So I suppose children will go on being a nuisance and mothers will go on being glad they had the chance to be their victims.
D.W. Winnicott1
I LOOKED AT MY younger sister eating the last of her vegetables from dinner. A jar of hot mustard sat contentedly between us. I said, “Your vegetables would taste better if they had that yellow stuff on it.” “No they wouldn’t. That’s hot mustard, ” she argued. At six years of age, my counterwill instinct jumped into action and I grabbed a carrot, dipped it in the hot mustard, and shoved it in her mouth. My five-year-old sister was quiet for two seconds, until her screams and thrashes brought my mother running to the scene. I fled to my room, knowing I was in big trouble.
From my room, I heard the commotion unfold as my mother yelled and my father’s footsteps pounded on the stairs towards my bedroom. I sat on my bed—terrified. When he opened the door, I saw a face I had never seen before in such circumstances: he had a strange grimace, almost a smile. Part of me wondered whether he had lost his mind altogether or if I had entered a whole new realm of punishment.
My father sat beside me on the bed, where I remained rigid and too petrified to move. He started to shake his head and mutter, “Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.” I wanted to scream, “Just get it over with and stop torturing me with this waiting!” He then, quite unexpectedly, started to tell me a story. “When I was a little boy, I was just like you. Having a brother wasn’t always easy. He annoyed me a lot. I was also mischievous and liked to play pranks, especially on him. I used to tie his shoelaces together, hide all his underwear, and put rocks in his boots.” As he spoke, a flood of relief overcame me. I wasn’t in trouble; I was just like my dad, and I must have gotten my mischievousness from him.
My father sensed my interest in his pranks and said, “I always got caught. My brother would tell on me, and my parents would be upset. It wasn’t good. At some point, I realized I would be better off not tricking people and started doing other things.” I started to understand my father’s intended message and wholeheartedly agreed that it wasn’t good to hurt people. I looked up at my father in awe and admiration; I could have listened to his stories for hours.
Finally, my father looked at me and said, “You really hurt your sister tonight. She was really upset. I need you to go downstairs and say sorry and never do that again.” I readily agreed and said, “I don’t know what happened to me. I just had to shove that carrot in her mouth.” So I went downstairs feeling full of remorse and gave my sister a sincere apology. Fortunately, she forgave me, and I never made her the victim of my mischievous plans again.
In hindsight, what I learned most from my father that day was how much power a parent has through attachment in bringing a child in line with expectations, maintaining order, and dealing with upset. He didn’t use bribes, threats, or punishment. When my behaviour was the most egregious, he simply showed up as my father and didn’t push me away but pulled me closer. Through his stories, he conveyed that we were okay and in doing so, harnessed my love for him in the service of communicating how I needed to behave. My father led me by loving me, so my heart was eager to follow him.
ADULTS WANT MATURE, well-behaved children and believe discipline will get them there—but it won’t. Discipline is what adults do to impose order on the disorder of immaturity. Discipline is how adults intervene and compensate for the maturity that is missing. Adults need to use discipline to buy a child time to grow up. Adults need to assume responsibility for pointing a child in a civilized direction but give them room to get there. They will need to hold on to their relationship in spite of infractions, use insight to deal with what has stirred a child up, and help children understand their emotional world better. A kindergarten teacher told her student, “Tessa, you need to work on being more mature, such as saying goodbye to your mother without being upset.” Her mother replied, “Tessa will be more mature when she matures.”
There is a developmental plan that leads to maturity, bringing social and emotional responsibility with it. Advice on “what to do” with immature behaviour has become divorced from a broader developmental agenda that considers what conditions children need in order to grow as separate, social, and adaptive beings. The topic of discipline has become a jumble of superficial solutions, isolated directions, and contradictory answers. Discipline advice has morphed into discussions about teachable moments, strategies for achieving compliance, and instructions for how to get young kids to control themselves. Parents are given prescriptions for discipline without understanding how methods work, the limitations to their effectiveness, and potential risks to development. One parent I knew read every discipline book she could find and engaged with her children differently each week. As her discipline techniques changed, her kids were less convinced she knew how to take care of them.
Part of the problem with discipline today is it is largely based on behavioural and learning approaches that aim to extinguish behaviour rather than understand its source. Good behaviour is rewarded or praised, and bad behaviour is punished. Emotional expression is treated as a problem rather than understood as having a job to do in solving a problem for a child. Resistance is seen as something to be suppressed rather than as stemming from the counterwill instinct that preserves selfhood. Tantrums are treated as fires that need to be put out, routinely stoking the frustration that gave rise to them. Attention problems are seen as deficits in the child instead of as characteristics of an immature system that can focus on only one thing at a time. In short, behaviour is treated at face value, with the emotions and instincts underpinning it eclipsed. The focus of discipline has become myopically focused on providing the right consequences to shape behaviour into a mature form. These methods miss the big developmental picture altogether—discipline is what we do while waiting for maturity to unfold.
