There are many schools of thought on the right way to discipline young children. Everyone is aware of the controversy around corporal punishment, but did you know that the use of time outs is considered wrong as well?
There are new studies that show that any form of punishment can be damaging to a child’s sense of self, leading to anxiety and depression. The belief is that by punishing a child, we are in fact shaming them. So, what do they propose you do instead?
It is more about redirecting than actually punishing for some wrong doing. The idea is that children are generally just behaving like children and more often than not, they are not actually trying to do something wrong. For the most part, I agree with this assessment. I know I have often seen when children seem gob smacked by the caregiver’s reaction to their behavior. Generally, children can be redirected or spoken with about their feelings and ways that they could have handled something better. But what about those times where they are truly being defiant? Should we be opposed to spanking and time outs in those cases?
In my experience, timeouts can work wonders when a child is too wound up to follow directions. And for children who become defiant once in a while a swat on the butt might go a long way. I know many of you are probably shocked and outraged by the very idea of a child being spanked, and I have to say that I once upon a time fell into that camp as well. That is until I had my second child that really seemed to need the external influence to warrant his effort to control himself. When I would try to put him in a time out he would kick and spit and sometimes even head butt me. He needed a lot of redirection and calm authority to help him to learn to manage his emotions, but sometimes the only thing that worked was a spanking. I wish that hadn’t been the case because I was such a strong advocate against spanking that it really was an internal struggle to do what I needed to keep him safe, but I truly believe there were occasions that it was necessary.
That being said, I think the new books out there about redirection and teaching kids to manage their emotions really speak to the child’s and the parent’s heart for one another. These principles will go a long way to helping children to grow and learn to be aware of their emotions and their actions. But please, do not allow them to pigeon hole you into parenting against your own instincts. You are the only one that can see the whole picture. Keep your child’s best interest in mind and do nothing out of anger and read, read, read. The more you read the more naturally you will find your own beliefs and be able to put them to work for you and your children.
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Published by Parenting For Good Mental Health
Hello,
My name is Tricia. I am the proud mom of two amazing young men.
My youngest son was always a very energetic and highly reactive child. Life with him was often like a roller coaster ride. He had to work very hard to learn how to manage his emotions and behaviors. By the time he turned 10, he had learned to manage them fairly well. But one night while watching the movie The Mummy, his anxiety was triggered. Night after night, he just could not get the scary images out of his head. This went on for almost a year where he would cry in bed at night. Nothing we tried seemed to help. So we decided to take him to see a psychiatrist where he was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, depression, OCD, and bipolar disorder.
Unfortunately, the care and medications that he received from various professionals did not really help. By educating myself, I began to learn that there were many more options that had not been provided or suggested. I believe that had I had more information sooner; his care could have been better tailored to his needs. This was a very difficult time not only for my son but for our entire family. We had to develop new ways of interacting that did not cause fights over the littlest things. We had to learn the hard way what not to do in a crisis. My husband had to learn that you don’t have to have a reason to be depressed or anxious. Sometimes you just are. And that it is not helpful to say to a depressed person, that they have no reason to be depressed. Having never experienced these feelings himself, my husband really struggled with understanding these things. But now that he gets it, he wishes he would have understood sooner so he could have been more supportive to our son in the beginning.
Thankfully, our son has found his own way through the darkness. And he has developed some skills and tools for managing his mental illness. His path could have been easier and less painful for him had we known about these other options sooner.
As parents and caregivers we need to educate ourselves on their illnesses and the evidence based care options that are out there. We have a limited number of clinicians that treat children and teens, so we sometimes only get to see them once a month. What kind of impact do you think you could have on your child if you only saw him once a month? We need to bring as much to the table as possible. The clinicians can only work with the information they are given. The more you can tell them the better they will be able to tailor your child’s care to his needs. We also need to know how to be the parents our child needs because what works for other kids does not always work for ours.
I would like to help educate others so that their path to recovery might be made shorter. There is a lot of support out there, but sometimes we do not hear about it. NAMI is the first support that I will recommend.
NAMI the National Alliance on Mental Illness is the largest grassroots mental health organization in America. Through NAMI you will find support and education that can help you to better facilitate the care your child needs. https://www.nami.org/
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