Discipline v's Punishment

I really enjoyed the session last night - how to discipline your kids.
The meaning of discipline is to follow and learn. The meaning of punishment is to suffer for an offence or to inflict severe penalty. Our goal is to discipline, not punish. Her teaching is always about calmness and a kind voice from the parent.

* Lisa started out with the mozzie-swat. She said when you are annoyed (not angry) you tend to mozzie-swat your kids (when you kind of fob them off, yeah-yeah, in a minute..), then the kids stop being annoying for 2 minutes but then restart again, so you are annoyed again and the circle goes around and around. She said there are two ways to handle annoying kids. First IGNORE it as much as you can. They will often sort themselves out and be happy as Larry after a couple minutes. The other way is when people or property are at risk then discipline with the "3 R's" - Related, Reasonable, Respect.
* She said squabbling is recreation for them sometimes, so walk away on the little things and let them sort it out.
* If you have a child that whines alot when they talk to you, you can stop them using two ways, First for those who can speak (i.e. not babies) say something like "I really want to listen to you but I don't want you to talk to me with that voice. If you'd like to speak to me properly then I'd love to hear what you have to say."
Or for those without language (i.e. toddlers) you come down to their level and say "show me". Then they'll point or take you there. Don't use a lot of talk to littlie's.
* Another way of saying No is to acknowledge that "yeah it would be great to have (what they want), but it's a pity we can't today."
* One of the greatest gifts you can give to your children is to do what you say you will do.
Whether it's fun or discipline. Follow through with it.
* Kids need to learn respect for each other and their siblings space. When one is being annoying to another you can say to them "You can be nice in here with your sister or you can go somewhere else, your choice". If they choose to go then problem solved. If they choose to stay but continue to annoy "You said you would stay and be nice, but that's not what you're doing. Would you like to choose the other place to go to now or would you like me to choose, your choice?" If they go, problem solved. If not, "Do you want help to go there or do you want to go by yourself, your choice?" If they go, problem solved. If not, physically help them go. Not by dragging them off down the hall, but if they are little, coming to their height and holding your hands upwards toward them an asking if they want to come or be carried. If they are too big for that, you can put your hand on their back and steer them out. If they refuse to go, tell them "I've got nothing more important to do today then to stand here and stalk you till you're ready to go". Lisa says it may take a few minutes but if you keep at them to move (calmly) and be annoying to them, they will stomp off themselves. -She explains this all so much better!
*Don't negotiate with a terrorist. :-) Less talk, more action! Kids hear better when there is less talk involved, including teenagers.
* Say the minimum amount to get the message across.
* Kids will only do something if it works. If you ignore it, it's not working anymore and they'll give up.
* You can't expect from littlie's what adults don't deliver. (Don't hit, then we smack).
* You don't need a punishment, you need a solution. Her example of this was when her daughter stole $5 from her purse. When she found out who it was, instead of questioning her, they had a conversation (yes, there is a difference). Her girl said when her friends would go to McDonald's she'd either have to bludge off them or sit and watch them eat and it embarrassed her. The solution was to re-instate the pocket money system. She could see her daughter was remorseful so she didn't discipline her further, and as far as she knows she hasn't stolen anything else in her life. So sometimes good things can come out of naughty behaviour.
* You inspire your kids to great behaviour, you don't kick their butt to great behaviour.
* Example of using the 3 R's when disciplining. Imagine you wrote your name on the old wooden school desk and was caught. Instead of sending you to the principal for the strap (remember those days?) the teacher could discipline you by: Related = sanding the desk. Reasonable = only sanding your own desk, not the whole classroom's. Respect = doing it alone in your lunch hour or after school and not in the middle of assembly where everyone's watching.
* There should be no suffering involved, because once there is physical or emotional suffering then there will be thoughts of defiance and revenge and anger. She said you can't discipline with only two of the R's, you must have all 3.
* An example of disciplining without the 3 R's. A kid didn't want to go to dinner with his family at a friends house so he climbed up on the roof. The parents were too scared to climb up so waited below yelling at him. 90 minutes later he came down and the parents took his x-box that he got for his birthday 2 weeks earlier, and kept it from him for a year. 1 year! Doesn't really relate does it? She didn't say what they should have done, it was to show an unreasonable reaction.
* CALM DOWN FIRST. Do not discipline in the heat of the moment. Stop, breathe, tell them you need a minute (or an hour, or a night) and will be back to talk to them. Go away, calm down and then discipline. You'll be much happier with yourself and more likely to do the 3 R's.
* If you can show your kids to calm down before handling things then you are role modelling a great life skill for them.
* When you are unreasonable (like saying you'll take their x-box for a year), go back and say "I was unreasonable, can you help me come up with something else? What do you think we should do to handle it?" Include kids in the conversation, they will most likely be hard on themselves but if what they suggest you think is still unreasonable you could suggest something more inline with what they have done.
* If you're going to have a time out spot turn it into a positive place, like the kindness corner where they go to think of kind things to do instead, or the love rug where they think about being more loving, instead of the naughty mat or the naughty step. Discipline should have a positive tone, not negative. Think about the feeling you would have of being sent to the naughty chair v's the kindness corner. Just the name has a feeling towards it.
* Talk to your spouse about how to support each other without offending when disciplining. Sometimes one will be unreasonable and the other wants to step in and say something to contradict it, but Lisa said never argue in front of the kids. Hold your thoughts and talk about it together afterwards about how to do it better next time. (Guess this might be where you go back and say you were unreasonable...), or have a tag-team signal when you can feel yourself getting angry and want your spouse to step in - but only if they are calm, 2 angry adults v's 1 kid isn't fair. Whatever works for you.
* If your kid wants Dad when you're growling them, make them do their time then they can go to Dad for all the love they want. Once the sentence is finished, it's done. Clean slate.

