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What I'd Tell a Younger Me About Disciplining Kids {Episode 196}
703 Plays2 years ago
The word "discipline" gets a really negative rap but all it means is teaching our kids orderly behavior and self-control. We don't want to raise robots, we want to raise self-aware, disciplined members of society who understand that, good or bad, there are always consequences for our actions.
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Transcript
Introduction to Outnumbered the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Discipline in Parenting: An Overview
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, hello friends. Welcome back to an episode of Outnumbered. Today we're talking about discipline, which sounds so scary and mean, right? How we're going to discipline our kids. We're going to talk about it in a little bit of a different, some different insights. And mostly we're talking about that ever present frustration of just trying to get your kids to a way, just trying to get them to listen.
00:00:54
Speaker
Right. And this is also in our What I Tell a Younger Me series. So it's like what we would tell our past selves when we were first trying to get this discipline thing figured out.
00:01:04
Speaker
All right, but first of all, you guys, we got a new review. And just to remind you, we love it when you leave a review because this helps us get this free podcast out to other moms who are hopefully maybe looking for advice like you are. And so we appreciate every review because that's one way that you can help spread the news about our podcast. So this is from So Make Me.
00:01:27
Speaker
It says, thank you ladies. Not only do these two inspire me to be a better mom, but they inspire me to be a better person with so much negativity and contention in the world. It is refreshing to hear their perspective. Okay. Thank you so much. That means a lot.
00:01:45
Speaker
So sweet. Yes, we love reading those.
Defining Discipline
00:01:48
Speaker
Thank you so much. Okay, so every time we talk about a new concept here on the podcast, we love to start with a definition because it kind of gets us all on the same page, right? And there's quite a variety of definitions for the word discipline. It is a very interesting word. The ones we want to focus on are three. The first is control gained by enforcing obedience or order. That's kind of what we're trying to do as mothers, right? Is enforce some sort of obedience or order in our household.
00:02:13
Speaker
An orderly conduct or a pattern of behavior kind of what we're trying to help our kids set up for their future Right in their adult life some sort of orderly pattern of behavior and then also self-control There were a few other definitions that didn't apply as much and one was punishment. That's not what we're talking about We're not talking about how to punish your children when they disobey but rather how to exact this order that we're trying to accomplish in our homes Wait, we're not punishing our kids
00:02:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, you can punish. We're just not going to talk a lot about exactly how today. Okay. So basically we're teaching our kids what it looks like to have rules and to learn how to follow. So basically be a member of a decent member of society. Right.
00:03:00
Speaker
Um, it teaches them to create order in their own lives and to follow laws, like think about religious and society norms. I always think about when I'm, when it's nighttime and I'm driving through a town and there's stores that have produce displays or, you know, whatever kind of displays outside, um, you know, the grills at Home Depot or whatever. I'm like, you know, basically we live in.
00:03:23
Speaker
a country with a lot of rule following disciplined people, because those girls are still there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we want our artists to be some of those kind of people.
Cultural Insights on Discipline
00:03:37
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. I've actually lived in and traveled to other countries where a lot of that is not the same, that a lot of things are nailed down, like everywhere. One thing that was very surprising to me when I lived in Russia was that grocery stores, as we know them, don't really exist. You can't walk down aisles of food and just pick up what you want. For the most part, at least in the areas I lived, you walk into a store and there's like a counter, kind of like at a prescription drug store, you know,
00:04:04
Speaker
Um, you go up to the counter and you tell them what you want and they go back and retrieve it and bring it to you. Everything is like that, which was really frustrating for somebody who didn't speak the language. I'm like that thing. I want that thing right behind you. Um, but they just, that was just how they enforce, um, you know, honesty and keeping people from walking away with stuff. So very interesting.