B.F. Skinner suggested that the secret to having good children was to deprive them of approval and make approval conditional upon compliance. Good behaviour was rewarded with praise or parental closeness, whereas bad behaviour led to punishment and separation. Contemporary discipline takes a similar approach and uses temporary withdrawal of affection through time-outs or separation to achieve good behaviour. Simply put, a parent’s love is used as a tool to shape behaviour—a child is invited to be close when they are good and sent away when they are not. A child is made to work for love and approval by meeting parental demands, negating any chance for true rest. These disciplinary practices have become the norm, but they erode relationships and create emotional distress in young children.2
A different approach is needed if parents are to offer a child a generous invitation to rest in their care, are to unlock the capacity for play, and are to foster conditions conducive to growth. Discipline strategies need to use the power of attachment to bring a child into orbit around an adult. Adults are the ones who need to provide order, keep young children safe, and give directions when they are impulsive, egocentric, and inconsiderate. As one parent said, “My focus used to be on ‘He is so rude,’ but now I see ‘He is so frustrated right now.’ What I focus on informs my next step, and focusing on the emotion seems to point me in the right direction.” Attachment-safe and developmentally friendly discipline protects and preserves a child’s soft heart as well as their right relationships with adults.
THE SIX TRAITS associated with well-behaved children cannot be taught and must be grown. Well-behaved children (a) want to be good, (b) are easily alarmed, (c) feel futility, (d) are appropriately attached to adults, (e) are well intentioned, and (f) are well tempered. As a child develops these traits, they become easier to care for and more mature in their behaviour and emotional responses. If a child doesn’t outgrow the preschooler personality by ages 5 to 7, or 7 to 9 for sensitive kids, and continues to have behaviour problems, attention should go to considering which of these traits are missing and why. When these traits are absent, there is no amount of discipline that will fix the resulting problems or restore healthy development.
Children should want to be good for the people they are attached to and resist orders from those they are not. The desire to be good stems from deep fulfilling attachments with adults who collect them regularly and provide a generous invitation for rest, as discussed in chapters 4 and 5. The challenge for young children is that their lack of self-control prevents them from consistently actualizing their desires to be good.
Well-behaved children also have a healthy alarm system that moves them to caution when facing danger or when they are told to keep out of harm’s way. Good alarm systems make children conscientious and concerned about their actions. For an alarm system to function properly, a child must be able to feel afraid and be free of emotional defences. The alarm system will become crippled when vulnerable feelings are defended against, which is sometimes the case in peer-oriented and alpha children.
Well-behaved children also feel futility when they are up against the things they cannot change, as discussed in chapter 7. They can adapt to not getting their way, accept another’s decisions, and adjust to the limits and restrictions in their life. A child should become increasingly adaptive from the ages of 2 to 6, as the futilities of life are presented to them and support is given in finding their tears. The adaptive process requires soft hearts and emotions to be felt in a vulnerable way. If a child’s tears are stuck and emotional defences are present, the child’s adaptive capacity will be diminished or missing altogether.
* Gordon Neufeld, “Theoretical constuct on the six traits of well-behaved children,” Making Sense of Discipline, course, Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC (2011).
1) They WANT TO BE GOOD for those responsible for them.
2) They can see trouble coming and are appropriately moved to caution (EASILY ALARMED).
3) They can FEEL FUTILITY when it is encountered.
4) Their socializing attachments are appropriate (APPROPRIATELY ATTACHED).
5) They have their own goals and agendas (WELL-INTENTIONED).
6) They are able to think twice when experiencing troublesome impulses (WELL-TEMPERED).
Figure 10.1 Taken from Neufeld Discipline That Doesn’t Divide course
Well-behaved children are appropriately attached to the people who are responsible for them. These adults serve as role models and represent the values that will help them fit into society in a productive way. Parents need to assume responsibility for matchmaking a child to people in their attachment village, as discussed in chapter 8. These adults should share similar values so as to prevent pulling the child out of their orbit around a parent. If a child is peer oriented, there will be little desire to be good or follow the adults responsible for them. They will aim to please friends instead, often at the expense of adult rules and guidelines. A parent will need to restore their relationship with their child in order to influence their behaviour.
Children who are well behaved are able to form their own goals and agendas through good intentions. Counterwill, discussed in chapter 9, and play, from chapter 3, are important instincts that pave the way for this growth. When a sense of self has developed, a child should move to independent functioning, assuming responsibility for their own actions. The development of personal intentions rests on having fulfilling attachments, which bring release from relational hunger. Parents can use a child’s own intentions to point them in the direction of civilized behaviour.
Children who are well behaved are also tempered and have self-control as a result of prefrontal brain integration, as discussed in chapter 2. At this time, a child will be able to consider the needs of others before responding, think twice before acting on their emotions, and mix feelings and thoughts. The capacity for patience, forgiveness, and perseverance will be unlocked along with a coherent sense of self. The impulsive, egocentric, and inconsiderate ways of the young child should become tempered, helping them actualize their desires for good behaviour.
The answer to why children are well behaved is that the natural developmental plan has unfolded as it should. There is a plan for good behaviour, and we need to put our trust in this. As one parent wrote,
This is such a complete shift from a focus on behaviour and working on the behaviour directly. I so appreciate the fact that nature has a vital role and that as a parent, I am not responsible to grow the child up. As a young parent, I did not know this. I truly thought it was up to me to “nip it in the bud,” to “be on top of every little problem.” I was so uptight as a parent because I really was invested in good behaviour. I didn’t understand the spontaneous nature of growing up.
