by Dr. Coach Love

It may be wise for you to rethink your parenting practice of relying on yelling and spanking as discipline while your child is young. Review Parts 1-3 for more details. This is particularly true when you consider the overall long-term ineffectiveness combined with the potential long-term negative impacts. You cut off loving communication with your child and lose an opportunity to build influence. You end up relying on a ‘bully’ or ‘fear’ factor instead to carry your message. Is that what you intend?

There are numerous excellent books and models for behavior shaping and disciplining of young children—systems, stars, and charts. Many of these behavior plans can be effective as an alternative to yelling and swatting–if both parents work hard and are consistent. However, when frustrated in the moment (or after a few futile attempts to discipline), it may seem easiest and quickest to yell, swat, and intimidate to interrupt bad behavior. This short-term “solution” will likely generate a long-term aftermath of unnecessary problems.

Here are the first 3 of 12 basic coaching tips, which demonstrate positive Rules of Engagement in parenting:

                1. Challenge the behavior not the goodness of the child.  

·        Emphasize that the behavior is a bad choice and that sometimes good kids choose to do bad things.

·        They don’t have the huge task of changing who they are because they are already good people.

·        They only need to change what they choose to do.

               2. Focus on the positive.

·        “I am glad you completed your homework” rather than  “You would have had it done earlier if you had not fooled around so much”.

  3. Reinforce good behavior as your primary effort

·        “That’s great that you put your backpack in your room.”

·        “Picking up your coat would be a good thing too.”

In Part V, I will continue with #4 through #12.

Check my blog again more discussion. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Regards,

Dr. Coach Love

MORE INFO LINKS: Parenting- http://familyandrelationshipcoachblog.com/2-find-it-fast/

v      I invite your comments below.

v      E-mail your relationship coaching questions to DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com.

v      Questions selected will be edited as needed to reflect privacy,

            brevity, clarity, and general interest.

v      Sorry, Dr. Coach Love is unable to offer any personal advice through this blog. This blog is

      not intended as a substitute for therapy. If you suspect any mental health problems, please seek immediate direct professional services as appropriate.

v      Check out relationship coaching services at www.HireCoach.com.

©       Copyright 2009 P.H. Pickett, Ph.D.  All rights reserved.

            Contact DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com for permissions.

In my last blog on Messages #1 through #3, I provided information on the potential backfiring of specific lessons that seem to come with spanking and yelling. These entries take a look at the negative Rules of Engagement and how they get translated later into problems for the parent/adolescent relationship.

Review the first three and continue with these. Then think about how they could apply to you. Remember, we are talking about the messages from spanking and yelling, which may be interpreted by kids in a way not intended by parents.

Message #4- Escalate the situation to get what you want. When parents resort to yelling or physical contact to gain compliance, they have demonstrated how to escalate in order to prevail.  Have you ever seen a teen or preteen in full blown tantrum mode when they do not get what they want?

Parenting Opportunity Missed: Negotiating and compromising as a means to conflict resolution.

Message #5-Disagreements are win/lose. Adolescents are often described as arguing and pushing back about everything in an aggressive effort to WIN. Where did they learn this? I believe this usually originates early in parent-child relationship patterns, especially when parents get aggressive during attempts at discipline. Aggression from parents usually occurs when they buy into the impossible belief, “I MUST make my child do what I say. They are not going to win their way.”

Parenting Opportunity Missed: Learning respect and tolerance for
differences of opinion and the ability proceed to a solution without
agreement.

Message #6-Power struggles are necessary. Teens and preteens adapt this negative rule of engagement with parents when they persist in an angry power struggle in an effort to wear parents down in a manner similar to the way their parents wore them down as a younger child. It can become the survival of the ‘stubbornnest’.  Is that what you are going for here? Trying to strip your child of power is counterproductive.

Parenting Opportunity Missed: Preserving individual rights for choice, taking responsibility for decision making, limits on personal empowerment, and acceptance of natural consequences.

In Parts 4 & 5, I will offer more parent coaching tips. Check back over the next few weeks in my blog for more discussion on yelling and spanking as discipline strategies. What do you think?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Regards,
Dr. Coach Love

MORE INFO LINKS: Parenting- http://familyandrelationshipcoachblog.com/2-find-it-fast/

 I invite your comments below.
 E-mail your relationship coaching questions to DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com.
 Questions selected will be edited as needed to reflect privacy,
brevity, clarity, and general interest.
 Sorry, Dr. Coach Love is unable to offer any personal advice through this blog. This blog is not intended as a substitute for therapy. If you suspect any mental health problems, please seek immediate direct professional services as appropriate.
 Check out relationship coaching services at www.HireCoach.com.

© Copyright 2009 P.H. Pickett, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
Contact DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com for permissions.

