calling M. Foucault, M. Foucault come in please

[metaphortunate]

Mr. E had a visit with a friend of his this week. Said friend has kids older than the Junebug, and as they were talking shop, as parents will do, the friend asked if we had any thoughts on discipline. Because at this point, apparently it is hard to take the kids over to anyone's houses because they do not hear the word "no" and that turns out to not be very much fun.

This is not a situation I want to find myself in four years from now. But I don't really know what to do about it. This is one reason I've loved the baby stage: you don't have to discipline a baby. Babies do what they gotta do. Older kids, I know you have to actually train and stuff - but I have no idea how.

Parents of kids older than babies - what have you done about discipline? Has it worked? Did you try different things? What did you start with, and when did you start, and how has your approach changed as the kids have gotten older?

I'm turning on anonymous comments on this one.

Comments

[thefourthvine]

At first, we just said no. The earthling listened. (I also did specific things early on - like, I taught him to be gentle with me while we were nursing, because I didn't like being pulled on or scratched.) We also did physical removal and sort of - gentle ignoring? Like, I'm not mad or anything, but if you're going to have a tantrum, I'll just sit here and read until you're calmer.

At two, no stopped working all the time, so we went to 1-2-3 Magic, which is a book. The tone of the book is unspeakably horrible, but the basic concept works for us. (Emotionless counting, essentially. The kid gets to three and then gets a time out - one minute for each year of age. The keys are consistency, always doing the time out, and staying emotionless; the more you react, the less well it works.) We still use that, although we get to three very, very rarely these days. (The first few days I did it, the earthling got timed out about fifteen times a day, because he wanted to see how it worked. Once he figured it all out, he was good with it.) More often, the earthling will time himself out - "I need moment! I need moment!" or "I need time out, please." Or he'll just go off somewhere for a few minutes to deal.

I don't think of the time outs as punishment; I think of them as reset time, partly because that's so obviously how the earthling is using them. He has a hard time getting himself under control when there are people around, which is why he times himself out. (You can see this. When he knows he's about to lose it, he'll duck behind furniture, even, and come out a few minutes later calmed down.) He can also redirect himself much more easily when people are not around. So what happens is, he goes into his room and either plays for four minutes or sits on the carpet for four minutes, and then he comes out, and we don't speak of it again. Basically, the time out is a fresh start for all of us. (Sometimes I need the time out more than he does.)

If we're out and about, or if there's another consequence that makes more sense than a time out, I let him know about that when I count him the first time. ("That's one for throwing. If you get to three, the toy will go on break.")

At around three and a half, we also started using counting down from ten. This is when I want him to do something (counting 1, 2, 3 is only for *stopping* something) important and he's being dilatory. (So, like, I ask, then I remind, then I count down.) He'll hurry to do whatever he knows he's supposed to be doing. It gives him a time limit that he can understand (I mean, I can also use the timer on my phone, but that's pretty complicated for, like, getting his shoes on) and a reminder of what he's supposed to be doing. Also, I can vary the speed of the counting so that he has enough time to do whatever it is. He doesn't necessarily like it much, but it works. (Often he'll say to me, "I'm doing it! I'm doing it! Don't count me!" if he's been delaying but he knows I'm about to start counting down from ten.)

And that's as far as I've gotten! So far, numbers have worked for me - counting up, counting down. Or, okay, that plus being consistent and also having an easy kid has worked for me. We're very lucky, both that the earthling is (so far) such an easy kid, and also that before we had our easy kid, we had the world's smartest Labrador retriever, who pushed every boundary and set every limit. Her reign of adorable terror taught us to be consistent and follow the fuck through. I thank her basically every day; she made parenting so much easier.

[thefourthvine]

Oh, I forgot something that worked really well for us when the earthling was younger: talking as if the desired behavior has already happened. So, like, I do my best to avoid getting in a contest of strength with the earthling - he'll always lose, that's not fair, and it just teaches him that might makes right. So I don't want to yank things out of his hands (unless they are, like, actively dangerous or on fire or whatever). Instead, when he was younger, I would hold out my hand and say, "Thank you!" And he would give it to me. Or when we needed to move on (he was soooooo obsessed with fire extinguishers that we had this problem approximately every fifteen feet indoors for at least a year), I would say, "Bye-bye, fire extinguisher!" And he would move on without having to be dragged away.

And obviously all of these strategies are sometimes strategies. Reading this over, it sort of sounds to me like I am spending all of my time counting. I'm not. But there are many occasions when things HAVE TO HAPPEN, either because time or because safety, and the counting strategies help all of us stay on an even keel.

[khedron]

With toddler at age 2.25, that kind of sympathetic magic works for us as well. "Bye-bye, neighbors!"