From hard feelings to bad memories, some parents worry that the relationships they had with their own parents will dictate the parent they will become—that…
Discipline is a constant question on parent’s minds and usually starts with the phrase – “What do I do when my child hits their sibling?…
Discipline is a constant question on parent’s minds and usually starts with the phrase - “What do I do when my child hits their sibling? What do I do when they won’t listen? What do I do when they won’t go to bed?!” There is no shortage of advice given to parents on how to deal with children’s behaviour, but the amount of information is staggering and often contradictory.
What parents don’t often hear in relation to discipline are the reasons why different strategies work when they do. There is a belief that because a child’s behaviour changes or is subdued that the disciplinary strategy is good. What isn’t taken into consideration is the impact of discipline on human development, relationships, and a child’s emotional system.
The one theme that pervades disciplinary approaches used in homes and schools today is that they are separation based by design. Separation-based discipline refers to the removal of something a child cares about for the purpose of getting compliance and to reduce certain types of behaviour.
Separation based discipline comes in many forms but is commonly referred to as time-outs, 123 magic, pretending to leave a child when they don’t follow, taking away things they care about until they comply, ignoring and giving them the ‘cold shoulder’, punishing them with spanking, or shaming them in front of others. They are other forms of separation-based discipline, but the underlying theme is the same – if you misbehave you will face separation from the things you care about.
The hope in using this approach is that the pain inflicted will teach a child a lesson they will remember the next time they act. The assumptions are that we have to hurt a child in order for them to learn, that lessons are needed in order to make a child civilized and humane, and that a child is always capable of controlling themselves. All of these ideas are false when you consider developmental science and what really grows a child up. In other words, if pain was such a great teacher along with lessons, we shouldn’t have so many adults who act immature and inhumane.
The problem with immature behaviour is that the solution to it does not lie in lessons but in understanding human development and relationships. Children will try to behave for the adults they are attached to, and in turn, it is this attachment that grows them towards responsible, caring, and civilized ways of relating to others. Lessons never made anyone grow up, but a caring heart and a mature, integrated brain capable of tempering impulses and emotions surely will.
The questions we need to consider with discipline is the ultimate impact of an approach on a child’s attachment to their adults and on their development? We should be concerned with whether discipline provides a way for an adult to hang onto a relationship with a child while dealing with the chaos that comes with their immaturity. We should consider whether the disciplinary approach takes a developmental perspective and considers whether self-control is possible, and/or whether emotional stress or immaturity has hijacked the ability to regulate strong feelings?
Many approaches to discipline suffer from the same problem – they are reactionary in nature and are meant to solve problems quickly. Quicker doesn’t mean better for a child and is often at the expense of their relationship with an adult. At the same time, children can be chaotic, unpredictable, aggressive, and immature, so adults do have a responsibility to intervene to restore order when necessary. But there is a difference between restoring order and making headway on helping a child act more civilized. Discipline approaches that understand this and use relationship to make headway with behaviour are better for a child developmentally.
Not everything we do with kids has to happen in the heat of the moment when emotional defences can be high, patience is short, and frustration is boiling. The belief that we have to instil lessons immediately is the leftover remnants of a behavioural management approach that fails to take into account human emotion and development. The challenge for parents is that separation-based discipline has become popular because they seem effective in quelling behaviour but what is equally clear is that the potential long term detrimental effects are not well understood.
Responsible parents agree on the need to raise mature, caring, and socially responsible kids. The problem is not with the goal, but with how we get there. The problem with separation-based discipline is not that it tries to deal with uncivilized behaviour but how it hyjacks attachment needs to get there.
The most important need a child has is for an attachment with a warm caring adult who takes the lead in providing for them. Children are not meant to go it alone and be independent from their adults. They are meant to seek out adults who are in the best position to lead and provide for them. It is through relationship that a child is informed, oriented, guided, directed, looked out for, and learns values, thus creating the best chance of compliance. Kids follow the people they are attached to and as a result, want to be good for them.
The problem with separation-based discipline is that it uses attachment against a child. A child is removed from contact and closeness with the people or things they are attached to as a means of making them feel distressed and in the belief that it will teach them to do better. Separation-based discipline can activate the emotion of alarm and it is this emotion that makes a child scramble to get back into good graces with a parent but at the cost of greater insecurity.
Some might ask what is the problem with alarming a child to make them behave? The parent is made an adversary instead of a caring and firm adult to lean on. Alarming experiences can lead to insecurity in the relationship where the child is more concerned with acting right rather than resting in the care of their adult. In other words, if a child needs to be good in order to stay close to the people and things they are attached to, then they can’t hold onto them for safety when they are struggling. Separation-based discipline is a problem because you cannot lean against someone who pulls the rug of relationship out from underneath you when your immaturity reveals itself.
Separation-based discipline is a problem because it can prevent a child from forming deep relationships with adults because they are worried about being hurt or sent away. When the invitation for relationship is made conditional, temporary, and unpredictable, with a child’s immaturity threatening to overturn it, children cannot rest, play, and grow. Separation-based discipline is a problem because it can harm the relationship that is needed to guide a child to acting better, doing better, and in setting expectations for behaviour.
Separation-based discipline erodes a child’s desire to be good for us and backfires developmentally in the long term. The bottom line is separation-based discipline should come with a warning label but it doesn’t. There are more effective approaches that can help a child grow towards increasing self-control and more mature forms of relating.
Positive, gentle, and attachment-based approaches to parenting have long advocated for more attachment safe and developmentally friendly discipline. The following strategies are from Gordon Neufeld’s relational and developmental approach and seek to preserve attachment while steering a child towards mature relating towards others.
Discipline doesn’t grow our kids up, it is what we do while waiting for maturity to deliver the fruit of healthy development. When we do our jobs in leading and providing for our children – even through the storms in their life - then nature will do the rest. We need to use our relationship to keep our children’s hearts soft and to ensure they follow us as we lead them to responsible, caring behaviour.
Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and Director of Kid’s Best Bet, a counselling and resource centre for families.
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