When disciplining, is it better to...?

Question

give consequences that relate to the bad behavior ? For example; A child grabs a toy from another child even if you have taught the child to use his words. A dirct consequece to the unwanted behavior should be telling the child to leave the area.

VS

Punishing a child or making him hurt wheather it be taking away toys or TV.

Which of these teaches the child to take responsibility for their own actions?

Doesn't punishment make the child get angry at you instead of relating his bad behavior to him making the bad choice (taking responsibility) ? Why do teacher, parents caregivers punish more than giving them the skills and then if they continue to misbehave give them a logical consequence? Our jails are full of repeat offenders ? Isolating them and taking away their freedom doesn't teach them not to do it. It teaches them to be more sneakier and to lie better the next time to avoid the punishment. Don't we see these kinds of behaviors in our children when they clearly got caugt but would do anything to not get punished ? They would go as far as lying. Then we get angrier at them for lying. What is wrong with this picture and yet we continue to punish hurt instead of teaching ???

Hey lil bit... you say words like, "that wasn't nice you need to share". What does nice mean or look like to a child? We get so sucked into judging. How about saying what you see. Labeling the child as "not nice" is not usable information to the child. It doesn't help the child see what he did wrong. You can help the child see what effect his actions had on the other child. THen you can give him the words to ask for the toy. You hear so many parents say over and over to their children , "share !" Again, what does sharing mean and look like to a child.

Rachel T...I do have a stong sense of what I am doing as a teacher and as a parent. I am not arguing I just want to know peoples thoughts on this subject. And I honestly think its time to change how we discipline our children. I hear and see so many negative things happening between parent/child, teacher / students etc...I don't understand why parents and teachers aren't helping children learn from their behavior with out using punishments.

To mom of 4: You seem to want to make that "child pay". Taking that older child out of the restaurant because he was misbehaving and the child being happy about it...doesn't make sense unsless you want to do something hurtful to the child to make him pay. I'm sure this method would only make you feel better after he did what he did to you in the restautant. This is not discipline, this is revenge on your part. IF you think your child is going to learn something from this, your right. Your teching him to react and then to hurt. When you punish your child will only foucus on you. Therefore hating you for hurting him. As we often hear from our children when we punish them say, "your mean!" or they break things and destroy things in their rooms when you punish them to time out. Do you see my point?

To keighs mommy: Taking the toy away from the child and sending him to the "naughty chair" only tells him he is IS NAUGHTY. When you label you are only attacking the childs CHARACTER. You think punIshing the child in timeout will solve the problem? It problobly stops him for the moment and its an easy way to for you not to deal with teaching him. And he will problobly go back and do it again because YOU DIDN'T TEACH HIM how to ask for the toy (give him the skill). Our culture is so stuck on treating our children like animal. Like the rats in the cage that got rewarded with treats when they did what the lab technition wanted them to do, and got punished by getting zapped when they didn't do what the lab technition wanted them to do. We need to move on. Don't you think? lets start treating animals like animal and children like children. Our children don't need carrots and sticks to learn.

To the people who think I'm bashing other people on answers, I'm sorry if it looks that way. I honestly just want to know peoples opinions. I asked the question not because I don't know the answer. I asked to find out why people punish, make children hurt when disciplining. I am sharing my thoughts because its my right to speak and say what I want. If you don't want to answer and be a part of this question you have the choice to leave. It's not necessary to bash me. Some of you have the intention to bash me for giving my opinion and I think that is hurtful. I give my opinion to help our children grow to their fullest potential. Notice that everything I suggest is to help our children develop healthy self esteem. I wish you well.

Answer 1

I think it depends on what you feel comfortable with and what works for you child. I have three kids and they all get checked by me very differently because not the same things work with them all.

I know I'm doing something right when I always get complimented on how good they are and how respectful they are.

Answer 2

I think this is a generalized question and not relevant. All kids have different reactions to discipline. If my oldest son took the toy and I told him to give it back he would, and would go find something else to play with. I would have to give my middle son 'the look' and he would give it back. My youngest would do it only after I took it away, but would cry and say he was sorry and give the other child a hug without me even asking him to. No child responds to any type of discipline in the same way. Also, there are so many factors that play into a child's reaction....hunger, sleep, sick, cranky....these will effect how the child reacts and also how the situation is handled.