Encouraging Self-Discipline in Children
00:04:24
Speaker
Okay, so we are going to focus on four different ways to maybe improve the way we are teaching discipline to our children. A little bit of a paradigm shift for us. We hope that by implementing these, we will raise these intelligent, self-disciplined children. Yeah. And first of all, I want to say what I would tell a younger me just in the broad general view about discipline is it's worth it. Keep it up. They're not going to thank you now.
00:04:55
Speaker
But for the most part, when they grow up, they are really going to be thankful for the, how you helped them bring order into their lives. And that is like, that's worth it. And they don't see that as the big picture when they're young and learning discipline, but they'll thank you for it later. All right. So we're going to start out with the first one, which is we want kids that govern themselves.
00:05:20
Speaker
We don't want to be doing this for all of our children, all of the rest of our lives. The main focus of teaching discipline to our kids should be to teach them how to be self-disciplined, to have that come from the inside. So something that I say to my kids all the time is,
00:05:42
Speaker
You can choose to find from inside of yourself the way to deal with the situation, to discipline yourself in this situation. And if you can't find that or you can't manage that, then I from the outside have to apply external discipline to get you to do the thing. But either way, we're going to end up at the thing that we're aiming at. It's just whether you choose to do it from the inside or I have to get you there from the outside.
00:06:08
Speaker
I love that little blurb that you just lead with, right? Because eventually, hopefully each child will get to a place and maybe it's when they're six and maybe it's when they're 16 or 60, I don't know. We all progress at different rates where they will say, actually, I don't want to be disciplined by a parent or the law or anything outside of me anymore.
00:06:26
Speaker
I want to be in charge of my own life. And granted, maybe some of us want to do things that we'll never be able to do, like go run off with a grill from Home Depot. But I'm sorry, that's not the world you live in. So unless you choose to govern yourself, you will be governed upon, acted upon, and that's when life gets kind of miserable. So great for them to learn that so early on, that they still have a choice. I love telling my kids that too.
00:06:50
Speaker
They say, well, what does it matter what I choose? You're still going to force me. I said, no, there's literally no way I can force you, especially when you're a 17-year-old boy, right? Bigger than me. Get down here and listen to me, right? That's right. Sit down so I can look at you in the eye. But you have to know that these rules are very important to me. And if you choose not to abide by them and still live in my house, then other things are going to happen. There will be consequences. We'll talk about those in a minute.
00:07:18
Speaker
Let's just say up front that we really don't want mindless robots. I know sometimes that sounds really nice. You just like program something and they do it for you. No, that's not really what we want. We want to raise these beautiful, intelligent creatures into the best versions of themselves. So we want them asking questions and maybe even pushing back a little bit. Like, why? What's the point of that? And we need to take the time and have the patience to be able to explain. Not all the time, but as much as possible so that they understand our reasoning, we're just not being dictators.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah. And I would even say that some of your kids, if you have as many kids as we do, you probably have at least one in there where it's going to take more self-discipline for them to ask the questions and to push back and to not be the mindless robot. For them, for some kids, it's just easier just to do it. Okay. So like a people pleaser is just, okay, okay, fine. Just do it. Right. And to also work into them, it takes more self-discipline for them to ask the questions and to
00:08:19
Speaker
disagree and to do the pushback
Consistency and Communication in Parenting
00:08:23
Speaker
a little bit. Like we're not training robots, like you said, that's not what we want. So that being said, it is absolutely okay and often important to require obedience just because you're the parent, because I said so, right? It would be exhausting and frustrating to explain every rule you have, but also dangerous for your kid. We have a rule that you have to
00:08:47
Speaker
look both ways and hold mommy's hand if you're under a certain age as we go through a parking lot or across the street. If they disobey that lot, that is downright dangerous for them. And I don't have to, in the middle of a parking lot, explain why they have to hold my hand. It doesn't matter me holding my hand. Because it's their life. It's their safety. And that's why we have some of these rules.
