Discipline/Consequences

[mymakersdaughter]

Well, I'm gonna step into the ring here.
I deal with parents almost on a daily basis as I deal with their children at school and their behaviours. My job consists of consequencing, dealing with, investigating various behavioural issues within my school. I do this day in and day out. I love my job. When I see a child turn around in their behaviour that makes my day.
When talking with the parents they have no clue how to set up boundaries, limits etc. for when their child has behaved inappropriately at school or at home.
I don't have all the answers but God reveals much to me in this area, by no means is it me.
We need to reach our kids before they hit 10 years old. Bascially by the time they are 5, it is said that a child has already learned everything they need in life. So setting up boundaries and limits must be done early.
Prior to working in a school I worked with physically aggressive kids in a treatment facility. I would say each of the kids did not have boundaries set up at home, nor had any limits. When one was placed on them they continued to push to get their way and finally the parent would cave in due to all the pressure exerted by the child.

So in saying all this I am going to give a few guidelines for parents to start with.
The older your child is in implementing boundaries the more difficult it will become. Children do not like boundaries, they will balk and rebel, but you must stand firm.

Have an area for a "time out." A time out is based on inappropriate behaviour, this spot must be separate from other kids, any stimuli (in view of TV, toys, other children playing etc), can be an end of the hallway, top of the stairs etc.
The length of time for a time out is determined by the child's age (ie. 3 yrs. old = 3 mins., 8 yrs. old =8 minutes etc.) A time out only begins when the child is co-operative by standing quietly, not asking to be released. BUT, never release your child from time out UNTIL you have spoken to them about what put them in time out, you must go to them, they must not walk to you. They must tell you what they did wrong and apologize for their behaviour. Only then can they come out of time out. When they are talking to you about what they did, go to their level for eye contact.

NEVER, NEVER get into a power struggle with your child. Many kids will want to do this to gain control. DO NOT JOIN THEM. We have to remember who the adults are, because they can sure get us going.

It is important to reaffirm your child, tell them that you love them but you do not like what they did.

Okay, this is kinda long, if you have any questions please let me know and I will see if I have any type of answers.

Happy parenting.

 

[peeps]

Well. . . hopefully not too late for me, hehe

Well, I'm gonna step into the ring here.
I deal with parents almost on a daily basis as I deal with their children at school and their behaviours. My job consists of consequencing, dealing with, investigating various behavioural issues within my school. I do this day in and day out. I love my job. When I see a child turn around in their behaviour that makes my day.
When talking with the parents they have no clue how to set up boundaries, limits etc. for when their child has behaved inappropriately at school or at home.
I don't have all the answers but God reveals much to me in this area, by no means is it me.
We need to reach our kids before they hit 10 years old. Bascially by the time they are 5, it is said that a child has already learned everything they need in life. So setting up boundaries and limits must be done early.
Prior to working in a school I worked with physically aggressive kids in a treatment facility. I would say each of the kids did not have boundaries set up at home, nor had any limits. When one was placed on them they continued to push to get their way and finally the parent would cave in due to all the pressure exerted by the child.

So in saying all this I am going to give a few guidelines for parents to start with.
The older your child is in implementing boundaries the more difficult it will become. Children do not like boundaries, they will balk and rebel, but you must stand firm.

Have an area for a "time out." A time out is based on inappropriate behaviour, this spot must be separate from other kids, any stimuli (in view of TV, toys, other children playing etc), can be an end of the hallway, top of the stairs etc.
The length of time for a time out is determined by the child's age (ie. 3 yrs. old = 3 mins., 8 yrs. old =8 minutes etc.) A time out only begins when the child is co-operative by standing quietly, not asking to be released. BUT, never release your child from time out UNTIL you have spoken to them about what put them in time out, you must go to them, they must not walk to you. They must tell you what they did wrong and apologize for their behaviour. Only then can they come out of time out. When they are talking to you about what they did, go to their level for eye contact.

NEVER, NEVER get into a power struggle with your child. Many kids will want to do this to gain control. DO NOT JOIN THEM. We have to remember who the adults are, because they can sure get us going.

It is important to reaffirm your child, tell them that you love them but you do not like what they did.

Okay, this is kinda long, if you have any questions please let me know and I will see if I have any time of answers.

Happy parenting.

LOL . .. Happy parenting THANKS . . .why didnt you put this up 13 years ago when I became parent LOL . . .thanks though MMD

Its very important!! Thank you for stepping into the ring for all of us
GBU

Happy Teaching :shade:

 

[Mike]

Michele . Great Thread ! I have a question . How about if the children are saved ? Should not only listen to Jesus and no authority ? OOOOOOHHHHH ! I am bad , but I do love when it all comes around to the truth ! :shade: Mike

Watch out !!! Here come the emails ! :secret:

 

[Theosebes]

Super great thread!

