"I'm Not Grounding Them! That's Awesome!": 40 Proud Parents Share What Made Them Discipline Their Kids But Just For Show

To learn more about parents, kids, and discipline, we contacted Diana Divecha, Ph.D., who is a developmental psychologist, and an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

Dr. Divecha told Bored Panda that everything starts with building a loving, respectful, and constructive relationship with your child.

"If your relationship is good—a 'secure attachment'—then children naturally want to collaborate and cooperate with those adult figures, and intentional 'misbehavior' becomes rare," she said.

"The best parent is also a good teacher. It helps to remember that children have not been here before; they weren't born knowing how the world works or how they should behave in it. They have to learn in small bits, and they do this mostly by observing the behavior of people around them," Dr. Divecha explained. "The root word of 'discipline' is 'discere' which means to learn, to be instructed, to be taught. Unfortunately in modern society discipline has come to mean punishment, which studies show doesn't work to change unwanted behavior but instead leads to distressing feelings like shame, avoidance, anger, etc. Of course, hitting children is completely unacceptable, harmful, and illegal in 63 countries around the world."

Dr. Divecha highlighted four steps she thinks are worth keeping in mind when trying to help a child change a behavior:

Calm yourself. "First, staying calm helps you to think more clearly, and tune in more intuitively to your child, than if you become upset," the developmental psychologist said. "Second, it signals to the child that you are staying connected to them, that you are not breaking the relationship—kids are profoundly afraid that their parents will abandon them. Third, it signals your competence, that you can handle this, that you are not undone by their behavior, and that they are not responsible for your feelings. Everyone stays in their lanes. Fourth, your stress or calm physiology is “contagious” to your child, their body will be affected by your body. So exhale a few long breaths, soften your face, put a smile in your eyes, and begin."

Help your child to become calm. "Unless it’s a safety issue or emergency that requires immediate action, wait to process the misdeed until everyone is calm. This might mean sitting with a preschooler until big feelings blow through, or walking or playing basketball with a teenager until they’re ready to talk."

Next, begin problem-solving together. "Be curious about what the child was trying to do," Dr. Divecha pointed out, adding that most misdeeds are simply mistakes that come from a lack of experience/knowledge, an innocent desire to experiment, or a lack of skill in expressing an otherwise legitimate feeling. "Open-ended, neutral prompts like, 'tell me about this,' or 'what's the story here?' or 'what were you trying to do?' or 'what were you feeling?' will allow them to tell their story. Let them talk and talk and talk until everything is out. Use 'mm-hmm, what else?' to keep it going." 

And finally, settle on a solution together. After you find out what the story was from their perspective, you can shift the conversation and invite the child to problem-solve together. Think of phrases like 'You wanted to color on that wall, and I'd like to keep the wall clean, what could we do instead?' Or, 'you want to stay out late and I need to know you're safe, how can we manage both, what's fair?'

"Here is where you might introduce a rule, like 'it's not okay to hit someone.' Or you might help them label their feelings, like 'you felt so disappointed when your friend had to leave.' Or you might offer a strategy, like 'let's decide on a signal that you can make when you want your sister's attention instead of biting her.' Or maybe a repair is in order like cleaning up the wall together or rehearsing an apology—there's so much to learn about managing emotions. Check back with your child after some time to see how it’s going, or acknowledge their progress later when you see that they’ve improved." Dr. Divecha explained.

If, for some reason, parents think that their discipline strategy is proving to be ineffective, Dr. Divecha thinks they should regroup, reconnect with their kids, and repeat the above steps.

However, the developmental psychologist agrees that "sometimes children's naïve candor is refreshing and amusing to an adult, or sometimes it’s even cathartic when the child does something you wish you could do."

But we should keep it to ourselves. "Your amusement can be misconstrued as coming at their expense and can create feelings of humiliation or shame in a child. If your words say one thing but your expression says another, kids get confused and you just muddle the message and make a bigger problem. Younger kids will drive a train through your ambiguity, and older kids will disrespect you for the hypocrisy," she warned.