When to discipline...

What are the prerequisites for discipline? As anyone who has been a parent for a while knows, children do all kinds of things that can bug Mom and Dad. Parents, any number of times, find themselves suddenly meting out a discipline that has more to do with a frustrating moment than actual breaking of a rule. Though having prerequisites for discipline will not magically transform a frustrated parent into one who's always fair and balanced nor produce perfect children, they will help set a direction to point the way for parents as to when and when not to discipline. The idea is to have some structure and guidelines for the benefit of the parent as well as the child.

Four broad areas that I think are important for governing when to discipline:

High-Tech Graphic

1. Discipline requires a clear standard made known by parents and understood by their children.  Children are natural blame-shifters and without an unambiguous standard the beneficial effect of any discipline will be undermined. Clear standards are things such as household rules, daily routines, and responsibilities that children are subject to, as well as rules for specific or temporary situations.
2. The standards or rules must reflect biblical moral reality.  This moral reality is simply the common wisdom (amplified in the Bible) which says that responsible living works best in this world and irresponsible behavior doesn't... that one should treat others rightly, that it's good to care for one's possessions and that of another, that obedience is a good thing to learn. In short it's essentially taking responsibility for one's life and loving thy neighbor as thyself.
3. Structure and rules imposed by parents should reflect the growing responsibility of their children.  OK, what does that mean and what does it look like?  Essentially, the idea is that as my child grows more responsibility will be required of him.  At the same time, he'll also have more latitude to make his own choices.  My two-year-old will have a fewer number of responsibilities and less freedom to choose than my thirteen-year-old.  The accompanying high-tech-graphic depicts the concept.  The older a child grows, the Form expands as responsibilities grow.  What does Form signify?  Simply, it represents the non-negotiable standards that parents require.  It's evident that as children grow they need rules and responsibilities.  They also need expanding boundaries in which they, without parental interference, can make their own choices.  So within the moral boundaries of Form (the rules) there is Freedom to choose to do whatever a child wants without any consequence imposed by the parent.  Simply said, if a behavior doesn't violate a rule of the form, then the child is free to do it. Outside the moral boundaries of Form they are still free to choose but not without a consequence.  That is when discipline is imposed. The child's free will is respected while at the same time reinforcing the lesson that what they choose has consequences.
4. Effective discipline requires contingent application. Simply said - "when this, then that." Parents need to be consistent by following through with consequences when their children disobey the clear moral standards set up.

What I would suggest is to sit down and think through the standards you've set up in your family. How do they reflect the above?  Do you need to add some rules or structure (set meal times with certain requirements, morning and evening routines)? Do you need to remove some? Where and how do you need to be clearer in your requirements? Are there things that you require of your children that reflect merely what bugs you at the moment and not what violates set rules reflecting a moral value? Be wary of having an abundance of rules. You're trying to communicate a moral direction to your children, not put them in a moral strait-jacket.  Relax... remember that the purpose of having rules and discipline is to weaken foolishness, not to find formulas that "work", i.e. get my children to obey right now or to quickly get them past the problem behavior of the month.  This is a long-term enterprise and change often comes slowly! 

Also, by coming back again and again to the Form and Freedom concept you'll be able to adjust your rules and discipline as necessary. You'll be able to more clearly discipline foolishness rather than your child's shyness, mistakes, or curiosity, or annoyances. It can help in identifying your child's underground foolishness as well as help in recognizing any unnecessary micro-managing of the details of your children's daily situations.  As pointed out before, the idea is to come up with some structure and guidelines to help you set and maintain an effective direction in your parenting.  It's way more about direction than doing everything right.

When Mommy met Sally...

When we last checked in on the bedtime tango of mother and child, Mom had failed to recognize Sally's foolish goal of Reward without Responsibility. As a result she had opted to pursue her own goal of getting Sally to obey, which led to a power struggle as Mom took responsibility to become the motivational force pushing Sally in the direction of obedience. A wee bit exhausting...

What is taking place in little Sally is not raw disobedience. Hers is not an outward defiance. Rather she's pursuing an underground strategy to manipulate her world so that she can get what she wants (to play) without having to take any accompanying responsibility (cleanup). Now keep in mind that this is natural to children. They're born this way... foolish - inclined to want their world to revolve around themselves and have someone else take on the duties of life.

