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]

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!"