How to Effectively Discipline Children

This week's article summary is Spanking Is Bad, But Most Discipline Is Too.

The older I get, the more it seems to me that my parents parented me better than I parented my kids. 

In terms of discipline, my parents never spanked me and I can’t recall a time when they yelled and screamed at me. They tell me I was an easy child to raise, yet I wonder if it was their parenting style that helped make me an easy-going kid.

What you’ll see in the article below is that the single most important aspect of parenting is your relationship and communication with your child. 

I always knew my parents were the ultimate authorities but they gave me ample latitude to develop my individuality, and they trusted me to make good decisions. When I messed up, there was never a ‘Come to Jesus’ scene or an attempt to put me on a guilt trip. On occasions they provided unprompted lessons but were never preachy. I went to them for advice when needed yet for the most part I was empowered to control and dictate my own life.

While the article below is meant for parents, its applications are clear for the classroom too: a strong, trusting, honest relationship with your students precedes discipline.

Joe

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A global study has found that spanking children is terrible for kids — and that harsh verbal discipline is, too. What gives?

Good communication is crucial to so many aspects of life. Learning how to effectively communicate with your kids in a calm, non-aggressive fashion, especially when they’ve done something wrong or non-agreeable, is vital for kids’ positive developmental outcomes.

Researchers are now suggesting that verbal discipline often doesn’t work the way parents may hope if parents are “loud and abrupt” when they talk to their children. AKA, yelling at your kid doesn’t work. 

A recent study examined different kinds of punishments related to kids’ behaviors in a sample of 216,000 families from 62 countries. The study looked at forms of violent discipline, such as spanking, and nonviolent discipline, including taking away privileges as well as verbal reasoning, i.e. telling kids what they did wrong. 

Research has continually shown that spanking leads to negative child outcomes, such as aggression and distraction, regardless of the context in which children are disciplined, including country, race and ethnicity, and neighborhood.

But, perhaps a bit more surprisingly, nonviolent punishment had mixed results. Some nonviolent punishment led to an increase in distraction and aggression, but could also an increase in prosocial behavior. Additionally, when parents employed verbal reasoning with their kids, it sometimes led to an increase in aggressive behavior, particularly if the parents used harsh and aggressive language. 

According to Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan, “Positive discipline doesn’t always seem to have all that many positive benefits. It’s more likely that the long-term investments that parents make in children, such as spending time with them, letting them know they are loved and listening to them, have more positive effects than nonviolent discipline.”

Following this study, it would seem conventional discipline and its supposed efficacy are put into doubt. But how should parents discipline their kids going forward? Grogan-Kaylor suggests that parents find ways to make communication with their kids open and accessible, establish structure and figure out a way to remove kids’ privileges in an appropriate way that’s in line with their age and development. 

This study is a reminder that the tone and language parents take with their kids can be just as important as what parents actually say — and is extra encouragement for parents to stay calm even when kids may sometimes test their patience. 

Kids Are Resilient!

 This week's article summary is Kids Can Survive and Recover From Limited Socialization During This Pandemic.

Trinity students have been fortunate in that the majority of them have been at school for the majority of the year. Other children have not been as fortunate and have spent most of the last year learning via a computer screen.

Still, as an eternal optimist, I like the positivity of the article’s message that kids will overcome the challenges of this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Yes, it’s been a challenge for many kids to distance learn from home and to have little to no physical social time with peers. Yet, as the child psychologist in the article says, kids are resilient, have adapted to the limits of the past thirteen months, and will readjust next year as they begin to return to pre-pandemic habits.

There’s more hope and optimism in the air, even though our forward movement comes in fits and starts.

Enjoy the weekend—five weeks from today is 6th Grade Graduation! 

Joe

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Those days of shooing your children outside to play with the neighborhood kids or letting them invite friends over after school will be on hold for a few more months. The fact that an end is in sight, though, is a relief for parents worried about their youngsters' social development during the pandemic.

We learn a lot from others from a very early age. Things like how to share, how to tolerate different people and how to accomplish something as a group. That’s been missing for children not going to daycare, preschool, or regular classes because of the coronavirus.

“It definitely threw a curve into what kids were used to,’’ says Dr. Mike Vance, a child psychologist. Vance says parents shouldn't worry that kids have been ruined by the pandemic. The most important thing is how parents approach the situation. Avoid the “Gosh, it’s horrible, you aren’t getting any socialization,’’ which magnifies what has been lost. Instead, emphasize the positive, Vance says. The tone for that Zoom play date should be, “This is going to be so cool," rather than making it a poor substitution for how you would have done things pre-virus. 

Interactions with one or two other kids is just enough for your child to reach some developmental milestones. Activities can range from a hike or fishing outing if the weather permits to a cooking class or even a movie night. If a Zoom call is all you feel safe arranging, don’t think it has to be a two-hour session. For toddlers or preschoolers, 20 minutes of show-and-tell is enough. “Think of skills they would get in regular social actions and try to recreate that online,’’ Vance says.

Socialization is key at every age, but the amount and type of it is dependent on the child’s personality and the environment they are in. Kids living in the country might not get as much time with friends as someone going to after-school care. Parents know their kids and can usually tell if they are missing time with their buddies. If they seem different and are moping around, Vance says, talk to them about it. “Ask what is going on. ‘You seem down, what can you tell me about that.’ Then, listen. Don’t start firing out solutions. Ask and then listen and then ask again.’’ Try to come up with solutions together, staying within what you deem to be safe. If their answers worry you, talk to the school counselor, a pediatrician or a psychologist.

