Parenting is not an easy job. There are so many different aspects that are involved in raising happy and healthy children. One of those aspects of parenting that can be quite crucial is discipline and for me and it can be one of the hardest parts.
Discipline ensures that children gain the life skills they need to develop into responsible adults as it affects every aspect of life and is far more than just dishing out consequences.
Jacob is 2 and has hit the terrible 2’s stage and I’m making a start to positively deal with his behaviour (especially the negative) to help teach him that his behaviour choices results in a consequence.
What is Discipline?
Many parents confuse discipline with a punishment, but they are not the same. Discipline is about guiding your kids to learn how to make good choices on their own. Helping your children learn to manage their behaviour through time-outs, removal of privileges and consistency, is a positive way to ensure that your child learns that there are negative consequences to negative behaviours and positive outcomes when a positive choice is made.
How Discipline Helps:
Make Better Choices
Healthy discipline helps to teach your children to make good and responsible choices. Kids can possibly learn impulse control, problem solving skills and self regulation when they are disciplined appropriately.
Manage Emotions
The goal of a time out should be to teach your children to better manage their anger, frustration or sadness before they act on them in a negative way.
Manage Anxiety
Consistent discipline with concrete consequences allows your child to predict the outcome of a behaviour choice before they act on it. Kids often test limits to ensure that their parents will be consistent with their responses. A lack of leadership and absence of guidance can actually cause your child to feel unsettled so being consistent with how you manage discipline is a must.
Safety First
Discipline is a huge part of children’s safety needs, including their health. It is important to offer age appropriate explanations and set healthy limits, so your kids will be able to make healthy choices.
Disciplining your children doesn’t have to be a negative experience. In fact, it can help your children to make better choices, better manage their emotions and make safety a priority while giving you back the feeling of being in control and managing situations. As parents we have found the consistency element really is helpful to ensure we both know what the other is doing and it ensures regardless of who is with the kids we are parenting with consistency.
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