THREE OF THE most popular approaches to discipline use attachment alarm to get a child to change their behaviour. Although they may seem successful in getting a child to stop acting a certain way, they often do so by trading on a child’s most important need. As a result, alarm-, separation-, and consequence-based forms of discipline can create emotional and relational distress in young children. There are alternative ways to deal with incidents with young children, but these have become lost in the pressure for compliance and mature behaviour. As one child care provider said,
I think this “consequence” thinking is so incongruent with parents’ intuition that they have to go blind to be able to follow through. They believe they are doing the right thing, they are driven from a place of love and care for their children, yet this is not loving behaviour. The real difficulties start when these methods don’t work anymore, but the parents don’t know what to do and feel desperate.
A child’s alarm system is designed to move them to caution when facing threat or danger. Discipline that involves yelling, warnings, scaring, and ultimatums is relying on the alarm system to correct behaviour. Parents may need to use alarm techniques when danger is present, but it should be used in moderation. For example, a mother said, “My three-year-old son was going to run across the street to see his father and I couldn’t get to him fast enough, so I screamed—‘Stop!’ He froze and didn’t move. I was so thankful he did!”
The alarm system works best when it isn’t overactivated. When adults routinely use alarm methods to “scare kids straight,” it can interfere with cultivating strong relationships with them as well as provoke emotional defences. Children are meant to run to parents for help, not run away from them. A father said, “My son smashed into our glass door and broke it. I heard the crash and went to find him, but he had gone to hide. When I found him with his hands bleeding, I asked him why he wouldn’t come to me for help. He said he thought he would be in trouble for breaking the door.” The father was visibly shaken while considering how his son could have been in danger but did not consult him. It moved the father to consider why his son didn’t seek comfort from him and how his son had grown afraid of him.
Parents often use other adults to scare their children, the favourites being police officers, teachers, or principals. When a three-year-old wanted to take her seatbelt off in the stroller, her mother said, “If you don’t wear your seatbelt, the police are going to come and take you away from me.” When an adult becomes a source of fear, they are displaced from the caretaking role they were meant to serve for a child.
A mother consulted me regarding her five-year-old daughter who was showing symptoms of alarm, including difficulty sleeping, stomachaches, and obsessive behaviour. She said, “When my daughter didn’t put on her seatbelt, my husband hit the gas and moved the car and she came out of her car seat and hit her head on the seat in front of her. That was the last time she did this, but I am worried about how my husband disciplines her.” If a child faces too much alarm for too long, it can provoke emotional defences to inhibit the vulnerable feelings of alarm, giving rise to symptoms of anxiety and agitation. As a child becomes defended, more alarm will be needed to scare them into better behaviour; in other words, you will need to yell louder or up the ante. One mother said,
I was visiting my in-laws when my brother’s three-year-old son was taking all the books off a bookshelf and throwing them on the floor. My brother yelled at him to stop, but he seemed oblivious to his threatening voice. As my nephew continued, my brother started yelling louder, until he was screaming at him to stop. The saddest thing was the slow and hesitant reaction of my nephew. He seemed almost unaffected. It made me wonder how many times he had been yelled at like this and what impact this was having on him.
Alarm is meant to move a child to caution, but when adults overuse it, the child will be cautious about trusting adults to care for them. This is especially true for sensitive children, as alarm methods can go quickly over the top and create too much emotional stress, provoking emotional defences.
Separation-based discipline was introduced as an alternative to physical punishment, but the impact on attachment was not considered. Separation-based discipline includes methods such as time-outs, isolation, pretending or threatening to leave a child, withdrawing love, the silent treatment, shunning, and tough love. These measures withdraw the invitation for contact and closeness in order to pressure a child to comply with expectations and requests. Attachment is a child’s greatest need; therefore, separation or the threat of it can profoundly affect a child. When the invitation for contact and closeness with a parent is conditional upon performance, it can create a deep sense of insecurity in a child. As a parent said to me, “I was moved when I learned about the insecurity that comes when a child needs to be good to keep the attachment. They no longer have the luxury of wanting to be good. They really are placed in a position of keeping the relationship intact as they work at the attachment.”
Those who argue for the use of separation-based discipline suggest young children will reflect on their actions when sent away. The capacity to reflect doesn’t exist until the 5-to-7 shift. Furthermore, when children are sent away, they are often stirred up with increased frustration and alarm, leaving little room to think about anything else. Time-outs are also viewed as a means of calming a child down and increasing their self-control. The reason some children (not all) appear calm after a time-out is because their alarm system is now pressing down on their emotions so that they can tuck themselves back into relationship with adults. When they emerge from time-outs eager to please and contrite, this is because of attachment alarm.
