Episode 03: The Discipline Debate
In today’s episode, Megan discusses the societal pressure mothers face to “discipline” children in a certain way. She recounts different strategies she tried over the years, only to find more frustration and no change in behavior. Megan concludes with finding your OWN voice and parenting strategies, based on what works for you and your child.(See more below)
Welcome back! Today, I want to discuss a “hot topic”, a slightly controversial word: Discipline. In our westernized society, there tends to be two stereotypical “camps” of discipling a child. Now, I say stereotypical because there are countless other ways to impose consequences and raise a child, but there seem to be two main types that most people choose from.
One is the old-fashioned, authoritarian, “I’m the parent and you’re the kid” camp. In this model, a child who exhibits “bad” behavior is punished in whatever way the parent deems fit. The message children receive is a sort of top-down approach to raising a child. Kids hear things like, “Because I said so” and “What you’re doing is unacceptable. If you do it again, your consequence is ______”. Many parents use this technique, and I’m not mocking it one bit. In fact, sometimes this strategy works really well. Mr. 4 handles this kind of talk well. If I say to him, “Mr. 4, I don’t like the choice you’re making right now. You need to (get off the top of the couch/stop kicking your sister, etc.) and if you don’t, you’ll (sit in time out/lose screen time/etc.) You know what he says?
“Okay!”
Geez…that was easy. But here’s the thing. Mr. 4 is an easy kid. Thank goodness for that.
But that doesn’t work for Mr. 7. In fact, when I’ve tried this “I’m in charge and you’re not” technique on him over the years, he actually rebels more. His meltdowns increase and he’s a miserable child. The connection between him and I is cut - it’s not there. He can’t see past my “dictatorship”. (I’m not saying that’s what this is, necessarily, but it’s how he sees it).
So a few years ago, I tried another strategy - this tends to be the other stereotypical “camp” for disciplining and raising a child - Positive Parenting. To be clear, I love the ideas behind this method. It’s peaceful, it’s respectful - it’s ME. I was excited to implement it as a total mindset shift. However, when I did, guess what happened? Mr. 7 laughed at me. He laughed it off. He walked all over me, seeing right through the lines I was selling. The behaviors increased, again.
Now, I could’ve been “doing it wrong”. But either way, it didn’t work. Now I was 0-2.
With neither of these main camps of discpline working for my spirited, sensitive, strong-willed child, I threw up my hands and stopped trying to fit myself into a box. I started going with my gut.
Years later, I can’t tell you that all his negative behaviors are gone. You know I wouldn’t be typing these words onto this website and into a podcast if they had. But instead of focusing on “discipline” and “consequences”, you know what I’m working on?
Understanding and connection.
In my opinion, and after much trial and error, if the connection is broken between Mr. 7 and I, we have nowhere to grow. We can’t move forward. He needs to trust me and feel like I get him. And on my end - I need to get him. And that won’t happen if I’m cracking down on him or allowing him to walk all over me.
Last night, Mr. 7 was exhibiting some “bad” behavior. He wouldn’t come to bed when I called for him, and after much protesting, I had to drag him up the stairs kicking and screaming. Once he was finally in his bed, still thrashing around under the covers, he started crying and yelling, “I’m having a bad day. Yesterday was bad, too. I’m having a bad life. I don’t like who I am. I wish I was a different person.”
This all came from the fact that I wouldn’t let him keeping building Legos and made him come to bed.
Regardless, those feelings he has are real and need validation. In that moment of vulnerability, what am I going to do? Say, “I hear you’re having a bad life. And also, you threw a fit downstairs and now you don’t get screen time tomorrow”? That. doesn’t. work. for. my. child.
It just doesn’t. The guilt he threw on himself is way more damaging than anything I could have taken away or said to him. And it broke my heart. I want him to know just how wonderful of a child he really is. I want to focus on his good qualities, and not feed into his lack of self-confidence.
I need to be there for my son.
In the end, I don’t have a “discipline” strategy. I have a moment by moment, trust my gut, focus on connection and understand, with natural consequences when appropriate, strategy. I certainly couldn’t write a parenting book about it. I just..do what feels right.
If this is something you’d like to try, I’d advise you to spend one day thinking differently about how you discipline your child. Let me know if see any changes once you start responding differently to your child. The behaviors may not go away - but that’s not the point. Your child needs YOU, as his mother, to show up and build that bridge of connection.
It’s hard, but we’re strong. We got this.