By Dr. Coach Love

In Part I, I suggested that your intentions may sound good— but doubted that your yelling and swatting actually teaches your son to behave. It works to stop him in the moment—which might sound like a good idea at the time. I asked you to consider the 6 relationship messages embedded in the discipline situations you describe. I call these negative Rules of Engagement.  If you missed it, you can check back in Part 1 to review the discussion.

Not only do spanking and yelling bring negativity to the parent-child relationship, when your seven-year-old is older and you disagree, he may imitate and adapt those messages to disrupt your attempts to parent him. There are many examples of how this negativity can sidetrack discipline efforts, shift the power balance away from parents, and damage the parent/teenager relationship. Think about these future possibilities, which are influenced by regular discipline patterns of yelling and spanking.

Consider also what parenting opportunities are missed as a result of yelling and spanking. 

Message #1- Bigger hits littler. Often adolescents with a history of corporal punishment and yelling from parents become aggressive or violent with peers or younger siblings when disagreements need to be settled.

Parenting Opportunity Missed: Demonstrating communication tools

needed to discuss and resolve.

Message #2-Anger justifies violence. Teens learn to cope with anger by becoming unapproachable or hostile with profane language and verbal abuse. They may become out of control during arguments and discipline encounters.

They may even act out violently toward parents.

Parenting Opportunity Missed: Modeling how to manage and express

anger appropriately.

Message #3-He’s a bad person.  When a child is on the receiving end of yelling and spanking, self-esteem is often diminished. Later, as preteens or adolescents, they are more likely to strike out to preserve their self-esteem.  Older kids, in particular, are known to yell to their moms and dads they hate them and that they are bad parents. That is how they interpret what they learned. (And if you are struggling with your parenting, you may already feel like one.)

Parenting Opportunity Missed:  Valuing individual self-worth.

In Part III, I will continue with #4 through #6. Check my blog for more discussion on yelling and spanking as discipline strategies. What do you think?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Regards,

Dr. Coach Love

MORE INFO LINKS: Parenting-http://familyandrelationshipcoachblog.com/2-find-it-fast/

v      I invite your comments below.

v      E-mail your relationship coaching questions to DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com.

v      Questions selected will be edited as needed to reflect privacy,

            brevity, clarity, and general interest.

v      Sorry, Dr. Coach Love is unable to offer any personal advice through this blog. This blog is not intended as a substitute for therapy. If you suspect any mental health problems, please seek immediate direct professional services as appropriate.

v      Check out relationship coaching services at www.HireCoach.com.

©       Copyright 2009 P.H. Pickett, Ph.D.  All rights reserved.

            Contact DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com for permissions.

By Dr. Coach Love

I am frustrated and impatient with my own parenting toward our 7-year-old son. He’s very fun and lovable most of the time, but when he gets whiny, overactive, or throws tantrums, I can’t get him to stop until I get loud, angry, and mean. Sometimes I have to swat him on the rear to get his attention and teach him to behave—until the next time. That’s the way my parents did me and the only way I know that works. I don’t believe it’s right, but what else is there to do that works?

________________________________________________________________

Occasional bad behavior is inevitable for most kids. In fact, to some extent, all people, not just kids, are both fun and lovable and difficult to be around at times. Most relationships are not EITHER/OR but rather BOTH/AND. They have both a down side and an upside.

Your intentions may sound good BUT…. What you seem to be accomplishing is a temporary interruption of his bad behavior triggered by your bad behavior. You did say, after all, that you do not think that what you are doing is right.  But you are allowing your son to lead you into bad behavior. True?

Ask yourself— Is your goal really achieved? You conclude that your yelling and swatting works to teach your son to behave? I cannot see how. Among the lessons you are probably teaching him are negative  Rules of Engagement. Consider these 6 lessons embedded in the discipline situations you describe. Are these what you intend?

1. Bigger hits littler.
2. Anger justifies violence.
3. He’s a bad person.
4. Escalation of a situation gets you what you want.
5. Power struggles are necessary.
6. Disagreements are win/lose.

The negative Rules of Engagement you are demonstrating to him now when he is 7, can turn on you in the future when he is bigger in size and/or less fearful of you. When he is a teenager and you disagree, how might he put what he learned from you to use? What do you think?

Check my blog for Part II and more discussion. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Regards,

Dr. Coach Love

MORE INFO LINKS: Parenting- http://familyandrelationshipcoachblog.com/2-find-it-fast/

      I invite your comments below.

v      E-mail your relationship coaching questions to DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com.

v      Questions selected will be edited as needed to reflect privacy,

            brevity, clarity, and general interest.

v      Sorry, Dr. Coach Love is unable to offer any personal advice through this blog. This blog is not intended as a substitute for therapy. If you suspect any mental health problems, please seek immediate direct professional services as appropriate.

v      Check out relationship coaching services at www.HireCoach.com.

©       Copyright 2009 P.H. Pickett, Ph.D.  All rights reserved.

            Contact DrCoachLove@HireCoach.com for permissions.