Discipline comes from the word disciple, meaning to teach. Discipline provides guidance, models respect and teaches life skills to children. The most appropriate ways to guide children’s behavior are different at different ages and will depend on their developmental abilities and needs. You can provide support by being available to:
• Guideproblemsolving
• Validatefeelings with empathy
• Modelexpressing emotions
• Modelreflecting verses reacting
• Activelylisten– at child’s level, with eye contact, and restate child’s words.
Children need adults to teach, guide, and support them as they grow and learn.
Explore how your background, experiences, and stress levels influence the way you guide and discipline children. Understand your goal. It starts with you:
• Thinkaboutyour history
• Whatareyour hot buttons
• Do you have knowledge of growth and development
• Doyoufeelthe need to control
• What is your stress level
• Areyouopento change In You Are the Decisive Element, Haim Ginott states “I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.” How do we build a caring community?
• Weneedgood role models
• We need to develop and practice good social skills
• We need to resolve conflict sensibly (reason and compromise, rather than fighting).
• Weneedclear rules and expectations.
Guidance strategies, set firm, reasonable, and age-appropriate limits, or boundaries.
• Aboundaryisan expectation and a promise to follow through. Boundaries are a way to alleviate anxiety in children and adolescents.
• Mostadultsprefer knowing what to expect, and children are no different. You can comfort a child that is feeling stressed or anxious by telling them what to expect. “In five minutes, we’re going to get in the car and go home.” Setting boundaries is an act of compassion.
Set clear expectations for behavior and provide a consistent, yet flexible schedule. Simplify the daily routine so children aren’t asking to transition from one activity to the next too often. Create a structured environment with routines and schedules. This gives children a sense of security. For smoother transition times consider these ideas:
• Provideaverbal warning before beginning a transition
• Use music, songs, or predictable noises to signal transitions • Beconsistent If you are a grandparent or senior raising children and need help finding information or services that are available to you, contact Twila Doucet, Caregiver Coordinator at LTCA of Enid Area Agency on Aging, 580-234-7475 or email tdoucet@ltcaenid.org