But there is more than just a Machiavellian mindset of foolishness within our children. Made in the image of God, they are created to know the certainty of being valued by another... to be loved and to matter.  Just as foolishness in their hearts is a reality, there also exists a thirst for relational acceptance. Yet coupled with that thirst is the very real fear that they don't have what it takes to take things on.

Herein is the core philosophical dilemma of humanity.  As fallen creatures made in the image of God, how do we face a fallen world without God?  Given the challenge of that situation, children are understandably scared as they face life.  To a child, avoiding the responsibilities of childhood makes sense, "Mom and Dad, you take care of me... you take responsibility for making things work out well for me."  This fear combined with foolishness often directs children away from taking on their world.  And in those moments children wrongly think short-term, believing it is better to go for immediate gratification or to seek the safety of avoiding challenges.  It is through discipline and instruction in a loving relationship that parents seek to redirect those wrong beliefs and goals in order that their children would take on their world with responsible behavior towards others and the tasks of life.

Since Reward without Responsibility is the main foolish goal children pursue it is then essential that parents are able to recognize it.  As I've said before - become curious about what's behind your children's irresponsibility and misbehavior as it unfolds in different situations.  Take time to trouble-shoot and come up with some working hypotheses.  Again, there are no pat answers and formulas, but there are principles to guide.  Every child is different, so there's a variety of expressions to foolishness.  And every child will have multiple situations where RwR is in action.  It isn't necessary to find them all and discipline each occurrence.  Your purpose is not to eradicate foolishness or directly change your child's behavior, but to parent in a direction and have a family structure that reflects how this world works.  And one part of doing this is by identifying a few problem areas and bringing logical consequences to bear on a consistent basis.  Discipline (including natural consequences) is aimed at weakening foolishness, a wrong belief about how best to live life.  It is not the means by which parents produce obedient children.

So, how can a parent recognize that Reward without Responsibility is operating in their child?  Two questions to ask in order to think this through are:

• Does your children seem casually indifferent to the consequences of their behavior?  If so, then your children are missing something they were meant to experience, i.e. the consequences of behavior actually has impact.    They are missing the joy or sorrow of knowing that what they decide to do really matters and makes a difference in their life and in the lives of others.
• As a parent, do you feel like your children's servant?  If your routine is to give reminder after reminder, repeating instructions to be obeyed, and generally acting as the motivator and overseer to your children's obedience then you should step back and ask herself, "What's going on here?"... What am I doing?... Am I merely strengthening a fool with all my hovering, threats, etc.?"

Some examples of a child pursuing Reward without Responsibility would be things like:  leaving a bicycle out at the end of the day, being late for school, not picking up their toys or clothes, telling tall tales (wanting recognition without truthfulness), not eating their meals...  The list obviously goes on.  

Feel free to suggest other examples or to ask if a particular behavior falls under Reward without Responsibility. To be continued...  

What just happened and why?

The question in the title of this post refers back to the Sally bedtime episode:

Little 6 year-old Sally is playing in the living room. Mom (or Dad) says, "Time for bed. Start cleaning up your toys and get on your pajamas."   

So far so good. Regular bedtimes (consistent structure) and requiring age-appropriate responsibility in our kids is part of good parenting. The only caveat I want to offer here is the following. When giving directions or on the spot rules (often required in certain situations), especially with young children, Mom or Dad shouldn't just call out from the other room or from behind the newspaper (or more likely the computer screen). Stop what you are doing and get their attention. Remember, you are "training [easily distracted children] in the way they should go" not trying to set up a test of obedience. "Sally, do you understand what you need to do now? OK then, start cleaning up now." You're laying down clear tracks for them to travel on. If they don't follow through then you'll know that something other than a misunderstanding is afoot.

The little girl says "OK", but keeps on playing.

Ah ha... foolishness is afoot! But where is it... what is it?

A few minutes later, in a somewhat more serious tone, the parent calls out,"Sally, I told you it's time for bed. Now clean up and get going!"

And the dance begins in earnest. It takes two to tango...
Mom has just misdiagnosed what is going on. She is correct in that Sally is disobeying. But this is not raw outward defiant disobedience (No, I won't!!). There is something going on underneath at an unnoticed level. Sally is pursuing an irresponsible and foolish goal. "I don't want to clean up and go to bed. I want to keep playing now because I'm enjoying this. I'll ignore Mom right now and get to play at least a little longer..."

