Parenting through Your Heart Series (Part I)
"Discipline is about having the right relationship with your child, not
only the right techniques," says Dr. William Sears, pediatrician and
author of The Successful Child.
The Parenting through
Your Heart approach that I facilitate in my workshops and
family coaching practice is about looking within your heart for guidance
on how to best interact and communicate with your children. Your heart
becomes your guide in everything you say and do. When you allow your
heart to guide you, it brings forth understanding, compassion, respect,
loving wisdom and deep connection for all involved.
I believe all parents love their children and desire to do what is best
for them, but most of us are not conscious of how our actions, words and
thoughts affect our children. Most of us are unaware that traditional
methods of discipline are not based on love, but on fear: fear of not
being in control or being too permissive, being ignored by our children,
having our children make the “wrong” choices, being embarrassed in
public, etc.
Fear-based methods of parenting intend to control, manipulate, or exert
power over our children in order for them to behave the way we want them
to. Punishments (imposed unpleasant consequences, threats, time-outs)
and rewards are ways we use to coerce our children into doing what we
want.
Yes, these manipulative methods may achieve our desired result in the
moment, but they come with a very high price over the long run: our
child’s self-esteem and the quality of our parent-child relationship
suffer.
Let’s look at why these manipulative,
traditional methods do not work:
Punishments
(imposed unpleasant consequences, threats, and time-outs)
Punishments are unpleasant
consequences that we impose on our children for doing something we do
not want in the hopes that they will learn a lesson. For example, “Don’t
hit your brother! Go to your room right now; you are grounded!” Hitting
the brother is the unwanted action. Going to the room and being grounded
are the imposed unpleasant consequences. Our hope is that the child will
learn that hitting is not OK by making the connection between hitting
and the unpleasant consequence.
Threats intend to make our child do
what we desire because of their fear of an unwanted consequence. “If you
(unwanted behavior), you will (unwanted consequence).” “If you keep
whining, you will not go to the park.” Threatening children with a
punishment or imposed consequence implies that we do not trust them.
They will believe that they are not to be trusted and therefore, will
fulfill our expectations of distrust. Threats create a relationship
based on distrust.
Traditional time-outs, those who
force our children to a designated place by themselves (“forced
isolation”), are a form of punishment as well. We are not hurting them
physically, but emotionally. When we use time-outs, our children see the
withdrawal of our attention, acceptance, approval, and love as a result
of them not doing what we want them to do, as the emotional punishment.
Our intention is usually for them to reflect on what they did “wrong,”
but like any other type of punishment, that is not the real result of
time-outs.
Why do we think that in order for children to learn,
they have to suffer in the process?
Sometimes, punishing our children or threatening to punish them seems to
work because we may get them to do what we want them to do at the time.
But ask yourself, “What reasons do I want my child to have for doing
this? The answer is rarely fear of punishment, guilt, or obligation. The
answer is usually, “their own desire to do so.”
Reasons that punishments do not work:
• Makes
children mad and gives them the desire to get even.
• Makes
them feel powerless and they seek more power by creating more power
struggles.
•
Teaches them that the only way to get what they want is to exert power
over others.
•
Adversely affects the quality of your relationship because it breaks
down trust.
• Takes
the focus away from the important issue: the cause for the punishment.
It makes them focus on the punishment itself and on their resentful
feelings.
•
Creates self-interest, “how can I get away with it without getting
caught?”
• Makes
fear the motivation, rather than desire to be helpful or follow inner
values.
• Lowers
self-esteem, “I deserve to suffer because I do the wrong things.”
Rewards
It may seem that the opposite of punishments are rewards. Instead of
making children suffer, let’s make them feel good… for doing what we
want! Rewards and punishments are really two sides of the same coin.
They are both ways we use to manipulate our children.
Rewards can be physical, “If you behave at the restaurant, you can get a
dessert” or verbal, “You shared your toys with your friend… Good job!”
There is an important undesired result that comes from rewards:
children’s behavior is motivated by the reward and not by their own
inner desire. Rewards train children to think, “What do they want me to
do and what do I get from it?” The answer brings us back to our previous
question, “What do you want your child’s reasons to be for acting as you
would like him or her to act?” Do you want their reason to be a reward,
or their own inner desire to do so?
Reasons why rewards do not work:
•
Encourages external rather than internal motivation.
• There
is a tendency to want higher rewards as time goes on.
• When
the reward is absent, so is the motivation.
• Loss
of future interest in activity or action being rewarded.
•
Creates self-interest, “what do they want me to do and what do I get
from it?”
Alternatives
to Punishments & Rewards
If we do not use control to teach and guide our
children, how do we do it? The answer is: we build a strong relationship
based on understanding, compassion and mutual respect. We communicate in
a way that shows our children our unconditional love and our intention
of honoring their needs, as well as our own needs, in a balanced way.
Instead of forcing our children to make a choice out of fear of
punishment, guilt, obligation, shame or a desire for reward, we can
allow love to guide us. We can find solutions
that work for everyone, by showing mutual respect and empathy, and by
focusing on our heart connection.
For concrete examples of how to turn what you feel in your heart into an
effective parenting technique, see my article, Heart-based
Communication, A Gift.
Love, Dumari
Last Revised: February 2007
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