The threat or use of separation-based methods will increase a child’s pursuit for contact and closeness with an adult. They will do just about anything to close the relational gap with their adult, at a cost to their dignity and integrity. This leads to good behaviour, but at what cost to the child or to the relationship? A child care provider conveyed a story of a well-behaved but emotionally troubled child in her care:
Olivia is so responsible, very giving, polite, and for her young age she acts very mature. I find it a rather sad situation, as she is very alarmed, not spontaneous, even her smiles are forced, and there is not much curiosity. Olivia seems to be opinionated, but she repeats her parent’s opinion. I don’t know what she thinks, what she believes, what she wants. When Olivia plays with other kids, usually they get hurt. I have watched her push down a girl in a race. Olivia carries a ton of frustration and sadness with her. She suffers from regular tummy aches, but no doctor can find anything wrong. Olivia is paying a high price for being so good! How must she feel, to always be good to hold on to her parents, to feel loved, to live up to their expectations, not to have an invitation to exist otherwise? It must feel dreadful.
A mother spoke to me after a presentation one evening and burst into tears as she said, “I don’t know if you noticed, but I was crying as you talked about how children need to feel cared for. Whenever I did anything wrong, my mother would tell me she didn’t want me anymore. I was so hurt by this. I tried so hard to be good for her.” The heartache in this mother was palpable 30 years later as she stood before me as a mother to two children of her own.
How do we make sense of the children for whom time-outs don’t seem to work? Separation-based discipline works only when there is an attachment at stake that a child cares about. If a child is not attached to an adult who uses separation-based discipline, it can increase the likelihood of frustration and attacking behaviour. Sensitive children can find separation very provocative, and it can lead to explosions of behaviour and detaching (see chapter 7).
Separation-based discipline interferes with a child’s capacity to rest, play, and grow. When a young child is preoccupied with being good to avoid separation from what they care about, there is less energy left to focus on becoming their own person.
The use of consequences to control a child’s behaviour has become a common discipline technique. Good behaviour is rewarded with privileges, through the use of stickers, charts, or praise. Behaviour that doesn’t meet expectations is punished with the removal of possessions, privileges, or activities. One parent asked, “Is it okay to take away my child’s favourite stuffed animal they sleep with in order to get them to do things like eat all their food or brush their teeth?” The first question we need to ask is, what is the cost of using what a child cares about against them to achieve compliance?
The use of negative and positive reinforcement as a discipline method stems from behaviour/learning theory and serves to sculpt a child to perform as if mature one incident at a time. It does not consider the instinctive or emotional roots that give rise to troublesome behaviour or the traits of well-behaved children. It uses what a child cares about as leverage, which creates an adversarial relationship. Life does teach through consequences, but this is not what these practices are about. They signal to a child that their dependency on an adult will be exploited whenever compliance is required. As one sensitive four-year-old said to his father, “Dad, you can take that away from me, but I will just decide not to care about anything anymore.” It was amazing how this young child could already articulate how his defences would spring into action and inhibit vulnerable feelings when facing separation. Emotional defences can move to protect a child’s heart if caring about something sets them up to get hurt. These defences make life easier to bear and children will simply stop caring—about everything.
Educators and parents are increasingly concerned about a lack of caring in kids today, which is also supported by research on empathy.3 Routine statements such as “I don’t care,” “It doesn’t matter to me,” and “Whatever” have become common among our children and youth. In considering where their caring has gone, we have failed to examine discipline methods that use what they care about against them. A father said, “When my kids don’t listen, I just take away their screen time and this works every time.” A mother told me, “My daughter refuses to be toilet trained, so I get the coldest water to clean her when changing a diaper to teach her a lesson.” Another father said, “My son wouldn’t sit at the table, he was yelling and screaming, so I told him he couldn’t go on an outing with his grandmother.” We fail to connect how our children lack caring with how some of our discipline methods do too.
The practice of using consequences to get compliance is a quick fix aimed at changing a child’s behaviour immediately. This form of discipline often meets the needs of the adult without considering what is stirring a child up or how to preserve a relationship while steering through incidents. As one parent commented, “It is interesting how behavioural methods of discipline give a parent the illusion of instantly growing a child up, or at least being in control—no wonder these methods are so compelling.” Another parent said she became disillusioned with consequences when she realized what was at stake:
I used to rely on consequences to change behaviour. For example, if my son didn’t pick up his toys, he wasn’t allowed to come into town with me. Ouch... I didn’t realize that I used the threat of separation to “speed” my son up. After presenting “cause and effect” to him, he hurried up, but he was so alarmed that he couldn’t think clearly. In fact, it took him longer to get his chore done.
The immature actions of a young child routinely bring consequences that responsible adults must deal with, such as removing toys when they are being thrown at others or moving other kids to safety if a child is lashing out in frustration. There is a difference between using consequences against a child and using them in the service of being a responsible caretaker. Imposing consequences are what a parent does to change things as a result of a child’s behaviour. It is what responsible adults do in the face of a young child’s egocentric, impulsive, and inconsiderate actions. It is what we do to compensate for the maturity they are missing. When consequences are used to teach a child a lesson, it only puts them in the lead of behaviour that they are clearly not able to control in the first place. As one mother said, “Being on the computer for very long is not good for my son. He has a big meltdown when asked to come off of it, so I have taken the lead without focusing on his behaviour. I have shortened the amount of time I give him. I expect him not to like it, but I am prepared to help him find his tears.” How a child behaves should cue an adult to consider how their child is limited because of immaturity and what they need to do to avoid problems, as a father of a very sensitive boy did after watching his six-year-old play soccer:
I signed my son up for soccer because he loves it so much. The problem is whenever he gets frustrated on the field, he can’t control himself. One day, his team was losing, another child tripped him by accident, and I could see he was mad. He held up his arm and clotheslined another child. He is not ready to play on a team like this. We have to wait until he has more impulse control because it is too dangerous for other kids out on the field.