00:09:08
Speaker
and I don't have time in the middle of the parking lot or as I'm retrieving them out of the middle of the road to explain, to have a five-minute conversation about why we obey mommy. No, get over here now because I said so. We'll talk about it later. Yes, absolutely. And as we go through these, we need to remember that it's important that our children respect us as the adult that knows what's best. And sometimes we can get in this rut of commanding and all things. And that's not where we want to be because then our children either
00:09:37
Speaker
become the mindless robots, like you're saying, Audrey, the people pleasers, or they rebel unnecessarily and put themselves in danger. So in that instance, I do try to say yes in a lot of instances where my kids are asking me to do things and not just always be the jerk parent that never lets them do anything, but when it really is a matter of safety or caring for our home or treating each other with kindness, that then I do am able to sit down and explain that when it's appropriate.
00:10:04
Speaker
Right. There also comes a time, let's admit, as in the evening or as exhausted or overwhelmed, that it's okay just for your mental sanity to say, because I said so. You can't be the constant, never explain anything, but it's okay for your own mental sanity to sometimes say, because I said so. That's why. Right. Yeah. And for them to respect that. Yeah. Yeah. And the value of having them respect you enough to just obey because you said so.
00:10:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm, yep, great. All right, so number two is that disobedience should always end in a consequence, okay? Consistency is key when training children. That's what we're doing, we're training children, just like you train animals, right? Only children are a lot more complicated. There's a lot more to think about. But if disobedience does not end in a consequence, then that gets really confusing for children. Yes.
00:11:00
Speaker
With that in mind, though, never require, so you're going to be consistent. You're committed to that. You've got to have a consequence. Follow an action. Don't require something. Don't make the consequence something that you're not willing or able to follow through on. How many times have we said something that was just really, if you do that again, I'm going to throw you out the third floor window. Okay. Actually, not going to be doing that. That's where they get this, yeah, right, mom attitude.
00:11:27
Speaker
Right. You know, at least until the kids are old enough to obey regularly, it is a lot like training an animal, a dog. It just is. Yeah. Yeah. Like one of my kids, I remember I had to train them not to dig
00:11:41
Speaker
dirt out of the plant. That was for their safety. And we just had to, that was just a training thing. They couldn't understand why. I couldn't explain it to my toddler why eating dirt out of a plant wasn't a good idea for you. It just had to be training at that point. Okay. So in these instances, I've been there, you guys, when my kids are being crazy and I just come out and I'm so upset and they're all being naughty and I want to just start doling out consequences like, and you're going to do this and you're going to do this. But I realized that
00:12:09
Speaker
in training, like who does most of the work when training a puppy? It's not the puppy. It's the trainer, right? So I'm the one that has to be really disciplined in keeping my children on track and making sure they follow through with those consequences. So sometimes I will say, that was inappropriate. I need you to stop right now and I'm going to come up with the consequence for you. And that allows me some time to calm down, then some time to calm down.
00:12:31
Speaker
And then we can come to agreement on what that consequence is going to be. It's so much better than just doling them out willy-nilly and coming back and going, no, there's no way I'm going to make you be grounded for a month because I can't keep up with that or whatever it is. Another side of this is that because I want to be consistent with my follow-through, I try to never ask my kids for any favors that I'm not willing to administer a
00:12:54
Speaker
consequence for if they don't follow through. So for example, I will ask them for a favor like, hey, can you go fetch this thing for me? But if it's a seven-year-old who's feeling kind of naughty that day and doesn't want to do it, I'm not going to impose a consequence for that. Does that make sense? Because it wasn't a command. It was just, could you please help me out with this? I'm just going to chalk it up to her being sassy that day and move on. So I try to make sure that when I issue a command or a rule, I am 100% committed to following through on that consequence, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So look at it this way. Consistency for kids
00:13:23
Speaker
means safety. And sometimes they push a boundary to make sure it's still there. It's not because they're being naughty or disobeying. They just want to make sure that it's still safe, that the boundary is still here, that they're not going to, you know, the fence hasn't moved and now they're going to fall off the edge of the cliff or whatever.
