The True Meaning of Discipline and Why Punishment Does NOT Work…

“Discipline is helping a child to solve a problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem solvers, focus on solutions not retributions.”

L.R. Knost

In 1957, B.F. Skinner, an American psychologist at Harvard University, proposed reinforcement theory of motivation following a series of experiments conducted with mice. His theory argues that reinforced behaviours tend to be repeated, whilst behaviours which are not reinforced tend to die down. He considered free will to be an illusion and argued that human behaviours are dependent on consequences of previous behaviours. In his experiment with mice, a hungry mouse would be in a Skinner box with a lever on one side of the box and electric current on the opposite side of the box. When the mouse would move around and accidentaly knock the lever, food would be provided (positive reinforcement) and if the mouse would go near the area that electric current was present (negative reinforcement), it would be electricuted. Through repeated trials, the mice learned to stay away from the electric current and knock the lever to receive food. This theory can be considered the foundation behind punishment being used as a way to discipline children. It can be done in two ways, applying a negative reinforcement (punishment) or taking away a positive reinforcement.

The Problems with Punishment

There are, however, several problems with using punishment as a discipline method. First of all, punishment does not involve teaching; we don’t teach our children what was wrong with their behaviour and how to replace it with a more desirable one. Therefore, with punishment, the undesirable behaviour is not forgotten but supressed, and it usually comes back if and when punishment can be avoided.

Studies show that punishment fosters dishonesty and cheating. Making mistakes is an inevitable part of not only growing up but also being a human being. The only way of not repeating the same mistakes is to learn from our mistakes. If we punish our children for their mistakes, without teaching them how to take responsibility for their behaviours and make amends, they would cheat and lie to avoid punishment, since they cannot avoid making mistakes.

Children invariably consider punishment as unfair, no matter what they did wrong. There is no child, who would think “Ohh what I did was wrong, so it is fair that my parents punished me for it.” This is why naughty chair is not an effective discipline method either. No child sits on a bench alone and thinks about their misbehaviour and how to rectify it. Realistically, they sit down on that bench, sulk and think how unfair their parents’ treatment was and that the parents do not understand them etc… They feel resentment towards us and this feeling erodes our relationship with them. In turn, they lose their interest in pleasing us and they misbehave even more.

I was raised during the time when punishment being the go-to method for discipline and when I was studying child psychology, the main trend on discipline was still time-out, naughty chair and punishment. When I had my daughter, I relied on these methods to discipline her. The problem with punishment as well as time-out and naughty chair is that they strain your relationship with your child, and every time I gave my daughter a time-out, she became more acrid and resentful. I certainly wasn’t enjoying our relationship, and on top of that I could see that neither of these methods were successful at stopping her misbehaviours. Eventually, I started to wonder if there was a better way to discipline my daughter, a method which I can teach her the right behaviours without putting (too much) stress onto our relationship. When I looked for new sources, I realised that with recent developments in neuroscience, child psychology was slowly moving away from punishment/naughty chair and there were sources that show a kinder, gentler yet more effective way of discipline.

What is Discipline?

Discipline comes from the Latin word ‘disciplina’, which means ‘to teach’. Therefore, the main purpose of discipline is to teach our kids the right behaviours. Recent studies on discipline indicate that punishment does not help teaching children the right behaviours, but helps them become more sneaky to avoid punishment. This should come as no surprise as the human brain and central nervous system is way more sophisticated than that of mice.

According to Dr Tina Payne Bryson and Dr Dan Siegel there are two aims of discipline: a short term aim, which is to stop the undesirable behaviour and a long term aim, which is to replace this misbehaviour with a desirable one. Therefore, discipline is not only about stopping the behaviour but teaching a more suitable and acceptable behaviour. In order to be able to do that we need to have a strong bond with our children so we can have the power to influence them and lead them towards the right behaviours. People, young and old, are more willing to listen to people they like, respect and trust. With this in mind, I believe that we, as parents, should hold our relationship with our children at the core of our parenting and this includes discipline as well.

How does a kinder and gentler way of discipline look in action?

Let’s look at it in a situation that’s quite common in families with multiple children. Let’s say your older child hit your younger one who is now crying and your older one is sulking with anger. The first thing is to make sure everyone is safe. Once we know everyone is safe but emotions are still running high, it is time for us to hold our relationship at the core of our discipline practices. We stay calm (easier said than done, I know) and go to our older one and inquire about the problem, ask questions to understand the issue. It is very important that we are not here to teach YET, we are gathering facts, so we stay curious and listen calmly to what they need to say. At the end of the day, something must have happened to make our older child become angry enough to hit their younger sibling. Our older one is probably telling us how their younger sibling kicked and destroyed the brick tower they had been working on assiduously.

Second step is to empathise with our older one. Generally, empathy can be confused with sympathy and we may think that if we empathise with someone it means we approve of or agree with them. Empathy is merely showing that we see their point of view without agreeing with them. In this case, empathy looks like “Oooh, that must have been hard for you, you worked so much on that tower and you were angry when your brother smashed it into pieces.” We are not telling them “you are right or wrong” here, we merely show some understanding of how they felt at that moment. At any age, when people feel understood, their nervous system calms down and in this case our child is ready and more willing to listen to us. Depending on the severity of the issue, or how upset they are at the moment, we may sit with them and empathise a little bit longer, until they feel understood and finally calm down.

Now, it is time to teach! In other words, enforcing the boundaries! Be brief, a simple ‘no hitting, hitting hurts” would be more than enough for a young child. With an older one, we may say “You were very angry at your brother for destroying the tower you had built, but we do not hit other people.” We do not need to give a long speech about how wrong it is to use physical aggression, or suggest them to use their words instead etc. They know! Even very young children know! It’s just, at that point, they were very angry and they could not make the right decision, because their nervous system was signalling “danger!” and they chose fight between the three possible responses: fight, flight or freeze. We now need to involve our child into the discipline and ask them what would be a better way to handle a situation like this so they have strategies in their arsenal for next time. A short discussion of ideas would be enough.