Young children can’t think twice before acting, which is why consequences routinely fail to alter future performances. Before throwing a toy train, they don’t contemplate whether they should use their words instead. They are moved to act and react to the big feelings and instincts inside them. No consequence will ever teach a child what good development is meant to deliver—impulse control. Furthermore, the most difficult behaviour we see from young children is usually a result of being emotionally stirred up and not being in control. Consequences often exacerbate emotions that underlie big problems, as one father explained: “My wife and I were trying to have a conversation about where to go for dinner, but our son kept jumping up between us and wouldn’t let us talk. I told him to stop and warned him we wouldn’t go out for dinner if he didn’t quit it. He wouldn’t listen, so I took him up to his room and told him to stay there. He ended up smashing stuff in his room—he just exploded.” When a child is stirred up, giving them a consequence can add more fuel to the fire—increasing both frustration and alarm.
Although consequences are problematic when used as a parenting practice, they do serve an important social function. They reinforce the alpha position of the adults in charge and set up expectations that compliance is expected. Schools wouldn’t run without principals; someone needs to be seen as being in charge and setting the values and rules for conduct. Consequences allow adults to lead children when there is conflict and satisfy issues around justice or fairness. If adults do not lead in difficult situations, young children will take matters into their own hands. As consequences can create problems in fostering strong adult–child relationships, whenever they are used, they should be depersonalized from the adult and viewed as part of the rules of the overall setting. Adults can also mitigate relational and emotional stress from consequences by bridging and letting a child know a desire for relationship is still present.
WHAT IS GOOD discipline? It is the actions of responsible adults who move to deal with the disorder that comes with immaturity. It both protects a child’s relationship with their adult and preserves a child’s soft heart. Good discipline is what happens before problems arise, when adults work at anticipating issues and get there first. Good discipline arises when an adult aims to understand what is stirring a child up and thinks about how to best address their emotional needs. Good discipline doesn’t come from being a perfect parent and often arises out of parental guilt and forming intentions to do things differently next time. Good discipline means not letting a child’s behaviour be more important than the relationship. A mother described how her five-year-old was able to convey this to her:
My daughter came home from kindergarten and started to play with her dolls, giving them a time-out and telling them they were bad. I asked her what was going on and she said the dolls were not listening, so they had to go to a time-out. I asked her how the dolls were feeling about being sent away and she said they were very sad. I asked where she had learned about time-outs given we didn’t do them at home and she said, “school.” I asked her what we did instead of time-outs and she said, “We just get another chance, Mama.”
What young children would really like is some time for maturity to deliver the capacity for self-control so that they can actualize their good intentions. They would also like some support in learning a language of the heart so that they wouldn’t have to express their emotions through hits and kicks. They would like time to develop a coherent sense of self so that they wouldn’t feel so coerced and have to resist the directions of others.
What every young child would tell us if they could is to please hold on to them, to not take their actions personally, and to love them despite their immaturity. They would tell us they aren’t out to make our lives difficult and are only being true to the instincts and emotions inside of them. From a child’s perspective, good discipline means an adult still believes in them and knows they will get it right one day. There are many things adults can do to communicate this message to a young child, but this is conveyed most of all as parents generously care for them throughout the most immature period of their life.
THE FOLLOWING TWELVE strategies for attachment-safe and developmentally friendly discipline are meant to help parents lead and assume responsibility for the immature actions of a young child. They are divided into three separate areas: (1) five foundational practices of safe discipline, (2) three discipline strategies that promote healthy development, and (3) four fallback measures for the immature and hard to manage. Following this are special guidelines for handling sibling conflict.
* From Gordon Neufeld, “Twelve strategies for attachment-safe and developmentally friendly discipline,” Making Sense of Discipline, course, Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC (011).
When problems arise that evoke strong emotions in a child or adult, it can be better not to try to make headway in the moment. The best bet is to get out of the situation with the relationship intact and address the problem later. This may mean addressing the violation in the moment by dropping the infraction flag, for example, “Hands aren’t for hitting, teeth aren’t for biting people, and Mommy is not for calling names.” You can then bridge the problem behaviour by moving the child along and focusing on something that conveys a desire to still be with them, such as having a snack or reading a story together. You can also let the child know that you will talk to them later about what happened and set a time to deal with the incident. When a child is most stirred up, the focus should be on holding on to the relationship, as this allows a parent to deal with a child when emotions have diminished in intensity.
Instead of trying to make headway, aim to do no harm.
1) Address the violation simply (if necessary).
2) Bridge the problem behaviour.
3) Attempt to change or control the situation (NOT the child).
4) Set a date to debrief or address the problem.
5) Exit sooner than later.