00:13:39
Speaker
Consistency is safety for kids. Think about it like this. Imagine if adults were only sometimes prosecuted for theft or murder. Like, you could just, you know, take your chances. Crime would run rampant because, you know, maybe, hey, maybe, maybe they'll get away with it. Maybe there won't. So consistent, like for adults, that's not, it's not a safety, you know, consistency is a safety thing, but for kids, it really is.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's how their brains work in order for them to feel safe and able to trust other people they need to know what's acceptable and what's not. Yes, totally, building trust. They can't trust you if you say something and don't follow through on it, if you're not consistent with those follow-throughs. How can they trust you? Right, exactly. Okay, so number three, make sure that there's lots of communication going on before, during, and after a rule breach where appropriate.
00:14:32
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. You have to make sure your child is very familiar with the rule and the potential consequences for breaking it. Talk through the thing. Have you ever heard your kid say, but mom, I didn't know that we weren't allowed to stick our gum in our sister's hair. You've never said that's not a rule.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's when they get a little older and they're like looking for loopholes and everything. And you start saying things you never thought you'd say that we have a family rule that you don't put gum in anyone else's hair, right? How many times have we said that? Oh, wait. Never.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, so it is totally acceptable to issue warnings as well. I will say this. Sometimes kids are just not paying attention or they're just being careless or they're just being kids. So I will come across a situation where a child is being disobedient and I'll say, oh, remember, we have a rule that we don't play on the furniture like this or that we don't treat other people like this.
00:15:32
Speaker
There's your warning. The next one will be accompanied with a consequence. Because honestly, if I was doling out consequences every time somebody misbehaved, then my kids would never see the light of day again. So I'll go in. I'll make eye contact with them. I'll make sure we're communicating their hearing and listening to me. And I am speaking calmly. We understand each other. And then I allow them another chance to either fix their behavior or misbehave again, and then they get the consequence.
00:15:56
Speaker
Right, right. And here's a mom tip, something I do so often with my kids. I state the rule, I state the consequence, and then I have them repeat it back to me. Because once they've said it in their own words, they can't say, oh, I didn't hear you. Or I didn't understand. Because once they've said it back to you, then they heard and they understand. Or you can catch if they don't understand. By the way, they say it back to you.
00:16:22
Speaker
So that is something I learned to do early on. Good, good
Discipline as Love and Growth
00:16:26
Speaker
mom tip for you. I'd maybe have taught my younger self that a lot earlier. Have them repeat it back to you because then you know they're listening and you know that they understand. So that's part of communication. Are they listening? Do they understand? You know, this is very child specific. We expect different behaviors from different children, even if they're the same age. It doesn't, it's not like an age thing. It's,
00:16:49
Speaker
It's child specific. And often you get, you know, you get, and especially in our big families, we get the older kids saying, oh my goodness, you totally would have grounded me for three weeks if I'd have done that. Yep, be prepared for that one. But, you know, maybe you don't need to ground the younger one for three weeks because they have these other siblings that are kind of helping herd them in and reminding them of the consequences. So you don't need to be the, you know, the big bad guys standing there doing the consequences. So
00:17:17
Speaker
Like life has changed from the beginning, the first child to the last child. So it is child specific, not age specific, necessarily every time.
00:17:29
Speaker
Right. Very developmentally appropriate consequences and communication. Another note I wanted to make on the communication is that you get to a point with these teenagers that they should be governing themselves in most things. And if you have to step in, I really feel it's appropriate for the child to be a part of deciding the consequence. Obviously, it's not going to be the same as if a seven-year-old were to do that transgression because they have totally different developmental levels.
00:17:59
Speaker
But if my 17-year-old does something that he knows is against the rules, I'll have a conversation with him and say, that wasn't cool. What do you think needs to be your consequence? And sometimes they're pretty strict with themselves. I think we just talked about this on another episode. Sometimes they're really hard on themselves. I'm like, oh, okay, sure, let's do that. But it just gives them a chance to reel themselves in because in another couple of years, they're going to be out of the house and doing that for themselves, right?
