Ten ways to discipline your children

By
Salisu Isah Ahmed
TEN MOST EFFECT WAYS TO DISCIPLINE YOUR CHILDREN WITHOUT
BEATING

Brain teaser
 Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the
highest mountain in the world?

Question
 What is the name of the most annoying child you’ve
come in contact with in your life of teaching?
 What was the most annoying thing he did to you?
 How did you handle the situation?

Quotation
 “Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child. Discipline is
guidance. If there is love, there is no such thing as being
too tough with a child.” ~ Bette Davis

THE WHOLE IDEA IS ABOUT
 Modifying children’s behaviour,
 developing their characters,
 protecting their mental health, and
 Helping them develop a close relationship with others.

Session Objectives
By the end of this session, participants should be able to;
 Define what discipline is,
 Explain the importance of discipline,
 Discuss parenting styles
 Analyze discipline techniques

What is Discipline
 Its a system of rules of conduct or method of practice. It is
about developing one’s behavior by instruction and
practice. It’s about learning or teaching self-control.
 Discipline teaches your child to follow rules. It doesn’t
mean just punishing children when they do something
wrong. Instead, it means to teach and train your child from
understanding the right from wrong.

Why is effective discipline important?
effective discipline in children is important for –
 • Teaching kids values
 • Teaching kids to care and understand others
 • Teaching kids self-direction and self-control
 • Helping kids to develop a sense of responsibility
 • Protecting kids from danger and helping them to feel
safe and secure
 • Helping them to adjust well and be happy

Importance of Discipline cont.
 As every child is diverse with different temperaments,
the way a parent/teachers disciplines him or her would
differ too.
 Parents need to consider the age and developmental
levels of their child while disciplining them.
 Some parents use discipline techniques like fear, force,
intimidation, and punishment to discipline their kids
– even for their small kids!

 However, research indicates that these are not effective
discipline techniques for children and may even harm
them. Results show that some kids become bitter,
furious, and dependent on force.
 Some children even manipulate parents when they are
faced with ineffective discipline techniques.

 Studies show that parents who use effective discipline
techniques raise children who are well-adjusted, self-
controlled, self-reliant, and positive.
 Effective parenting doesn’t need physical force to
discipline kids.
 If parents set well-defined rules and explain why the
rules are important, and provide consequences that are
understandable, it works well.

Quotation
 “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but
direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that
you may be better able to discover with accuracy the
bent of the genius of each.” ~ Plato

Difference between Discipline
and Punishment
 To punish is to inflict suffering for past behaviour
 Punishment is not just philosophically bad. It is
actually harmful to brains.
 The brain reacts to the two differently
 Human beings have three brain regions are:
 Reptilian brain – controls bodily functions such as
breathing, heartbeat, digestion, fight or flight reaction
and other survival functions without our conscious
effort.

Difference between Discipline and
Punishment….contd.
 Mammalian brain – also called the emotional
brain, is responsible for strong emotions such as fear,
temper, separation anxiety, caring, nurturing, etc.
 Human brain – also called the thinking brain, is
where learning, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-
making or sophisticated thinking takes place.

Difference between Discipline and
Punishment….contd.
So the difference between discipline and punishment is
that:
 Discipline invokes the Human brain (thinking
brain), while
 Punishment impacts the mammal brain
(emotional brain). It instils fear, high temper,
increased anxiety, less caring attitude…….. .

Parenting Styles
 What is parenting style?
 Your Parenting style means your method of
disciplining a child.
 In general, there are three kinds of parents:
1. Authoritative Parent who is affectionate toward his
or her child, and has very clear expectations and
consequences. It’s the most effective form of parenting.

Parenting Style cont.
2. Authoritarian Parent show less affection towards
his or her child though has clear consequences and
expectations. Such a parent might respond like this,
“because I’m the Daddy, that’s why” to show authority.
It’s a less effective form of parenting.

Parenting Style cont.
3. Permissive Parent provides little discipline but
shows lots of affection towards his or her child. This is
also a less effective form of parenting.
 your parenting style matters.
What kind of a parent are you in class?

Brain Teaser
 Imagine that you are in a boat, in the middle of the
sea. Suddenly, you are surrounded by hungry sharks,
just waiting to feed on you. How can you put an end to
this?

Effective Discipline Techniques For Children
 The discipline techniques you choose would depend
on your child’s age, the type of behavior your child
displays, your child’s temperament, and your parenting
style.

No. 1:Create Diversions
 If your child is less than a year in age, you shouldn’t
ideally be thinking of disciplining your child!
 get your child’s attention by calling his or her name,
offer a toy to play with, or make a funny sound –
anything that diverts or distracts the child’s attention.
 However, parents need to tell their kids what to do and
what not to do so that they don’t harm themselves

Effective discipline cont.
Late toddlers (2-3 years) will struggle for mastery,
independence and sel-assertion at this stage. The
child’s frustration at realizing limitations in such
struggles leads to temper outburst.
 Ignore unimportant and irrelevant behaviour, e.g.
swinging legs while sitting
 Give priority to safety, then to correcting behaviour
that harms people and property…. And so on.

