Adoptive Parenting, Child Parenting - Discipline and Adopted Child: Goals

10/22/07

Discipline and Adopted Child: Goals

Posted by : Faith Allen in Adoptive Parenting Blog at 05:39 am , 504 words, 127 views
Categories: Discipline

When thinking about discipline, I believe it is important to think through your goals in disciplining a child. If your goal is just to curb a child's behavior in a particular situation, then you are missing the bigger picture. We want our children to learn from the discipline we impose and be able to apply what they have learned to future situations. Otherwise, we will constantly be punishing our children and having to have the same conversations each time they enter into any new situation. While this is not a good dynamic for any parent/child relationship, it can be doubly harmful to the bonding process for adopted children.

For some people, the primary goal in disciplining a child is to get the child to obey them. While this might make your life easier in the short run, it does nothing to prepare your child for life. Your child needs to be told how to behave in any given situation because the standard is what you want him to do rather than a formula for how to behave in various settings. You are not always going to be around your child, especially as he grows older and spends more time with friends. If his only standard of discipline is doing what the adult in charge says to do, then you are setting your child up to be vulnerable to peer pressure. Your voice will be replaced by the leader of your child's group of friends, and your child is likely just to go along with whatever the leader tells him to do. After all, he has been taught to "do as I say." If your adopted child lived in an abusive environment before joining your home, a dictatorial parenting style can be triggering to the child.

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My goal in disciplining my son is to teach him standards of behavior that will make him successful in life. I want him to learn basic principles, such as treating others as he would like to be treated, and then apply those principles to each situation. I want him to learn how to think for himself and learn how to make good choices rather than needing me to tell him specifically what to do in any given situation. So, my focus in disciplining my son is driving home certain life principles, such as –

Apologize when you are wrong

Be polite (please, thank you, excuse me)

Be safe in regards to yourself and others

Show respect to others

Take care of personal property

Treat others like you want to be treated

I discuss these principles with my son repeatedly, and I use discipline tools to enforce following these principles. I use whatever discipline tool is most effective to encourage behavior that follows these principles. Positive discipline, such as rewards, is very effective for some, and negative discipline, such as time outs, is more effective for others. When you plot out your discipline goals first, then the discipline tools fall into place.

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Chromesthesia [Member]

Good principals. I like the way the Gentle Christian mothers approach discipline
No punishing, but guiding.
No spending time fighting with a kid over normal kid behaviour but trying to understand what the child is going through, like if they are stressed out or overstimulated.
I love that. I diasgree with them politically at times, but they give good advice. Like if a child is climbing on something you don't just hit them or yell at them but firmly take them down even if htey are crying and screaming about it.
You let them know it's OK to be angry, but it's not OK to climb and endanger themselves. It's brilliant.

Permalink 10/22/07 @ 09:22