Discipline For Kids

Teaching your child discipline is all about two things;priorities that you want to instill in your child? Make
Consistency and Clearly defined priorities. Both ofevery single interaction with your child count; they
these foundations for discipline must come from theshould know that you love them and exactly what is
parents or other prominent adult figures in your child'sexpected of them.
life. In other words, developing discipline in children is aConsistency is made up of 3 separate components:
family responsibility and will require an effort onschedule, punishments, and rewards. The first is
everybody's behalf. Your child's behavior will notschedule: the younger your child is, the more important
change, unless your behavior changes.it is that they do the same thing, at the same time,
Most parents have only a vague idea of what theirevery day. This lays the foundation for expectation
child's priorities should be. Before approaching your childand is absolutely essential for a child's development.
to begin the process of teaching discipline or changingEven extra-curricular activities such as martial arts or
their behavior, sit down with your spouse and anymusic lessons should have a daily schedule element.
other adults that frequently interact with your child, andFor example, if your child is taking piano lessons on
clearly write out what you believe your child's prioritiesMondays and Wednesday at 4pm, make sure that
should be, in order of importance. Make sure thatthey also practice their piano on their own (or with you)
everyone is on the same page; if the adults in yourTuesday s, Thursdays, and Fridays at 4pm.
child's life have different sets of expectations; yourThe second piece of consistency is punishment and
child is likely to be both confused and ultimately hurt.reward. Key behaviors need an immediate and
Your priority list needs to be short, simple, and asexpected reward or punishment. Every time you do A,
adults you must commit not to change it for at least aB happens immediately. If you don't use the same set
year. (An example might be: 1-Moral Character. 2-of rewards or punishments your child won't learn,
Grades in School. 3- Keeping your room clean.) If yourlikewise if you don't reward or punish immediately, your
child is under the age of 7, then you must limit your listchild won't learn.
to 3 priorities. If your child is over 7 then you mayOnce these 2 things are in place: Clear priorities and
increase your list of priorities to as many as 5. Never,Consistency of schedule, punishment, and reward: then
ever expect any person regardless of age orand only then can you begin to look for improvement
intelligence to consciously track more than 5 priorities,and ask more of your child. After you have
this leads to confusion and ultimately poor results in allestablished the structure for your child's discipline, the
of the priorities.process becomes one of getting your child to adhere
Even if you are crystal clear in your own mind aboutto this structure and priorities with less and less
what your child's priorities must be, it is still possible thatsupervision from adults. This will bring your child to
your child isn't receiving a clear picture from you.embody the true definition of discipline: knowing what
Imagine that your interactions with your child will makeneeds to be done, and doing then doing it when it
a movie or a story told in the third person. If you onlyneeds to be done. Surrounding your child with other
took video clips of your interactions with your kid,kids who already are disciplined will help tremendously,
would a casual observer be able to paste those clipsbut only after the initial ground work has been
together and clearly and accurately identify theestablished.