Discipline, Discipline

The Age-Old Technique

Being a parent, I often find it hard to find a method of discipline that works. I value the self-esteem of my children dearly, not wanting to hurt them when I discipline them, yet wanting them both to learn through my discipline.

Don't get me wrong, I am probably on the "sterner" side of parenting. My son is 18 months old and when he touches things that are dangerous, he gets a slap on the hand. I find that it teaches him that those things are dangerous, without him having to hurt himself. This has actually benefitted me greatly, as I no longer have to worry about going over to non-childproofed homes and my own home is not "child proofed" because there is no need for it.

The thing that I found the hardest, though, was disciplining my son for whining and crying. A while ago, my child figured out that, when he cryed, he would get attention, not long afterwards, he started doing it all the time. But, what was I to do? How could you teach a child to stop whining or crying without reason? Finally, out of utter desperation, I found my answer: counting!

Yes, it's true, the age-old method that your parents probably used on you, worked on my child. My husband and I decided on counting to 5. Now, every time our 18 month old starts whining, either my spouse or I will say, "you have 5 seconds to get a hold of yourself." We then proceed to counting to five.

The first time was very difficult. When we got to 5, we had to flick him in the mouth! How disheartening for us! But we only had to do it once! We have never gotten past 3 since!

So, next time you're ripping out your hair due to your child's incessant whining, just give it a try. If it doesn't work, he won't remember it anyway!

Unfortunately, the same can't be said if your children are a little older and they whine. I am not yet dealing with older children, but I suppose time-outs could be inforced? They say a child should only be left in time-out for as many minutes as their age until they reach the age of six. ( 3 minutes for a 3 year old, for example.)

Jude has been having timeouts since he was 6 months old, which, looking at my 6 month old daughter now, I realize was probably much too early (even though it seemed to work).

It's was quite important to us for our son to understand why he was getting his time-out or, when it called for it, his spanking. We try to tell him and explain. For example, if he reaches up on the table and grabs for a pen, we pick the pen up, show it to him and say "don't touch, dangerous" and lightly tap him on the hand (signifying what danger is). If he does it again, the tap gets harder and harder, although it's been a long time since I've had to do that.

The other thing that really bothered my husband and I was when Jude would throw his food off of his tray while he was eating. This would always result in a long clean-up, which can be difficult while nursing child number 2 and dealing with bedtime routine. This is one thing that Jude also gets a slap on the hand for, when he doesn't listen the first time. We found it important to carry out the discipline after the first warning, because when he would get 3 warnings he would just keep going until the third warning, almost like he knew he still had 2 chances to do whatever he was doing.

The trick, for us, was to make sure that our son (as our daughter is still much too young) took us both seriously. I needed to know that I could have respect from him, even when daddy wasn't around and the trick to that was to share the discipline. I am quite proud to say that I have never muttered under my breath, "just wait until daddy gets home." I understand that that could really hinder their relationship, even though there are times when disciplining him seems outrageous, because he can be so darn funny!


Discipline is a hard one for any parent, you really have to understand your child and his or her needs and, in my opinion, spanking really should be reserved as a last resort or for something really awful. Remember, though, if it's something you feel you might regret later, just don't do it. It's better to have a child get away with something than to always second-guess yourself.

Once, my son made me so angry that I put him in his room and left him there for over a half hour. He really was fine and managed to find things to play with, but I knew that if I spanked him while I was angry, I would hurt him. The goal of discipline is to teach, not to harm. Leave the "punishments" at the door, they teach absolutely nothing.

While in Public, it's important that our children don't feel like we would be too embarassed to discipline them.  Even at the young age of 1.5 years, Jude seemed to catch on that we wouldn't raise our voices in public.  We decided that this was not a habit we wanted him to get into.  Now, when we go out for dinner or go to the grocery store, Jude gets the same discipline he would at home.  It is now very rare that we have to slap his hand, but once in a while, we do have to and, oddly enough, we don't get the looks from other adults that we had feared we would get.  In fact, it's almost as though they respect that we discipline our child!  Not exactly what we expected!  We have now concluded that it is not "making a scene" if you have to use your "stern voice" or even slap their hands, we just will not spank on the bum as we feel like that would be disrespectful for Jude.  If he really needed a spanking, we would take him to the car or the bathroom. 



Luckily, since we have started implementing the counting, it is rare that we ever have to discipline him anymore.  I suppose he understands to stop whatever he is doing when the counting begins. 


Please, keep in mind that what I offer is not advice.  I know that every child is different and that parents have different parenting techniques, I love to talk to other moms about their methods of discipline to see if there could be more that I should implement on my kids when the need arises or sometimes, I just need the pat on the shoulder that says that I am not being a tyrant! 

Hope you all got something out of this one! Have a good day!