Remember, children are always pursuing a goal or moving in a direction via their behavior. When observing their behavior start becoming a little curious. Pause... and get in the habit of asking yourself, "What's going on here? Why is she not listening? What is my child's goal? What does he or she want or... what is she trying to accomplish?

Sally is pursuing the goal of Reward without Responsibility. And what is that? Distilled, it's basically an internal process of belief and goal that says, "I want to be catered to, to be notice, to have my world revolve around me. I really want my world to go well, but I don't want to be responsible for that happening." Sally wants someone else to assume the responsibility that is hers; the very natural and self-absorbed world view that we all are born with as fallen image-bearers. This is the main wrong goal that children are pursuing most of the time in their disobedience.

"Mommy, can't I play for just a little more?"
Bingo, there it is! Consistent with her natural foolishness, Sally wants the reward of playing with her toys without obeying and embracing the responsibility that goes with those toys as well as that of a set bedtime. Sally is thinking along the lines of - "I'd rather play now because this I'm enjoying this. Maybe I can stay up just a little longer. I'll just keep playing, I'm having fun and this is what I want to do."

"No! You heard me. I said clean up your toys now."
Mom is now bringing out the some heavier leverage. A stern answer and reminder of what Sally has to do right now. Mom's thinking, "That little girl is just ignoring me... I told her to clean up and it's important for her to obey! I'm gonna let her know I mean business." A Power Struggle is now blossoming, ready to grow into full bloom. And the power struggle that Mom is entering is a result of setting the goal to "get Sally to obey!" A goal that requires Sally's cooperation if Mom is to succeed. That's what I define as a bad goal. Mom's successful parenting is now dependent upon a dance partner... a partner who wants to dance, but not to her tune!

Sally starts the slow-mopey two-step, sending the message of "Mommy, you're spoiling my fun and making me do something I don't want to do... I'll move in that direction a little. But I don't really want to pick up my toys and your'e trying to make me do it."

Mom's goal of getting Sally to pick up the toys now and get to bed is effectively being blocked by a stubborn lack of enthusiastic cooperation. Feeling that she is being pushed to obey, Sally is changing or morphing her goal of reward without responsibility into a goal not cooperating with Mom. This new goal is called the goal of Power, which I'll unpack later.

Energized, and now decidedly angry because her goal to get Sally to obey is being blocked by Sally. Mom's determined goal has met the immovable, or at least slow moving, rock of a child. Later, when we look at the goal of Power, we'll see that it's not an irrational (though still wrong) goal for Sally to pursue.

Mom, now motivated, dives headlong into the power struggle... "Sally, if you want to play with your toys tomorrow, then listen to me now. Get moving and put those toys away this instant!" Ah, the threat of  imminent punishment in a doubled-down serious tone of voice reminiscent of Mt. Sinai, and yet another repetition of the original directions. Mom's goal is to get Sally to obey. She's now trying to find the sufficient motivator to move Sally toward obedience.

By the way, look who's taking the responsibility for Sally's obedience... Mom.
"Pick this up.. another one over here... that's not where it goes... you know where it goes... put it on the shelf..." 

Train up a child in the way he should go... And what is Mom's training teaching Sally? What she isn't teaching is that responsibility goes hand in hand with the good things in life. Instead by reducing this episode down to one of obedience or disobedience in conjunction with her goal to get Sally to obey, Mom has sidetracked the two of them into a battle of wills. A battle that Mom with a six year old is bound to win by applying superior force of threat and oversight.

Let me state right here: Children are not our property upon whom we should enforce our wills, even when wanting them to go in the right direction.  Yes they're our children, yet by stewardship if you will. In fact, made in the image of God they have their own individual wills that are meant to choose freely. In general*, by ignoring that truth and simply enforcing "the way they should go" is to violate that principle. And consistently violating that principle can ultimately lead to a child choosing the path of robot or rebel, rather than responsibility. But as I mentioned, we'll get into a child's goal of Power more deeply in a later post.

to be continued...

[*In general: this is not to say there aren't times, especially with young children, that a situation may required the parent to enforce a command. If my three year old, after being told to stay away from the street, goes to the curb and starts to step down I will certainly make a beeline to grab him and pull him away.]