* where emotion is involved
Figure 10.2 Taken from Neufeld Discipline That Doesn’t Divide course
One of the biggest challenges adults face in managing difficult situations is to do no harm to the relationship and to back off from dealing with a child until they have a better hold on them. Many parents feel compelled to address things head on rather than pull a child closer, the fear being the latter somehow rewards a child or they “get away with it.” Dropping the infraction flag signals that something is not okay, and talking to them later ensures problems are addressed. The fear that a child will get away with something is a remnant of a behavioural/learning approach in which children need to be taught to act mature instead of becoming mature through healthy development.
One mother explained how she put these guidelines for handling incidents into practice:
My three-year-old spilled her milk on the floor on purpose after I told her she couldn’t have another cookie. I was so mad, I told her to clean it up and she screamed, “No!” I was so furious, I said, “You will clean that up!” She yelled back at me, “No!” I could feel my frustration escalate to where I wanted to rub her nose in the spilled milk. I got scared by my strong reaction, so I just said, “Everyone out of the kitchen. This isn’t working anymore. You will clean up the milk later. We are leaving.” I started to walk out and my kids followed me. I ended up in her room, so I started to read to them. My kids came over and sat on my lap, and as I read, I felt the warmth of their bodies and was reminded of how I love to cuddle with them. As my frustration came down, I could engage with my daughter better and told her we needed to go back to the kitchen and we would clean up the milk together. She readily agreed.
1) Don’t try to make headway in the incident.
2) Engage the attachment instincts before going to work.
3) Nurture and safeguard the child’s desire to be good for you.
4) Know your limits and work within them.
5) Bridge whatever could divide.
Figure 10.3 Taken from Neufeld Discipline That Doesn’t Divide course
Young children engage with only one thing or person at a time, so their attachment instincts are not always aimed at the adult who is responsible for them. Collecting a child before telling them what to do helps establish the adult as the one to lead and harnesses the child’s motivation to be good. Collecting requires getting their attention in a friendly way, as discussed in chapter 4. Collecting a child is important after any separation, such as sleeping, being away at preschool, or playing on their own. Preschools use circle time to collect young children and determine who is following along and who needs some attention in order to attend better.
Collecting a child before giving them direction seems simple but is easily missed in the hurried pace of family life. Parents are frustrated when young children don’t come when called, like at dinnertime, time to leave in the morning, or the start of the bedtime routine. Collecting a child before directing them, especially when cooperation is required, is an effective way to avoid the frustration and resistance that comes when young children feel pushed and not attached to their adults in the moment.
While I was at an indoor play park with my children, a friend asked me for advice on how to get her child to leave. Her three-year-old was having a lot of fun and had disappeared into the tunnels, nets, and slides. I suggested she would need to find her son and collect him before telling him it was time to go. She looked at me in disbelief and said, “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?” I asked her to give it a try and she disappeared into the nets and ladders. She was gone for five minutes until I saw her pop out of one of the slides with her son following behind her. He was looking up at her and taking her cues well. She took him to get his jacket and shoes and without a word waved goodbye and was out the door. She told me later that leaving the park and other events had become a lot easier now that she collected her son first.
Many of the popular discipline practices convey mistrust in a child’s intentions and a belief children do not naturally want to be good for their adults. Punishment is given to change a child’s mind instead of considering how their emotions and impulses got the better of them and eclipsed their good intentions. If a child sees that a parent believes they are trying to do the right thing but made a mistake, it will not only protect the relationship but also preserve the child’s willingness to keep aiming in the right direction. This conveys faith in a child they can get it right, tells them they will be loved despite mistakes, and protects everyone’s dignity in the process. As one parent said, “It felt like a miracle the first time I noticed my child wanted to be good for me. Discipline became simple and easy and in fact barely needed.”
Part of dealing with a young child’s behaviour is to know when you are at your limit and there is little caring to temper your strong reactions. When a parent loses their own mixed feelings, frustration won’t be as tempered by caring and the result is less patience and self-control. When this happens, the challenge for a parent is to find a way to do no harm. A parent asked me, “I get that warmth and attachment are important to kids, but sometimes I just don’t feel that way. I am mad, frustrated, tired, and have had enough. What am I supposed to do then?” I replied that caring for a child when we feel least inclined to connect with them means realizing you are at your limit and avoiding actively parenting at that moment. It is about finding a way to take care of yourself and avoiding saying or doing things that would wound a child or create more separation between you.
Parents often ask, “What if I need a time-out so I don’t lose it on my kid?” The key is to find a way to take a break without conveying to a child that they are too much to handle. Telling a child you need to get away from them only stirs up their frustration and alarm. However, telling them you have to do laundry, go to the bathroom, or make a cup of tea, or that you will be right back, doesn’t convey to the child that they are a source of emotional distress and you have lost your desire to connect with them. When you are at your limit, the responsible thing is to recognize it, protect children from it, and find a way to be the parent they need once again.