Didn't understand Mike's question though.

I always tell parents "you don't need to shout, you have the power" ...lol

Repetitive behavior works for young children. Repeatedly putting them back in time-out if they come out before ready, but not leaving them in there above their maturity level. (I minute for every hour of their life)

For older children, some misbehave out of boredom and rewards for bad behavior, eg: attention. Boundaries work in a different kind of way. More rewards system works better i find. If you are within touching distance of your child, touch them briefly. A stroke on the arm, a quick sideways hug, a pat on the shoulder, anything but it may help some to feel closer (this doesn't always work with teenagers...lol)

Teenagers it's more of a respect thing and consequences....ouch! That's a whole nother story...lol

Great thread MMD! :thumbs_up

 

[Mike]

Michele . Great Thread ! I have a question . How about if the children are saved ? Should not only listen to Jesus and no authority ? OOOOOOHHHHH ! I am bad , but I do love when it all comes around to the truth ! :shade: Mike

Watch out !!! Here come the emails ! :secret:

Sorry Sis . Just a little joke between Michele and I . :boy_hug: Mike

 

[mymakersdaughter]

I can talk about consequencing older kids as well if you want.

The key for older ones is let the punishment fit the crime. Consquneces must be logical, ie. if they are out past curfew it's not logical to take away tv privileges.

Some kids aren't saved, parents may be. If your child has drunk alcohol and driven your car or their own car but did not get caught by the Police you take the car privlege away for a period of time (a month etc...).
Be awake when you kids get home, see them for yourself before they go to bed. Make eye contact, let them know you saw them.

If your kids are involved in a youth night, go there, have a look at what is going on there. Invite kids to your home, have an ice cream party, host a girl's night or a boys night.

New Year's Eve last year I invited all the teens over for a movie night that I work with in Quizzing. All the parents knew us, they knew where their kids were and were welcome to come too if they wanted. We had one girl come late who went to a party where there was lots of drinking, kids were getting drunk but she left to join all of us. We did some baking of apple fritters, played Xbox. They had a riot. Their parents were so greatful because they could go out for New Year's Eve and knew their kids were safe.

Be apart of your kids life. But remember they are living in your house and they must obey your rules.

 

[Mike]

We do the same Michele . We have a new years thing for all the kids . Mike

 

[Yeshua]

mymakersdaughter

You have a heart of GOLD. First off you give the glory to God which is honest and truthful because he dose inspirer us in ways that we know are from him and not from our own doing.

Second the kind of professional advice you are giving out freely is the same kind people pay thousands of dollars for out in the world when all they had to do was to seek God and find a sister like you.

And thirdly you are the person you are in Christ Jesus the LORD and because you chose to live your life in a walk with Christ you are warm and tender blessing to us all.


Thank you mymakersdaughter, for being who and what you are in the LORD.

Yeshua :boy_hug: :girl: , Sam

 

[Mike]

Very well stated Yeshua ! Michele is offering great advise for the price of one thing ...treasure in heaven ! :thumbs_up Michele , thanks for useing all your qualifications to help us all here at T.J. ! :boy_hug: mIKE

 

[Theosebes]

I can talk about consequencing older kids as well if you want.

The key for older ones is let the punishment fit the crime. Consquneces must be logical, ie. if they are out past curfew it's not logical to take away tv privileges.

Some kids aren't saved, parents may be. If your child has drunk alcohol and driven your car or their own car but did not get caught by the Police you take the car privlege away for a period of time (a month etc...).
Be awake when you kids get home, see them for yourself before they go to bed. Make eye contact, let them know you saw them.

If your kids are involved in a youth night, go there, have a look at what is going on there. Invite kids to your home, have an ice cream party, host a girl's night or a boys night.

New Year's Eve last year I invited all the teens over for a movie night that I work with in Quizzing. All the parents knew us, they knew where their kids were and were welcome to come too if they wanted. We had one girl come late who went to a party where there was lots of drinking, kids were getting drunk but she left to join all of us. We did some baking of apple fritters, played Xbox. They had a riot. Their parents were so greatful because they could go out for New Year's Eve and knew their kids were safe.

Be apart of your kids life. But remember they are living in your house and they must obey your rules.

What a brilliant idea about the New Years Party!......i'm off to start planning...Thank's MMD, you're an inspiration

 

[mymakersdaughter]

Yeshua, I am truly humbled by your post, I do not deserve that. Thank you for your kindness.

Mike, thank you. To me there is nothing greater than a child who makes it successfully in this world.