Last but not least is the repair! Our younger one may be still physically hurt, so our older one needs to find a way to repair the strained relationship. This is also a good exercise of teaching them empathy. We may ask him, how his younger brother must have felt when he hit him and then elaborate on how he can repair the relationship. Depending the age of your children we can help them to come up with their own ideas or we can simply suggest a few. This is how our children learn to take responsibility for their behaviours.

This approach takes much more time than sending our children to their room, taking away their privileges or making them stay on a naughty corner. It takes not only more time but also more conscious effort on our part, especially staying calm throughout the process and implementing the steps. However, once we implement it, we notice that the whole experience is more peaceful. When all is done, there is no negativity in the air… We set a limit, made our point, our kids dealt with it and it is all in the past!

Can this be permissive parenting?

The fact that we are not punishing our children for the mistakes they have done, may be considered permissive. At the end of the day, there is no punishment for the misbehaviour. We are not sending our child to their room, or taking away some priviledges (though there is time and place for these too), but they still learn what is accepted and what is not. Most importantly, we hold a boundary and set a limit!

Permissive parents do not hold boundaries, they do not feel comfortable setting limits. However, kids want and need limits. At any age, kids intuitively know that the parents need to set a firm limit. Even though, they may not enjoy the limit at the heat of the moment, they feel less anxious in the end because they know there is a trusted adult in the room ready to step up for the job of taking care of them. And because we empathised with our child prior to setting a limit, there is no anger or resentment coming toward our way and everybody feels good about the discipline. Dr Laura Markham calls this ‘Empathic Limits’ as we are simply teaching them what’s right and what’s wrong by setting a limit whilst holding our relationship and connection to our children at the forefront of our discipline.

In the above example, the older kid still needs to reflect on what he did wrong, the parents still make sure that the child understands that hitting is not allowed in that family. More importantly, the older kid has to come up with a plan to repair the broken relationship with their younger sibling. In a way, the message we send to our kids is ‘all emotions are accepted, but not all behaviours are” and we, as parents, are here to help them learn how to behave when emotions run high.

Another example, this time with a younger kid, would be a classic playground case. We may have spent a reasonable time in the playground for that day and we need to leave the playground soon. However, our young one is adamant that they need to stay and play; and therefore they are crying, yelling, even lying on the floor and kicking you. A classic moment that most if not all of us had experienced one time or another…

A permissive parent would try to persuade the child and if not successful, let the child stay in the playground. Permissiveness in parenting is about not being able to set limits and boundaries or not follow through those limits. Authoritarian parents, on the other hand, would grab that child, put them into the push chair and leave the playground immediately. You may ask, what’s wrong with that? It is certainly better than letting the child stay in the playground. Having limits and boundaries is always better than not having any at all. However, the way we set and implement those limits is also important and there is a gentle way of doing it, where we can still protect our relationship and connection to our children.

Why the need for this, when I can simply pull my kid up and leave the playground? Authoritarian parenting style demands child’s compliance rather than cooperation. Even though, there will be times where compliance should be demanded (matters about child’s safety), if we always demand it, our children become docile to the authority figures. When they are young, parents are the natural authority figures in children’s lives. When children grow older and become teenagers and then young adults, our authority slowly and naturally decreases. They, on the other hand, would feel the need to replace us with another person in their life whom they will always comply with. For them, this is how it is supposed to be! Also, there will come a time where we will not have the physical or even psychological power over our children to comply with our rules, so it is better to elicit cooperation rather than compliance from very young age.

Back to the child in the playground, a gentle but firm way to deal with this situation would be to tell the child that time is up and that you need to leave the playground. S/he is firmly rejecting your offer, you may try to be playful about leaving the playground, starting a tag game that will take your kid out of the playground. With young children, playfulness is always a good strategy. However, it will not always work. If it does not, just like the previous example, empathise with the child saying “I know you want to stay longer and play more… I do understand you…” and then you can ask “what would you do/play if we were to stay longer?” At this point, your child is probably talking about seesaw, or slides… You may elaborate on that… ask more questions, while you are helping your child walk to the push chair. In a way, if you can not grant what your kid wants in real life, you can always give them as a wish. I always find this strategy fascinating, espescially, how well it works with young children. Remember, if you cannot give it in real life, give it as a wish! Make them visualise and talk about what they wish to do… And gently leave the playground, when it is time!

Sometimes, though, nothing works… Then, while you empathise with you child’s wanting to stay longer and their disappointment, gently lift your kid up and leave the playground. Living the playground is the limit/boundary that you set. That’s enough! Your child knows you are the leader. You do not have to throw threats that you won’t be able to keep -“I will never take you to the playground, ever again!!!”- or punish them by taking away their favourite toy to assert your power. In the meantime, because you empathised with your kid’s disappointment, your child sees you as an ally not an enemy and your relationship is still strong and s/he is more willing to cooperate.

I believe it is a relief that there is a way of disciplining our children that feels good to us as well to as our children, as discipline is an integral part of parenting. When it is done in a way that puts stress onto our relationship with our children, it may take the joy out of parenting. The best part is the more we discipline our children this way, in time, we will have fewer situations that require discipline as we have been helping their brain and nervous system to practice skills like anger management, impulse control and empathy. This way of parenting has certainly helped us with our daughter.

If you wish to read some further sources on this topic:

No Drama Discipline - Dr Tina Payne Bryson, Dr Dan Siegel

Calm Parents, Happy Kids: The Secrets of Stress-Free Parenting - Dr Laura Markham