If my boys are fighting over a toy the toy is put into timeout for 5min and both boys are punished(not being able to play with the toy). After the 5min is up they share the toy much better.

What I'm getting at is that you can take two kids and hand out the same discipline/consequence and it won't work the same way on both of them....it may not even work at all on one of them. Same thing with the natural consequences....some kids just don't get it and they need something to get their attention.

Every parent knows what their child can handle and what is the best for them. We really don't need a stranger to come on here and tell us that we are all doing it wrong without ever meeting us or knowing our kids. Just because someone has a degree in education that does not mean that they are any better at raising kids than we are.

Answer 3

Ok here's the deal. Children really NEED to learn all by themselves HOW to deal with OTHER kids. As for the child that grabbed the toy? See how the other child reacts. You might be surprised. I think kids should work out problems amoungst themselves if at all possible. Believe me it makes things ALOT easier when they start REAL school. As for punishment...it has to be RIGHT THEN. A long term punishment for a child is horrible. Just plain wrong. (at this age: which by a child taking a toy away from another child has to be a toddler).

Final note: why are you asking this question and then basically bashing everyone who answers? YOU asked this question...perhaps you don't like the answers?

Answer 4

Teaching by consequences is in fact an ancient concept. Rousseau wrote as early as in the 18th century that if your child breaks a window make him sleep in the cold. The problem, I think, is that with many kinds of annyoing or harmful behavior there is no natural consequence. For example, if your child hits a smaller child, what would the natural consequence be? If he runs into the street barely missing the car? If he calls you bad names? Every so often there will be no consequence at all or you have to invent some symbolic consequence. Punishment is nothing but a consequence "once removed": since the small child cannot hit back, you do to your child something that is similar to what he did to the small child (spanking him, or confining him to his room for a while).
But I agree with you that one should teach by "natural consequences" to the extent possible.

Answer 5

Number one - the child is made to give back the toy (no matter how difficult this may be). next the child is removed from the situation and told that taking without asking first or getting the "ok" is wrong. Final action. a time out or other "no fun" punishment.

Answer 6

1. Before you do ANY disciplining- realize this is the perfect situation to help teach your child about EMPATHY! Let her know her actions were wrong (taking the toy away) but then say something like, "how would you feel if you were playing with a toy and someone else came and just took it from you?" Let your child know his EMOTIONS are ok! (ie... It's ok to feel angry, however it's not ok to hit because you're angry") and then you can send them to time-out or whatever your method of discipline is.

Answer 7

Well it depends on the age of the child,his overall behaviour and attitude and how much time you have to spare!
When I taught my boys good manners I also told them that there would be consequences if they disobeyed and in that way they gradually learnt to think twice before snatching things and so on.When they did the consequences were followed up - so in the example above because they had been told that they were to play nicely or they wouldn't be allowed to play they would have been removed from the situation to sit by me until they had had time to think about what they had done and were ready to join in again properly.
As has been said for other things there are no obvious natural consequences - for instance I always smacked for bad language because I didn't want my boys using it and that was the quickest way to nip it in the bud but later when they got older I could explain that Society as a whole found such language unacceptable and they had been smacked in order that they would fit into Society and be respected.

Answer 8

with little kids, it's better if the two things are related because otherwise kids don't necessarily make the connection to their own misbehavior (if you take away a 2-year-old's tv show because he threw his milk on the floor, he's not going to get it at all... indeed, he won't even remember the milk incident by the time he wants to watch Clifford). With older kids, I don't think it matters as much, because they do get the connection. Especially if the logical consequence of what they did might not matter to them (e.g. taking them out of a restaurant for acting up ... but they were probably glad to get out of there anyway; they might respond better if they knew that misbehavior in the restaurant was going to lose them another privilege that they cared about).

Answer 9

Innocent has hit the nail on the head. You take the toy away, give it back to the other child and make the one who did naughty sit in time out.

Answer 10

I think it's important to have the punishment fit the crime in most situations.

However, I think you left out one thing. The child should have been made to hand over the toy to the other child and apologize, and lose their turn to play with it.