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, just remember that you're, you're working toward the goal of having them being disciplined from inside so like with this communicating if you're communicating with them before turn after you're trying to start this internal conversation going on in their heads where they can
00:18:37
Speaker
you know, see something coming up that they know they need to discipline themselves and they can internally in their mind start this dialogue. OK, I know this thing and I know this. If I do this thing, then these are going to be the consequences before you even get there before it happens. So you're actually practicing for that self discipline later for that by starting this internal dialogue. Right. And you can you can share with them things that you might do to discipline yourself. So, for example,
00:19:03
Speaker
Let's just say they're unkind to a sibling. For a teenager, you could sit down and say, I know you know better than that. I know that you're probably not happy with that behavior. What do you think would be the best step to making that right? What would an adult do? Adult probably wouldn't go put herself in the corner or ground herself, but she might try to make amends, go to the person, give them a hug, apologize.
00:19:25
Speaker
to have these more adult friendly opportunities to make things right after they've misbehaved. Okay so number four probably should have been number one but we wanted to leave you guys with this one and that is that
00:19:42
Speaker
Every chance to discipline your children should also be a chance to extend love and connection to them. Because if your child is going to obey you, it's because they love you. They could also obey you because they're afraid of you, but we're kind of trying to move away from that and just extend love and connection and tell them, I'm doing this because we want love in our home, because we want to teach you to become this amazing person, this contributing citizen who is someone who's able to benefit the world and not tear it down, right?
00:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I would try to tell my younger self without making my younger self want to slap me that these kids are going to grow up pretty fast. You're not going to be in this stage forever. And you get like you, you get a chance while they're young to help them with this, to help to build this relationship with them. And when they're older, you're not going to be able to do the same sort of
00:20:40
Speaker
teaching and guiding that you and connecting that you can when they're really young. Um, so it's, it's really important. And you know, like, I'm sure every, every young mom up to her ears and dirty diapers has had somebody tell her, Oh, you're gonna miss these days, you know, and you want to throw a dirty diaper at them. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah. And I'm not going there, but I am saying like it is,
00:21:09
Speaker
It is important to use the time when they're young and they have that unwavering, undying love, no matter what. That you want to let them know that you also have that undying, unwavering love for them. And one thing that I learned before I had kids is a
00:21:30
Speaker
language tool that you use with them. So to little kids you don't say you are naughty or you are bad or you are good because then you can easily take that away by saying oh you are bad or you are naughty or you know whatever so you can take that away with it from them. So instead of saying you are bad you point out the specific behavior. This behavior is unacceptable or bad or we don't do this. Instead of
00:21:57
Speaker
speaking to the child directly. Oh, you're so naughty. Like that then can be, you know, you are so good can be taken away by you are so naughty. So it's just a language thing. Just like, I guess it's because words are so important to me for my personality type or whatever, but just that. That's another way to add to your connection is to not ever say you are bad, but this behavior is bad.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, I love to use those opportunities to remind them what a good person they are. Like I know this is not in keeping with who you want to be. I know this behavior is not the real so and so. I know that the real you is a wonderful sibling and a wonderful son
00:22:40
Speaker
and that you know how to behave better, right? This behavior was unacceptable. How can we change it? How can we bring out the real you, right? Even if you're feeling like, I don't know if this kid has an ounce of goodness and he's driving me crazy. Totally okay, because we know their value and their worth. It is amazing, right? It is beautiful. It is eternal. But we have to remind them, and sometimes we have to remind ourselves as well of their worth and our own, even when we do things that we're not proud of, but to remind them just how good they are inside
00:23:07
Speaker
and how to align their behavior with that worthiness. That is so powerful, I love that. Okay, so we love using moments where discipline is required or necessary as a chance to reconnect with our kids and find out if there's a bigger issue at the root here. It's a teaching moment. When they're behaving like the perfect little model child that we always wanted, there's not those opportunities to help them
00:23:36
Speaker
improve and become better versions of themselves. It's in these moments of discipline or these moments when something isn't going as perfectly as you'd hoped your entire life would go. So it's like if we look at it that way that these are the times that we actually get to help them learn to become a better person. We might not like
00:24:00
Speaker
be so frustrated at it. Like maybe that's what I would tell my younger self is just like this, these times when it feels so hard and so stressful and frustrated, like these are the times when you get to teach and you get to help improve character and you don't get to do that in the times when they're being like the perfect little baby.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I want to leave you guys with this concept. The main thing I think I would tell my younger self is this. Your child is designed to misbehave. In his growing and his learning and advancing himself,
00:24:34
Speaker
He is designed to make mistakes and to see how things work, right? A baby will never stand up for the first time and go sprinting down the hallway. They will get up and they will fall over and they will stumble and they will trip and they will bonk their heads and they will scrape their knees and they will do all these heartbreaking things that is really hard to watch as a parent.