Bridging is an attachment ritual that helps convey that there is still a desire for closeness when stormy behaviour arises and actions must be addressed. For example, when a child hits, yells, or lashes out, a parent cannot condone these actions, but they can convey that an invitation for connection still exists despite the infraction. In other words, parents can be firm on behaviour but easy on the relationship. For example, George was upset that his mother wouldn’t let him stay at the park. He pleaded, wailed, and went to strike her. She hung on to the relationship and stated, “Mommies aren’t for hitting” and “I know you are frustrated and want to stay.” As he screamed, she said, “I know you are upset,” and started to slowly walk with him towards her car. As she loaded him into the car, she said, “I am looking forward to playing trains with you when we get home.” He screamed at her, “I don’t want to play with you,” to which she replied, “I know you are upset about leaving the park. We will play later.”
The act of bridging problem behaviour also conveys to a child that nothing is wrong with them—they aren’t too mean, too bad, too upsetting, or too overwhelming for a parent. A child’s shortcomings do not become a source of shame or disconnection. Their failures do not set them up for losing a parent’s belief that they are lovable just as they are. Bridging is also an effective way to ensure that a child doesn’t feel they are too much for a parent to handle. When they see that a parent still wants to be with them, it creates faith that the relationship is strong enough to handle who they are. It creates trust in a parent to steer them through tough situations and towards civilized forms of relating.
Sensitive children are more prone to big emotional reactions when confronted with their problem behaviour. It is helpful to give them space while conveying a desire to help them so as to reduce the intensity of their upset. Debriefing of incidents is probably best done after giving things time to settle, even 24 hours for big incidents. George’s mother could have acknowledged later on that he was frustrated at leaving the park and seemed to be having a good time there. She could also solicit some good intentions on his part as to how she wanted him to leave the park next time.
1) SOLICIT GOOD INTENTIONS
Get the child to aim in the right direction.
2) DRAW OUT MIXED FEELINGS
Help the child find the tempering elements that would answer the troubling impulses.
2) COLLECT THE TEARS OF FUTILITY
Help the child find the sadness and disappointment that should come in the wake of encounters with futility.
Figure 10.4 Adapted from Neufeld Discipline That Doesn’t Divide course
Soliciting good intentions is a discipline strategy aimed at getting a child onside and pointing them towards behaving in a certain way. It is a wonderful substitution for consequences, which are focused on extinguishing behaviour after it happens. Soliciting a child’s intentions happens before there are problems and enlists a child’s cooperation when their desire to please is highest. As one parent said, “Whenever I take my kids on an outing, I always solicit their good intentions to stay close to me and hold my hand. I can remember a time when I didn’t do this and they were having a fit and screaming “no” in the foyer at the science centre. I never forget now to remind them of the rules when we go on an outing and to get their agreement first. It works like magic.”
Soliciting a child’s good intentions should work if there is a sufficiently strong relationship between an adult and child between the ages of 2 and 3. A child must be attaching via belonging and loyalty for this strategy to work. If a child is not attached, this strategy could make them want to do the opposite of what is asked because of counterwill. To harness their good intentions, a parent will need to be able to collect the child first. For example, a mother explained,
My kids started calling their grandmother, “Granny with the short legs” to separate her from their other grandmother. When she heard this name, she was upset and said she didn’t want to be referred to by her height. I asked my kids to come up with another name and they said, “Granny with the bad thumb.” I told them it couldn’t be a body part that didn’t work so they said “Granny with the brown hair.” When their grandmother came for a visit I solicited a lot of good intentions from them to call her by her new name and they said they would try really hard. When she arrived, they were right on cue and their grandmother was happy with the name change.
Soliciting good intentions is a powerful discipline strategy that helps a child recognize they are meant to eventually direct their own behaviour. It helps a child grasp the steering wheel for their own life and see there are choices they can make. Of course, young children’s impulses and emotions will get the better of their intentions at times. For this reason, it is important to come alongside their intention—“You were really trying hard to listen”—rather than focusing on whether they were successful in actualizing it.
A young child is unable to mix feelings and thoughts, as discussed in chapter 2, giving rise to impulsive, egocentric, and inconsiderate actions. If development is unfolding well, a child may start to show signs of being able to mix thoughts and feelings between ages 4 and 5, giving rise to a powerful discipline strategy. A parent can try to get this mixing to work outside of incidents when they are debriefing a child. For example, a parent had been through a number of trying nights with her daughter, who refused to brush her teeth. As the mother sidestepped the battles and found ways to reduce the resistance, she started to work on getting her daughter to feel mixed about taking care of her teeth. While talking at bedtime, the mother said, “One part of you does not like brushing your teeth at all.” Samantha, age 5, said, “I don’t like it. Toothpaste is yucky.” The mother said she understood, “but I bet there is another side of you that doesn’t want to get cavities from the sugar bugs.” Her daughter was quiet, so the mother moved on to talk about something else. A few days later, Samantha was yelling that she didn’t want to brush her teeth, so her mother promised to come and help her in a minute. When she arrived, Samantha was furiously scrubbing her teeth with her toothbrush. Her mother was surprised and asked, “Why are you brushing your teeth when you didn’t want to?” Frothing at the mouth, Samantha yelled, “Because I don’t want to get cavities!” When a child starts to experience internal conflict, a whole new level of mature behaviour follows.
It is helpful to draw out mixed feelings after incidents and to allow the child enough distance from an event so that they are not hijacked by strong emotion. The goal in drawing out the tempering element is to put the child in the middle of conflicting feelings and thoughts so as to eventually sandwich them together.