NO. 2:Reward Good Behavior
 this works at any stage your child is in! Parents need to
reward their child after he or she has done something
good, so that the child is encouraged to repeat that
behavior.
 Give a pat on the back of your child, compliment and
praise him or her to show it’s the behavior you want
 It should not be mixed up with bribing a child, which
is given beforehand to motivate your child to do things
that you want – both are very different

Quotation
 “Loving discipline encourages a child to respect other
people and live as a responsible, constructive citizen.”
~ Dr. James Dobson

NO. 3: Don’t Expect Perfection
 No one is perfect, and it’s unrealistic to expect your
child to be well behaved always. If you expect it so, it
might stress your child and he or she might misbehave
just to ease the tension.
 set specific, realistic, and limited goals to help your
child so that you and your child both succeed.

NO. 4: Natural Consequences
 Natural consequences come naturally .
 For example, if a child deliberately breaks a toy or loses
it, the toy is no longer there to play with. Or if a child
leaves a book in school, he or she might be punished
the next day for not completing the homework.
 Here, your child will learn naturally. On the other
hand we have the;

unacceptable or logical
consequence
 Unacceptable or logical consequence is linked to the
behavior of the child. These are times when you’d have to
play a part and create a consequence
 Explain to your child that the consequences are for bad
behavior, and mean what you say. Be firm without
screaming and yelling or abusing the child!
 For example, tell your child that he or she doesn’t clear the
room – he or she will not be allowed to play for 2 days.
Missing out on a free play period or a car drive or any other
important thing can make the child really behave!

NO. 5: Avoid Physical Punishment
 Parents need to remember that corporal or physical
punishment like hitting and spanking can harm your kids.
 Research indicates that spanking may encourage anger,
aggression, and frustration in children and is an ineffective
discipline technique, best to be avoided.
 It teaches them that they can hit or spank when they are
angry too. A child may think that it’s alright to physically
hurt someone you love – they learn the wrong lesson.

No. 6: Present Alternatives
 Be a role model and show your child the alternative
behavior that you want your child to change.
 For example, if your child is yelling, demonstrate as to
how he or she can speak quietly and in a good manner.
 Don’t use ineffective discipline techniques of
punishment as they don’t teach the child what he or
she should be doing – there are no alternatives there.

Quotation
 To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that
way yourself once in a while.” ~ Josh Billings

No. 7:Introduce Time Outs
 Time outs also known as “thinking time”, work well
when you need a break from your child’s behavior or
when you know what wrong the child did.
 Its a break from the tension of the present moment
and involves physically removing your child from a
problematic situation. Time outs shouldn’t last longer
than five minutes

Introduce Time Outs cont.
 You need to make sure you have such a fixed place well
beforehand. It should be a boring and quiet place, and
you should ignore your child till he or she is calm and
quiet.
 Such a place should not be the bedroom where the
child can play, neither a dangerous place like a
bathroom and other such area.

No. 8: Use Grounding
 This is another effective discipline technique for
school going kids and teenagers, where you restrict
your child to a certain place, like his or her room as a
way to punish him or her.
 For example, grounding your child on a Sunday night
as punishment for breaking rules on Saturday about
something you didn’t like.

No. 9:Reinforce The Positive
 Positive reinforcement is better and more powerful
than punishment or negative reinforcement.
 Small rewards like an ice cream treat or car ride can be
more effective than big rewards, like a promise of a
bicycle. Kids might stop trying if they feel they can’t
earn the big reward that has been offered.

Reinforce The Positive cont.
 If your child does something good – don’t forget to
praise him or her. Make your praise specific and
focused on your child’s behavior.
 For example, “Masha Allah, you are such a smart child
– what a great effort, or what a great progress!” Such
specific praises help a child to evaluate his or her own
achievement.

Quotation
 “Children need encouragement like plants need water.”
~ Rudolf Dreikurs

No. 10: Take Away Privileges
 At times there isn’t a logical consequence for a bad
behavior, and sometimes you just don’t have the time
to think it through.
 In such cases, another effective discipline technique
for children for unacceptable behavior is to take away a
privilege.

Take Away Privileges
 Your child should learn that privileges come with
responsibility and he or she needs to earn it. This
technique is effective only when it’s used occasionally.
 For example, if your child doesn’t complete his or her
homework in time, you might take away the privilege of
going out to play for the day.
 Such child discipline technique works best if the privilege
is something the child values, if it’s related in some way to
the behavior, and if it’s taken away as soon as the
inappropriate behavior occurs

Quotation
 “Your kids require you most of all to love them for who
they are, not to spend your whole time trying to
correct them.” ~ Bill Ayers

How to Discipline Teens
 Discipline should be focused on getting the child to do
the right thing on his/her own/willingly, through
defined rules, consequences and positive
reinforcement.

classroom Behaviour Management
Tips
These are done to prevent undesirable behaviour
not to react to them
 Pupil of the day award: create a behaviour chart in
the class. Those who maintain good behaviour should
be put up the chart and be rewarded periodically for
good behaviour.
 Secret symbol: agree one on one with a nutty student
on the symbol you will use to stop him from doing
wrong, this is to avoid calling out names of students
when they do wrong.

classroom Behaviour
Management Tips…cond.
 Ask me tag: an ask me tag can be given to a student
who earns it, the student will be chanced to go round
and help others
 Hand signals: to ask things they want all the time.
Different signals
 Alternatives
 Noise letters/actions: noise on the board, if he
doesn’t stop take away recess time. Quiet apps/pictures

Questions & comments, please
.

Ten ways to discipline your children

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