Don’t apologize for the situation. You are making decisions to keep them safe as well as grandma and grandpa, Vance says. 

Both kids and parents like predictability. The pandemic has taken away a lot of our normal routines but it has also created some good ones. If your children aren’t rushing from activity to activity, that leaves time for family dinners and game nights.

Use this time to enrich your family life, and your child’s confidence and self-soothing abilities. Family activities are just as important as time with friends, and good to continue when things get back to a more normal time, Vance says. “My bottom line: This year is what it is,’’ he says. “You don’t always have to have friends. It’s OK to sit around and read a book or color or help around the house.’’

How to Raise a Gracious Loser

This week's article summary is How to Raise a Gracious Loser.

When I was 11 years old, three pro sports teams I cheered for won championships: Knicks, Jets, and Mets. It was the first championship for each team (and sadly the one and only thus far for the Jets).

I had a blast that year (in fact, I attended both the Jets Super Bowl win in Miami and the final World Series game for the Mets at Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens). With three championships in one year, I expected my teams to win year after year. 

Much to my shock and dismay the next year the Knicks were upset in the first round of the playoffs by the Washington Bullets and the heavily-favored Jets lost to the Chiefs. (I still remember the Sports Illustrated cover that week: Chiefs Paint New York Red!)

In my first year of teaching, I was blessed with an unbelievable 7th-8th boys soccer team. We pummeled every team by 5 or 6 goals. One afternoon as I was bragging to some other coaches about how great my team, the Athletic Director called me into his office where he sternly reprimanded me that while winning was fine, I needed to be a more humble role model for my players as they wouldn’t always win so easily and needed perspective and grace to handle the inevitable defeats they would encounter on and off the field. 

The article below is a helpful guide for how to help kids learn to win and lose graciously.   

I am not averse to competition, but most of us are all going to lose much more than we win. I especially liked the author’s recommendation to guide kids to play the long game and to put a game away for a while if a child just can’t handle losing.

Playing hard and fair then being gracious and humble whether you will or lose is an important life lesson, skill, and habit!

 Enjoy the weekend: Go Jets!

 Joe

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My10-year-old has many wonderful qualities. He’s funny, generous, and curious about the world. He does not, however, like to lose a game. And to be fair, that’s not all that unusual. I think, given the choice, most of us would prefer to win any game we play—otherwise, what is the point of keeping score? But it’s something we’ve had to work on over the years in my home, and I’ve learned a few tricks along the way.

Start with cooperative games: The point of keeping score is to figure out who has won the game, but winning really isn’t the point of playing. Kids don’t start playing soccer when they’re six years old because they want to crush their opponent; they play because it’s fun. So before you start challenging them to a Candy Land duel, introduce them to cooperative games. Preschoolers are a prime age to start playing cooperative games, which don’t pit you against them. Instead, you work together toward a common goal, while still getting all the benefits of practicing things like taking turns, following directions, and honing fine motor skills.

Teach them to play the long game: Something clicked with me recently when my son and I started playing a round of Skip-Bo and he was already bristling before he’d even finished his first turn. Whereas I know fortunes can swing widely and quickly in that game, he was treating every hand, I realized, as its own miniature game. Four bad hands in a row might as well have been four losses to him. No wonder this was no fun. When I put it to him in those words—“try not to think of every turn as its own game, but as one piece of a much bigger puzzle”—it resonated with him in a way that “I don’t understand why you’re already getting upset; we just started playing” never did. If it doesn’t resonate quickly with your kids, point out your own misfortunes as you play, so they can see how the game is playing out from both perspectives. You might say, “Oh wow, I was so far ahead of you before, and now you’re right on my tail!” or “I thought I was going to be able to catch you, but I think you’re too far ahead of me now!” Young kids are often only seeing the game playing out from their perspective, and having you narrate some of your experience (particularly when you’re being a good sport about losing) can help them build empathy for their opponent. The goal is not to make them feel bad about winning, but to remind them that at any given time, if someone is winning, someone else is losing.

Be a gracious loser (and winner) yourself: Once, on a weekend trip with my husband and two good friends to a cabin in northern Arizona, someone accused me of something. The four of us were sitting around the cabin’s dining room table, drinking beers and playing a rousing game of Clue—as adults do—when one of my friends let it drop that he thought I was the most competitive one of our group. Knowing this to be Patently False, I laid out a detailed argument of precisely how I was not the most competitive of the group (which is not at all a competitive thing to do). Since then, I have had to look deep within myself and admit there is a chance I have a slightly competitive nature, which mostly comes out when I play board games or flip cup (but only because I am very good at both). However, really wanting to win and acting in a bratty fashion about winning or losing do not have to go hand, and this is a thing you should model for your kids. Since my son was very young, we have a standing practice that when a game is complete, we shake hands and say, “Good game.” This has been a good way for him to watch me lose with a smile on my face—not necessarily happy to have lost, but happy to have played at all. It’s also a good way to practice and model gracious winning. There is to be no gloating. Kids will, more than anything else, pick up on our cues for how to react when we lose a hand of Uno or, say, when your football team loses a big game (I’m a Browns fan, so...). If you let it ruin your day, they pick up on the fact that winning is important enough that losing means it should negatively affect your mood. Show them how to let the losses, both big and small, roll off your back as much as possible.

Put it away if you need to: Games are supposed to be fun, so if game night is ending in a mess of tears every time, it might be time to take a little break from gaming—or at least from the one game in particular that seems to frustrate them beyond reason (I’m looking at you, Monopoly Gamer). You can always try again once some time has passed, tensions have eased, and they’re ready to give it another shot.