A father relayed the following conversation that happened while debriefing his daughter after a fight with her younger brother:
Father: “Your brother gave you a really big scratch on your face today. I know you were really frustrated with him. Why do you think he was so frustrated with you?”
Katie: “I told him I didn’t want to play trains with him, so he scratched me.”
Father: “He loves his trains, he must have been upset. You got hurt too. It’s hard to have a little brother sometimes, isn’t it?”
Katie: “Yeah, my brother can be mean.”
Father: “Is there a side of you that still likes to play with him and feels sorry for what you said?”
Katie: “Yeah, I still like playing with him and I am sorry too.”
When drawing out the mixed feelings, it is important to collect the child and be in a position of influence. A child’s memory of an event can be used to bring back their experience and create the internal conflict between their thoughts and feelings. The more a parent normalizes and makes room for inner conflict, the more experience a child will have in using this to temper their strong feelings as they arise. Working outside of the incidents will translate into better self-control in the heat of the moment.
There are times when a young child is up against the things they cannot change, such as not getting to stay up late, not being able to have another cookie, or having to share toys. Instead of imposing consequences, applying sanctions, or alarming a child, a parent can simply say no, offer comfort, and collect the tears of futility, as discussed in chapter 7. There are times when the best discipline strategy is to present what won’t work, can’t work, and shouldn’t work.
As a child becomes more willful, their encounters with futility and the need to collect their tears will probably increase. For example, a mother relayed the following story about her two-year-old child:
We were at the beach and I put a sun hat on my daughter, but she kept taking it off despite trying to distract her. I put it back on her head and said, “No, we need to wear our hat.” She looked at me and tore it off again. I said, “No” and put it back on her head. This went on for about 20 minutes and she cried and screamed. I was patient with her, telling her I understood she was frustrated, but decided this was a good time for me to collect her tears about a hat that needed to be worn.”
These small encounters with futility are helpful in setting the stage for the bigger issues that will come.
When a child is consistently getting into trouble, the best discipline strategy is to put them under the watchful eye of an adult who assumes responsibility for guiding their interactions and dealing with their behaviour before it becomes a problem. For example, putting kids around a sand table with a child who is full of attacking energy only sets someone up to get hurt. If adults know there will probably be a fight, then supervision is required to help the children share and take turns.
If a child doesn’t move to caution and displays little fear, it is only adult supervision that helps them stay out of harm’s way. If they fight consistently with their sibling or other children, then they can’t be left alone. Adults need to compensate for a child, particularly one who is easily emotionally stirred up and struggling. If a child is unpredictable to be around, then an adult needs to be in charge of keeping people safe and protecting the child’s dignity.
1) ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY for the child who gets into trouble.
2) USE STRUCTURE AND RITUAL to orchestrate chaotic behaviour.
3) CHANGE THE CIRCUMSTANCES that control the child.
4) SCRIPT the behaviour of the immature.
Figure 10.5 Taken from Neufeld Discipline That Doesn’t Divide course
Young children are prone to counterwill reactions, so structure and routine can help orchestrate their interactions at times when they are most prone to be resistant, such as when facing bedtimes, meals, and hygiene tasks. When a child adjusts to structure and routine, fewer demands and commands will need to be made to ensure compliance. Structure and routine also help a young child orient and anticipate what will happen each day, making transitions easier and less upsetting.
An adult cannot control a child who is not in control of themselves, though this doesn’t stop many adults from trying. When a child is really stirred up, it is often better to change the circumstances in order to change their behaviour. For example, change the scenery or distract a child, by heading outside or going to play something they like. One father said, “Whenever my sensitive son is tired and grumpy, he is unmanageable. Whenever he starts to go loopy on me, I just try to find something different to do, like read a cookbook to decide on a dessert, play some music, watch a funny video on the computer about animals, or just get him outside.”
Young children can’t read context well, so they are often unaware how to conduct themselves appropriately in certain situations. Adults can give a child a script for their behaviour, including step-by-step instructions on how to act. There are many types of interactions and behaviours that can be scripted, including manners and dealing with peer conflict. For example, a mother of a four- and a two-year-old said,
My children went to my in-laws for a visit and when they returned, my mother-in-law said they had been mean to her dog. My kids have never been around a dog, so they didn’t have a clue what to do with one. I told them the dog was afraid of them and they needed to treat it differently. I asked them what they thought they could do to be nicer. My eldest said, “We won’t put stickers on it. We won’t colour it with markers. We won’t ride it.” Once I agreed these were all good ideas, I got one of their stuffed animals and taught them how to pet and be gentle with a dog. The next visit with the dog went much better.
WHEN SIBLINGS OR young children fight, adults need to assume responsibility for restoring order. There are several principles to bear in mind when dealing with sibling conflict:
What adults need to bear in mind most of all as they discipline young children is that children know much better than they behave. They have desires to be good for those they are attached to, but their immaturity gets in the way. Discipline that is contrived and that uses attachment alarm to change their behaviour courts disaster—it erodes the conditions needed to foster growth and maturity. We cannot lead a child whose heart we do not have. Good discipline preserves right relationships with adults and the soft hearts of young children.