An Alternative to Spanking: Part 1

In my previous post, I discussed how spanking has been found to be ineffective in changing behaviors, so I wanted to offer an alternative to spanking that may result in significant changes for the better. I found these techniques in a book entitled No Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Seigel, M.D., and Tine Payne Bryson, Ph.D. Thus, I would like to make several posts on the topic, but first, we will start with some questions that should be asked as a parent before responding to misbehavior.

As a parent, do you feel as if you are primarily reacting to your child when they misbehave? And then possibly dish out a punishment or consequence right away? Rather than doing this, think about the following three questions when your child misbehaves, and then in future posts, I will be giving strategies that can be used to develop a game plan for handling these situations. All in all, this helps you develop more of a connection with your child and skills that they can be use in the future to help them handle stressful situations. An added benefit is that it helps develop the parts of their brain that deal with logic and other aspects of higher level thinking.

First of all, it's about understanding why the behavior is occurring. Is my child having a tantrum because he or she is hungry or tired? Is there something that is overwhelming and hard to handle at the moment? It's also important to consider the age of a child- Is the child at an age where they can't regulate their emotions. I do ask these questions when my child misbehaves- Is she very tried? Does she not feel good? One problem that my daughter has sometimes is that she gets angry and has a tantrum because she's trying to communicate something, and we can't understand what she wants. For example, recently, she say what sounded like "Pete," so I thought that meant she wanted to read or get her Pete the Cat book. When I pulled out the book, she would get upset, and yell, "No!!!!!" I finally figured out that she really meant, "Paint." So, one way for us to solve this problem is to work on communication skills and pronouncing words correctly as a secondary skill to help reduce future tantrums and frustration. This main question of understanding the why helps direct you to solutions and questions to ask the child.

Then, one should think about what lesson should be taught in that moment and how best to teach it. For example, if my daughter slapped me, what do I want to teach her about hitting and how best should I teach it? Again, this is more about discipline and teaching children skills that can be used in the future.

Why Spanking is Ineffective

For decades, many families have used spanking to discipline a child. However, research has shown that spanking isn't effective in changing behaviors and may even be associated with negative emotions. There are reasons why spanking is not effective in changing behaviors.

1.Modeling 
When parents spank a child, they are modeling that this is how conflict and issues are handled.

2.Expectations for behaviors
Spanking does not teach the child what is expected of them (or what good behavior is expected of them), as it only teaches what is undesired.

3.Fear of parent
Spanking may not be productive in helping to build a warm, close, and respectful emotional bond with the parent. It can be confusing for a child, because they seek parents for safety, yet this person inflicts physical pain and possibly causes fear. When spanking crosses into abuse, this can be very detrimental to the brain. When stressed (such as when we are spanked), our body releases cortisol, and in excessive amounts, this can be toxic to the brain and result in the loss of brain cells. Generally, our brain is processing the spanking as a threat and goes into the "fight or flight" response.

4.Shifts attention away from the child's behavior
When a parent spanks a child, the child's attention shifts towards the parent's behavior. When this happens, children are not going to be as likely to focus on their own behavior and what can be changed. Rather, they are going to turn their attention towards how mean the parent was and how scary that moment might have been.

As parents, we should be more focused on discipline, which involves teaching our children what is expected of them. Thus, we should teach them appropriate behaviors, as well as appropriate ways to regulate their emotions. The use of spanking as a main form of discipline are missed opportunities for developing strong, emotional connections with our children.

How to Enhance Self-Esteem in our Children

In a world of participation trophies and empty praise, how do we really help improve self-esteem in our children and adolescents? Some of our current efforts to enhance self-esteem may actually be hurting our kids rather than helping them, as there’s a concern that a lot of today’s college students have been raised in an environment where they received a lot of empty praise. This might result in a person with inflated self-esteem and a reduced ability to handle criticism and failure.

What does empty praise mean? This is when a person is given praise for performance that may be mediocre, if not poor. One problem with this kind of praise is that it may not help a child figure out what they are really good at and truly interested in, which is a part of developing self-esteem.

What do we need to do instead? Here are several tips to help improve self-esteem in children and adolescents:

1.Help identify areas that they perform well in and that are important to them: Thus, high self-esteem comes from performing well in areas that are meaningful. For example, for myself, it was important for me to do well in academics, and it was something that I am good at. So, I do have high self-esteem in this area.

2.Emotional support and approval: Children and adolescents need support and approval in order for their self-esteem to be enhanced. There are some who come from homes where it is unavailable, so it can from other mentors such as teachers and/or coaches.

3.Teach skills: Self-esteem can also be enhanced through teaching skills, so this in turn can foster a sense of achievement.

4.Face problems, rather than withdraw: Children and adolescents should be taught to face problems head on and to learn how to solve them, rather than run from them. Again, this should help foster a sense of achievement and self-worth.

Thus, while we always want the best for our kids and to protect them, we also need to help them conquer failure and competition. They should know how to handle that well, because this is an aspect of life. At the same time, they also need our support and guidance, but it should be in a productive way that ultimately helps enhance their resilience.

Five Tips on Building Language

As a parent, I have worried a bit if I’m doing enough to develop my daughter’s language ability, so she is successful in school and beyond. The first 3 years of life are very important to develop a foundation for a child’s future progress in language and in another areas (social interaction, behavioral control, etc.), so yes, me being the anxious person, I worried.

However, I have taught and taught many classes that focused on child development, so I learned a lot that helped guide me as a new parent.

1.Start Early

Almost as soon as my baby came home, I started reading to her and talking to her (once I got over at least some of the sleep deprivation, of course). The more exposure to language, the more this will help develop her brain, even if she can’t understand exactly what you are saying.

Also, when your baby is starting to make those cute noises and babbles, babble and smile back. This is the start of turn taking in conversations. Here's a cute video of my daughter when she was about 7 months. We certainly did smile, but we were more focused on video taping it than trying to talk back because it was so cute! :) 

2.Modeling

Children are like sponges. They take in what they see and hear, sometimes even to the detriment of taking in some bad things at times. For example, I sometimes become frustrated or something breaks, and I say “Oh sh**!” I knew the age was coming close to when my baby was about to have a vocabulary explosion and start two word phrases (18-20 months), but I didn’t think she was quite there yet. She woke up from a nap one afternoon when she was about 19 months or so, and she was standing up in her crib pointing to a pile of poop (she outdid her diaper), saying, “Oh sh**!”. It seems she was ready for that vocabulary explosion and two work phrase stage, but at least she didn’t say this in front of my mother in law.

The point is that the more you expose a child to variety in one’s language, the more they will pick up on new words, phrases, sentence structure, etc. When you go to the store, narrate to the child what you see. When you are cleaning something up, tell your child what you are doing.

3.Use gestures

Children learn the meaning of words and phrases when you use gestures and point to what you are talking about. When my child was 12 months and older, I would take her outside and point to the tree and say “Look at the tree!” Or I might point to the car, and say “car.”

4.Interact in other ways

Turn off the darn tv, sit down, and play with your child. I get it, I have been there, sometimes I just want to vegetate and let my mind be blank for a while. But, take 15 minutes at least a day to sit down with your child and play with them, while having a conversation. Ask questions about where on earth on the fish is going while riding on the back of firetruck. Keep the conversation going. This helps build social communication and conversational skills.

5.Books and more books!

We have always heard this one, but I can't emphasize this one enough. My daughter loves stories. Books can be read word for word, but you can also teach a child so much more from books. You can ask the child other questions about what the characters are doing. Use words to describe where objects are in the picture (such as “See the picture hanging above the fireplace!”.

On to more adventures in learning new words and sentences!