Parenting Essentials: Decoding Discipline
When you think about disciplining your kids, what words come to mind? Perhaps “consequence”? “frustration”? “challenge”? Discipline is more than just giving consequences when our children misbehave. The goal of discipline is to teach and train our children to become healthy adults. Creating a healthy plan for discipline can feel complicated but the good news is, when it comes to decoding discipline, we’re here to help you develop a plan!
Our goal should be to model what it means to be an emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically healthy adults ourselves. If we grew up with strict discipline or had negative feelings about it, it's common to unintentionally repeat harmful behaviors when disciplining our own kids. The emotions we carry from our own upbringing can affect how we handle discipline with our children. As parents, the way we approach parenting is inevitably shaped by our own upbringing and the way our parents were raised.
To be a successful parent, you must first learn to handle your own emotions in order to create a safe environment for your children to process theirs. This can be difficult when carrying our own childhood experiences. While the rest of the article will talk about ways to do this, we always want to encourage parents to seek their own counseling to increase their ability to be present with their children in healthy ways. As a reminder, the most important thing to remember is that discipline is only effective through a genuine connection with your child. Here are five steps to foster a strong connection with your children, as well as promote their emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical well-being.
Five Steps to healthy discipline
1. Detach your emotions from your child's behavior.
When having a conversation with your child about their poor choice(s), their brains will mostly remember how your emotions were impacted by their behavior. If you are shouting because you are angry, or pouting because you are sad, they will pick up on your emotion and then copy your behavior. It can be hard not to react or to take their choice of behavior personally but it is important to remember their choices are not a reflection of you.
If you are feeling upset by what happened, let your child know that you need a minute to think and calm down then take that time to. Identify what you are feeling, why you are feeling that way, and how you want to handle the child’s choices. Once you are ready, create a safe space using appropriate body language, tone, and volume to talk with your child about what they did and to give the consequences. When they have a safe space to process their behavior the first time, they are a lot less likely to do it again.
2.Think logically without a fighting attitude.
Often kids will exhibit poor behavior to engage in a power struggle. The most effective way to remove the power struggle is to engage logically rather than emotionally. When we engage in a fight back and forth with our children, they will learn that fighting is a logical way to communicate emotion. Instead, we want to create space and safety to discuss with our children why their choice was wrong, how they can learn from the experience, and how to make a better choice next time. By fostering an environment where our kids feel at ease discussing discipline with us, they will understand that managing emotions is key to effective communication. We are reminded in Ephesians 4:26, “be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Emotions like anger are normal, even Jesus was angry! But, in his anger, he did not sin. Next time you feel anger boiling up, remember that the feeling is not only normal, but an opportunity to show your children how to express emotion in a healthy way like Jesus did.
3.Let consequences and empathy run the conversation.
The term "consequence" frequently carries a negative implication, suggesting anger and punishment. However, consequences guided by empathy are necessary for raising healthy kids. When our kids understand that each consequence we give them is fueled by unconditional love, the lesson will hold more weight. It also gives us a great opportunity to teach our kids about the love of Christ. Proverbs 29:17 teaches that when we discipline our children, they will give us peace and the delights that we desire. Though we mess up every day, God continuously forgives us and loves us. If we believe that God loves us with an everlasting love, we should be showing that same love to our children during the discipline process. When we demonstrate to our children that we take responsibility for our mistakes and accept the consequences, we exhibit both the love of Christ and our affection for them.
4.Control your reactions with maturity.
As parents, we are mirrors for our children’s learned behavior. Therefore, we must work hard to exhibit healthy adult behavior. When we are reactionary toward our children’s poor behavior, we are more likely to make a harmful decision, such as hurting them physically or degrading them emotionally. By responding thoughtfully to our children's misbehavior, we can manage our emotions and then initiate a constructive conversation for a positive outcome. Once again, when we can view their behavior not as a reflection on who we are but as a reflection of our children’s choices/sinful behavior it gives us the ability to step back and respond in a more thoughtful/mature way.
5.Make a consequence plan.
When it's time for a consequence, have a plan ready. Consequences can be planned ahead of time or can be chosen at the time as a logical/natural consequence (for instance if your child forgets to take out the trash, the consequence may be that they have to wash out the garbage can). When appropriate, provide different options for your child to choose from, allowing them to select their consequence just like they made choices during their initial poor decision or negative attitude. When giving them the power of autonomy, they will learn that discipline is a conversation and life practice rather than a negative experience.
In 1 Corinthians 9:25 God teaches, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” When we teach our children that training them with discipline is a practice of life, we can help them understand that self-discipline is imperative for a walk with Christ. It is perfectly fine to exemplify leaving a conversation or pausing an argument when your own negative emotions come up. Discipline cannot be successfully executed when negative emotions are present, so just make sure you're setting a good emotionally regulated example!
When we implement these five steps into our discipline process, we give our kids the opportunity to grow into healthy adults. It’s important to remember that creating an atmosphere of connection can only happen when we are also having conversations with our kids outside of discipline. For example, creating a code word anyone can use to peacefully end a conversation will signal that there can be time and space for either party to emotionally regulate. Often the most effective times for consequences are not right after the need of discipline, but after both parties have had time to process their emotions behind the event.
To create an atmosphere of connection, make sure you are:
Creating a foundation of trust with your children where they feel safe emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually to communicate.
Having continuous healthy conversations about hard things, practicing daily organic and natural conversations with space for emotion.
Communicating that discipline is needed for connection and vice versa. When poor behavior gets in the way of heart connection, frame consequences as the results of barriers for impactful connection.
As parents, our first goal is to become self-aware and our second is to become self-disciplined. If we can learn to regulate our own emotions, we can teach our kids to do the same. When we show our kids that we can feel emotions like anger or sadness and give ourselves space to feel them, they can do the same. When we let emotions like anger and sadness fuel our responses, we can show our kids that consequences are simply establishing boundaries for healthy relationships. In doing so, we impart the understanding to our children that consequences are not only valuable but necessary, as they are rooted in empathy.
