How To Discipline Your Young Child

Nowadays it seems as if disciplining your child is harder than ever, but that doesn't mean that it's any less important. Here are Club`s eight tips for disciplining your child. These tips include things like: tone of voice, dealing with specific situations, following through and focusing discipline on selected behaviours.

1. Learn to say “no” in a firm, peaceful way that carries authority but not anger. This parenting skill will help you to cut short years of power struggles with your child and will help him/her to feel secure in knowing that there are limits. Strong-willed behaviour and temper tantrums can be encouraged by a “no” from a parent who doesn't sound convincing.

2. Stay with your child when they are in “time-out” so that they don’t feel abandoned. Many parents leave the area, which can make a child feel rejected.

3. Follow through – no matter what – if you say that there will be a consequence for misbehaving, so that your child does not learn to manipulate you. If you change your mind after a child protests, you are encouraging them to protest even more in the future.

4. Pick one or two target behaviours to focus your discipline on at a time, such as not playing with their food. It is usually more effective to completely train your child in one or two areas than to try to train them a little bit in many different areas.

5. Be the boss and don’t be ashamed of this role in your relationship with your child. If you are not the boss, they will step into the power vacuum and this may have long-term negative consequences.

6. Discipline your child in a loving, caring environment. Otherwise, they may learn discipline from frustrated teachers in the less caring and loving environment of school.

7. Present you child with small choices if you are in a lot of power struggles, i.e. “Do you want to wear the white shirt or the blue shirt? Do you want the carrots or the peas?”

8. Do not feel obligated to explain your reasons for the things that you ask of your child. Many parents fall into the trap of explaining everything behind their requests, usually because they want their child to feel respected. Unfortunately, this often leads to the child learning how to manipulate their parent by acting like the reasoning is not compelling enough to justify co-operating with the parent's request.