because they fought with their sibling).
- In some cases, tokens/points can be used to reinforce your child’s behavior. If you do this, use tokens for behaviors that are extrinsically motivated like listening, practicing an instrument, or getting homework done.
- Establish reasonable limits, which will help your child understand what behavior is acceptable. Your job is to stay consistent around how you enforce the limit (you respond to the same behavior, the same way).
- Find your calm, so you can help your child get calm. Co-regulation begins with you regulating yourself. If you’ve “lost it,” take a moment to get back to baseline. You can’t bring balance if you aren’t balanced.
- Stay in communication with your child’s teacher (or other adults/caregivers) in your child’s life to see what behavior they’re noticing.