The power of panic...

From a Mom -
Here's my question:
How should I handle my 4 1/2 year-old son's crying (screaming) and refusal to cooperate with his swimming teacher's instructions? He is happy to put his head under water, use a kickboard, jump to a parent in non-swimming lesson time, but seems to be overcome by panic (of getting in the water at all) during his lesson. Thus far, I've remained unaffected and make no comment during the lesson. Afterward I may make a casual comment about his poor behavior at some point in the day. I feel bad for the instructor, and for myself :)

OK, let's look at this.  Your son is happy to get into the pool, put his head under water, jump into the water, use a kick board... when it is during his free unstructured time.  When the lesson begins then it becomes panic time, which tells you that this is not about getting wet, to say the least.  I'll assume that the swim lessons are something you are requiring, so we'll take off the table letting him opt out of them.  But that being said, I don't want to assume that he's just making it all up, i.e. manufacturing the panic out of whole cloth.  There may be some actual fear or apprehension related to things such as his swimming performance in front of others or something else.  But I don't think you can really know, so that shouldn't be the focus.  And it might even be that this "panic" thing is exhibiting itself in some other area.  In any event, given this situation, it seems the "panic" episode is serving a purpose.


The question to ask is "what is the goal of his "panic fits?"  What is he hoping to accomplish?   It's a fair guess this is his attempt to be exempt from participating in the class and, barring that goal being met, secondarily to resist Mom's attempts to keep him from acting this way.  Possibly as you've continued to require his lessons, his panic attacks have become more of a tantrum.  He doesn't want to be doing the class.  You require it.  As a parent, what you want to avoid, though, is getting into a power struggle, i.e. you trying, through discipline or lectures, to get him to stop panicking... though I admit it is no fun have your kid acting in this way in public.  But you are requiring the class!  This is your child at this juncture and situation.  And as I said, there may actually be some pressure or apprehension for him.  If that is so, this is also his immature way of avoiding that personal hurdle.


Broadly speaking, he is pursuing the goal of  "reward without responsibility."  His wants the pleasure and fun of free swim time (the reward) before or after the lesson.  But he doesn't want the responsibility of properly participating in the class.  He wrongly believes that that is the best way to go, so his sets a goal to not participate in the class by having a panic attack (after all Mom will rescue me won't she?).  Yet he knows that you know he isn't afraid of the water.  So you're approach should be that if he throws the panic fit during the class, then he doesn't get the reward of free swim time with the other kids.  Consider him totally free to throw the fit (he actually is...).  If the teacher says she won't have him in the class, then that is that.  But otherwise, he is free to be panicky but not without a logical consequence.  We are training our children to gradually take on responsible living which is the route to character, increasing the likelihood of good things in life.  So calmly explain the rules.  A simple, brief encouragement would be OK, but don't slip into a pep talk (or you may slide into "trying to convince him"... bad goal).  If he does the panic thing and then gets mad at the removal of the reward, smile (inwardly)... you have succeeded, not failed.  You've recognized his wrong goal and appropriately applied a discipline which left the goal unmet.  How?  By simply giving him a free choice that has consequences either way, which is how life works.  This could go on for several classes - his panicking, being mad at not getting his way, and you patiently (that means you grit your teeth and be a phony to your feelings of wanting to spank him) and be true to your purpose to apply wise and appropriate discipline.  No guarantees, but this kind of approach increases the likelihood of guiding him to choose a responsible direction.  Once the consequence is applied don't fall into a lecture or  reminder for next time.  No relational repercussions... no skin off your back.  

Let the structure guide and be what he must deal with, not your mood or feelings.  This approach actually takes the whole thing out of becoming a relational battle and thus makes it easier as a parent to avoid anger.   And just as importantly, I would look for other areas where a similar clear pattern of pursuing "reward without responsibility" is occurring and apply any needed adjustments.  The root usually has many sprouts.  Be patient and give it time.  Be accepting of him and glad for any small improvements.  Parenting is a plodding endeavor, sometimes lasting more than even eighteen years!  Remember, where you see these clear patterns of wrong behaviors (not isolated incidents) you're applying discipline in order to hopefully change a wrong belief, one that may be tightly held.