The punishment is fair and effective

 

Be sure to explain to your children what they are being punished for and why. The child trusts you and believes in your justice. If he still has any doubts about what he was punished for, it can undermine your authority. At the same time, I would like to keep you from moralizing too much. If you give a large lecture to the kid on every occasion, he will simply consider you a bore.

 

THE ATTENTION! Try not to forget about the fact that the parents’ example is very important for your child. If you teach him one thing and do the opposite, do not expect him to fulfill your requirements.

 

The famous psychologist Allan Fromm in the book “ABC is for the parents” lists some of the dangers that always lurk where the punishments are applied:

1. It is very often the punishment does not correct the behavior, but only transforms it. One misdemeanor is replaced by another that is still wrong, even more harmful to the child’s mental health.

2. The punishments make the child fear losing their parent’s love. He feels rejected and often becomes jealous of his brother or his sister, and sometimes of his parents.

3. A punished child can develop a hostile feeling towards his parents, and this will create a monstrous dilemma in his mind. On the one hand, the parents are adults, it is impossible to rebel against them in any way; on the other hand, he is still too dependent on them to benefit from his enmity, not to mention the fact that he still loves his parents. And as soon as these two feelings of the love and hatred are united in it, the conflict immediately arises.

4. The frequent punishments somehow encourage the child to remain infantile. He is usually punished for some childish trick. For example, for the fact that he was wet or soiled the pants, has tricked, and first of all for what is not allowed which he cannot do. But the desire to achieve the forbidden does not disappear, and the kid decides that, perhaps, it is not worth giving it up, if he can pay off only the punishment. That is he can do whatever he will want, and after angering his parents, he suffers the punishment in order to pay off, clear his conscience and continue doing the same thing and so on indefinitely.

5. The punishment can help to the child to attract to himself the attention of his parents. First of all the children need the parental love, but, not getting it, they often agree such a pathetic imitation of the love as the ordinary attention. And it is sometimes much easier to attract the attention of the parents by doing something stupid than by remaining kind and obedient all the time.

 

THE ATTENTION! You never should punish the kid in a fit of the anger. The punishment should always follow the offense, but should never exceed the degree of the offense.

 

Unfortunately, there are the situations in the life when the parents, who are against the physical punishment in principle, break down and beat their children. But it is known for whom this becomes a greater tragedy. For the kid or the adult who loses self-respect in this case.

In one popular TV show, the writer Maria Arbatova told about this case from her life. Her children left the house in the morning, and appeared late in the evening, when she had already raised all her friends to their feet, and called all the relevant authorities. And Arbatova tore them out in her heart. But then she felt a burning remorse, she was ready to go to the court herself for the fact that violating the human rights, the rights of your own children. And one of the sons, who by the time of the transfer had already become the solid young man, said with the surprise: “Mom, I forgot about it.”

 

THE ATTENTION! If you punished your kid, not holding back under a hot hand, do not hesitate to ask him for the forgiveness! This will only increase your authority. And this is especially true when you know that you were right. Do not delay for a second; explain to the child what happened.

 

But there is one very important caveat to this recommendation. Some parents start abusing this behavior. That is to punish in a hurry, and then violently put up. This is characteristic of the hot-tempered people, and hysterical ones. The reconciliation creates the illusion of the mutual understanding, but, unfortunately, further shakes the nerves of the parents and the children once more. Again, the kid adapts quickly and begins to use this situation to his advantage. For example, he uses the moment of the reconciliation to achieve the fact that in a normal situation he will not be allowed.

And there is another important aspect. The punishment should be individual that is taking into account the psychological characteristics of the child. It is not necessary to count on the fact that even within the boundaries of one family; the punishment will be equally effective and fair both for the younger child and the older one. That what is appropriate for the older kid can be unclear and therefore is unfair for the younger child.

 

Once a mother of two children is the boys of three and a half and four and a half years old asked me for advice: “What should I do? If the children commit the same offense, I punish and forbid them to watch their favorite cartoons. But at the same time, one kid endures it calmly and with an understanding of the guilt, quickly gets distracted, finds something else to do, and the other child begins to cry, scream, demand and does not sometimes calm down for several hours in a row.”

 

What can I advise in this situation? Select the punishments individually, but so that this difference did not become an additional offense for the children. For one child, the punishment of being deprived of the cartoons was probably sufficient. The boy realized the offense, and the fact that he was doing something else should not mislead the parents about too the lenient punishment. Do not forget that your goal is not to offend the child, but only to indicate his wrong action.

 

Everyone will have to punish their children at some point, even those who think this should not be done. At first, it will be able to seem as if we use the punishments to force the children to obey and correct themselves, but if you look at the essence, we often show our impatience and our anger in this way.

Your child is already an independent person. And it does not matter if he took his first steps or passed his final exams. In both the cases, he is entitled to his own mistakes, his own life experience. “The natural consequence of the disobedience is one of the punishments coming from the life itself, and even more valuable...” Yu. B. Gippenreiter writes. This method was very popular in the Nikitin family. They recommend that the parents give the child a minimal, but still the tangible amount of the experience to make sure that the needle is sharp and the iron is hot. Of course, this method cannot be applied to all the existing prohibitions. But in some cases, it works very well. Its advantage is in the fact that the child learns to acquire a negative experience without resentment, directly remembering and making the conclusions about the essence of some dangerous things and the phenomena. And in such the situation, the phenomenon of “the forbidden fruit” does not manifest itself, when the fact that the parents forbid, only increases the child’s curiosity. In addition, a sphere of the arbitrariness is developed in the kid. He makes his own actions and is responsible for them.

 

THE ATTENTION! If your child faced with the natural consequences of the disobedience, by no means “do not gloat” that is “I did know!”, “Here, after all I told you!” Try always to be the support for the child, find the words of the comfort and the supports.

 

And in conclusion, I would like to remind you that the parents should educate not only their children, but also themselves. What kind of the adult should be to avoid provoking your child to even more disobedience?:

1. Be patient. This is the biggest a virtue that the parents can have.

2. Be able to explain to the kid, WHY his behavior is wrong, but at the same time to avoid the boreness and be very short.

3. Be able to distract and offer something more attractive to the child whatever he wants now.

4. Do not hurry up with the punishments.

5. Be able to express the thanks to the kid for those good actions that he makes. Reward him. The rewards are more effective than the punishments. If you have reward your child for the good behavior rather than to think him usual that alone this will awaken the desire in him to do so and continue for what one more time to hear your praise. Even if it takes more time, this way you can change the behavior of your children completely painlessly compared to the harm that the punishment will bring.

 

Part 6