00:24:52
Speaker
But that is how they learn to walk. And no child just grows up with no conflicts and becomes this amazing contributing adult. They have to push back and it's just like muscles, right? We have to exercise our muscles and they have to hurt in order for them to get stronger. And that's exactly how development works with children and how behavior works.
00:25:10
Speaker
And we just kind of have to get out of the way, make sure we have these rules and guidelines in place so they know where they're safe, where they can bounce back and forth and stay safe, and then make sure that we are consistent in the consequences when they go out of these bounds. And then we just love, and we love, and we love, and we love no matter what they do. And hopefully they come out okay on the other side, but this is all normal. It is all entirely normal. You're not a screw up. They're not a screw up. It's all supposed to be this way.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah, that is such a good thought. And thinking about going back to our original definition, control gained by enforcing obedience or order. It's that order in their lives. Your kids are going to be in so much of a better place
00:25:57
Speaker
when they are able to bring order to their own lives. So let's say they get themselves into some situation where you wish they weren't, or they wish they weren't. Then you've given them the toolset to have the internal discipline to bring order back to their own lives, to their own situation.
00:26:15
Speaker
And that's like, that's a really powerful thing. They don't have to go seek out the external discipline or have that external control forced on them because they don't have anything from inside. So it's really an opportunity that we get to, I don't know, I guess maybe because most of my kids are getting older and not requiring much help from me anymore for what, you know, from this, they've got it coming from inside of them that I'm really, really,
00:26:43
Speaker
thinking about, like, I don't have those opportunities with my older kids anymore unless they come to me and they ask, hey, mom, I've got this problem. I need you to help me work through and find a solution.
00:26:54
Speaker
And I'd love to help them with that. But you know, the young kids, the little ones, three-year-olds, they don't come to us like that and say, hey, mom, I've got this problem. That's why we look at, like we mentioned, looking at each discipline opportunity. Each time of discipline is an opportunity to try to find out if there's something bigger going on. Like, okay, I have to admit yesterday, even in myself, I was having this internal issue and this thing going on, and it was affecting my outward behavior, right? Why would kids be any different?
00:27:25
Speaker
It's the same for them. And so as an adult, I've learned how to mostly control the behavior coming out in spite of the internal conflict going on. But little kids don't have, they don't have any of those tools yet. And we get to help them work through those internal things that are going on and also learn how to modulate that external behavior. That's another benefit that we can help our kids learn those kind of tools as well.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah, so great. I love that reminder that every chance we get to discipline our children is a chance we get to connect with them and to show them our love, right? And to remind them that we're always here for them and that there are opportunities and not necessarily something to dread, right? So we hope these tips are helpful for you guys this week and going on in the future with discipline your children. We'll talk to you next week. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Haji. And we're outnumbered.
00:28:21
Speaker
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