Theo - Halloween is a big thing here in Canada and USA so I learned from a friend how to combat it. I lite my house up with all my Christmas lights, had the teens over, had Christian music blaring out of the house. Our pumkins had Christian sign on them (kids carved them). Then each of the kids that came to help us had to bring a scripture verse on salvation which I printed out on my computer and we stuck them to all the chocolate and candies we gave out. The kids were at the door handing it out their verses to the kids. The kids I had doing this were teenagers (15 -17). They had such blast and they can't wait to come over again and do it this year. Now some of the other Christian families want to do this as well, start a competition on Christian themes. This year I am going to hand out Christian Tracks about the Message of Jesus.

One piece of advise for New Year's Eve. My teenagers loved cooking fun treats. We made apple fritters, very easy, fun, but the kids did it all. I can get you the receipe for the apple fritters if you want.

 

[mymakersdaughter]

Sometimes parents have to deal with completely disobediant children in their teenage years. This can be very stressful and exhausting.
The rules you have for your kids must make sense. That is important.
Recently I have been talking a parent who is struggle with a child who buys weed. Some of my suggestions for her to deal with this were as such.

If your child can afford weed then they have money to burn and I would charge them rent. May it reasonable - $25 a week. Bring them into adulthood quickly, life is not a game here.
You will get a list of complaints about your decision. Both spouces must be united. You tell them why you do not approve of weed and their drug use - 1. it is illegal, 2. it is harmful (by them not having control of their thoughts and bodies, can lead to addictions of other drugs as the need more of a high then weed can provide) etc...

Know when you need outside professional help. If your child is aggressive, self harms, or abusive, you need to look for other options to get help.

We are raising our future leaders here folks.

 

[danni]

I enjoyed reading this. You make a lot of since. I was thrown in parenting way different than I ever thought. I have two step daughters. Your last post about letting the punishment fit the crime is what we do.

We dealt with it even this last weekend. IT seemed to work well.

Thanks for all you do in your work. IT sounds like you do a great job!!!

Danni

 

[Natashia]

My 6 year old daughter was diagnosed Bipolar. It has really been a struggle for me and my husband to deal with her behavior sometimes. Any advice on how to correct her. She also has Epilepsy. I don't know if its tru but I heard that people with Epilepsy are mean people and I can truely say that after she had her first siezure she has never been the same. I miss my little girl so much. She has changed and not for the good. Please help!!! In Christ, Natashia

 

[alethuo4Jesus]

Thank you for your post Mymakersdaughter, It was very helpful and informative!! I will need to start applying this now, so when my 9 month old starts to understand I will have my plan set! My mom did such a great job raising my sister and I, and I am still so scared that I am going to mess up with my child! I know that fear is from satan, but it is just so weird that this world is not what it use to be and now parents EXCUSE everything their children do!! It is amazing how blind these parents are and how sad that they would rather make the child their friend then to be an actual parent to them!

Anyways thank you again!

God Bless You
LYSIC
Shauna

 

[mymakersdaughter]

Natashia,
One thing I recall about dealing with Bipolar disorder is that there are some issues around feeling loved, one minute they love and show it the next there can be some abuse coming. Behaviour can be in extremes. Let me go thru my books and refresh my brain here. As for Epilepsy people being mean, I have never heard that. Are the siezures grand mal or minor ones?
One thing about Bipolar you need support from others who are going thru it. See if you can find some support groups where you are.

Shauna, a great book I have used with friends is the 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas W. Phelan. Very useful tools. As parents you need a bag of tricks, not everything is going to work perfect all the time. Just don't get down on yourselves. You are not alone.

 

[Natashia]

mymakersdaughter
My daughter has grand Mal seizures. They are pretty much controlled with meds. Thank you for the pm, I will check out the site later.You are so right about the Bipolar thing where the person wants to be loved then the next minute they attack you physically. My daughter would just claw my arms until they bled, and I wouldn't punish her because I didn't think she knew what she was doing. It's like she loved me and hated me at the same time. Medication has brought her a long way but there still are some challenges.

 

[Eve]

People with epilepsy aren't mean. Before I had my son I worked with special needs children who had severe and often multiple disabilities.

If there was any so called 'meaness' it would have probably been because of the other conditions they had eg Learning difficulties, speach and language difficulties etc. Like with babies and very young children, I noticed many children with the above found it very hard to communicate their needs eg that they were hurting in some way. Their fraustration or actions might have easily be misinterpreted as them being mean.

The only thing we could do in a learning capacity was to, make sure they were comfortable, try to teach them methods they could use to communicate more effectively/appropriately and endevour to pick up on their signs and signals more accurately to predict what the problem was. We also made sure that they had clear routines and contsistency.

Healthwise; we had to make sure that the medication was correct for the children and it was closely monitored, the children were following the right diet and weren't having foods that affected their behaivour badly. We also kept a look out for other ailments and outside things that might have upset them prior to us seeing them.

The most important thing was to stay positive.

I hope this helps in some way, God Bless

 

[Popples]

yes children that are misunderstood Ive had that with my son most of his life back and forth to school they would ring nearly every second day.....it sure is hard for these kids