Our exercise for the night was to imagine we were the 10 year old who stole $5 and we had to list our reactions and our feelings to being caught and punished/disciplined. Of course our lists were all negative - Feeling: scared, fearful, upset, angry, guilty, bored (if getting a lecture) etc... Reaction: cry, sulk, silent treatment, run away, lie, deny. Of course when a parent gets one of these reactions it makes them more angry and they give more discipline.
These things are not our dream outcome. We'd rather have a child be remorseful, understand consequence, respect for others and self, take responsibility, learn, change, have both parties still like each other etc... By disciplining with the 3 R's we are more likely to achieve this.

Good night huh?

I realized that most of my angry moments come when I am tired. So I am going to make the effort this week to get the sleep I need. Nate says I don't just go off to bed like he does, he's right I don't. So I asked him to just take the baby off me and send me to bed (Yes Sir!), to help me so I'm not grumpy with him or the kids. We were also challenged to try the 3 R's. We'll see how we go...

On another note:
Thank you for posting on Emmy's site, she loves getting your comments. She often replies to them too, even past posts, so if you're written her something she's probably written you back so be sure to check back again. Here's a page Jacinda did for her.

I've decided to reduce Caleb's dummy time. I've made it a sleep prop for him and it's just not working. Once he loses it or rolls on it, he wakes up and is not getting good sleeps. I was going to wait till Nate went away for work on the 17th so I could let him cry at night too but I can't take it anymore. Today is Day One. I did give it to him at 7am after his first feed but then he woke up after 45 minutes and Emmy got him up so I decided this was the day! When he went back down about 9.15am he cried for maybe 10-15 mins then went to sleep. He did wake again, talked to himself a bit, then cried and kicked off his blankets. I did turn him over though and he cried maybe 5-10 mins then went to sleep. It's now 11.40am and he's still asleep. Let's see how the rest of the day goes. I am going to the temple tonight for the first time since I had him, so he's going to have his first bottle. Good luck Daddy!