Disciplining Your Child Is The Lifestyle, And Parental Guidance

As seen in studies done in the past, disciplining your children at a young age can drastically benefit them as they progress in life, aid them succeed in school, and help them make wise choices. A majority of parents attempt to discipline their children, but it doesn’t seem to work appropriately. As the majority of parents have wondered, how should a parent properly discipline their children? When is it considered too much or too harsh? A parent can verbally discipline their children, or physically discipline them. Both may work depending on how the child is. But, disciplining a child too softly or too harshly can do the exact opposite by making them feel as if they are not controlled by their parents or make them terrified of their parents (Ballard 16). For example, if a parent doesn’t discipline a child enough, the child will feel like he is greater than

One very simple word that describes discipline is training. A child is not born with the knowledge of what is acceptable or expected. A parent must invest their own time and patience while showing love and exemplary behavior while molding their children into becoming well behaved (Child Abuse vs. Discipline). Being a parent is a hard enough job already, but when it comes to being a parent having to discipline your child, it becomes much harder. It takes time for a child to learn and process new behaviors, and this is a reason a parent must not have a short fuse when it comes to discipling their children.

Most parents subconsciously use the same disciplinary actions that were used on them growing up. There is a ton of variety concerning ways of disciplining your children. These include, but aren’t limited to; spanking, creating consequences, withholding privileges, and time outs. However, experts don’t recommend using spanking as a disciplinary measure, as it causes anger, antagonism, amps up aggression, and makes the child feel devalued, as well as being ineffective in the long run. Spanking is also known to cause antisocial behavior. It is especially ineffective with toddlers and babies because they are unable to make the connection between their bad behavior and physical punishment.

Child discipline is an important part of parenthood. It is challenging for adults to manage children’s behaviors and find the correct lessons that will benefit their children. According to the research performed by Flynn (1998), most parents in the United States agree that "it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking" (p.26). Socolar et al. performed research which agreed that “corporal punishment of children persists—roughly fifty percent of the parents of toddlers in the United States use corporal punishment as a regular method of disciplining their children.” (as cited in Gershoff, 2010, p.32). That is not to say that physical punishment is the solution as it can stop a behavior immediately but the results

Today, people are out of tune with human civilization. This did not happen overnight. Due to people using negative words in their daily vocabulary change occurred. One evident cause is individual values. Constantly, the local daily paper is full of people committing wrongful acts of behavior. The band aid answer is contributed to one’s upbringing. While partially accurate it continues well beyond. An individual’s values are comprised of discipline and ethics. Very few children today receive a good old spanking that some old folks reminisce about when talking about the “good old days”. People who grew up over the past 25 years lack discipline, which has flowed into the work force. Discipline comes in various forms. Just like discipline a adults parental rights are eroding too. Society has put their nose in how parents raise their children. Parents are afraid to spank their child, have them perform additional chores, or stand in the corner with their nose touching the wall when they do wrong. The current laws tie parents’ hands. According to American Humane Association “an estimated 3.3 million reports of alleged abuse and/or neglect involving approximately 6 million children were made to local child protective services (CPS) agencies across the country. An estimated 899,000 of these children were determined to be victims of abuse

Parents are generally responsible for nurturing their children. They therefore encourage their children to behave properly. They nurture them carefully from birth to adolescence to inculcate moral values and raising them to respect their elders and themselves (Advameg, 2016). They also encourage them to be obedient, teach them the right from wrong and make them informed about the importance of higher education. An ideal “good” child is expected to conform to social expectations, be obedience to adults, and be devoted to religion.

In our society, people at a young age are taught and forced to be good to one another. As you can see babies and younger children are self-centered and misbehave frequently. Kids often believe things must go their way and can be cruel bullies to one another. During kindergarten and early years of elementary school, children can be seen fighting for toys. However, our teachers and parents taught us that if we misbehave, we will be punished.

Discipline starts at home. How parents discipline their children affects how they evolve in life. When children leaves their home and enter school children learn rules in a classroom to respect their teachers and their classmates. Children are not always supervised by an adult. There may be an adult watching over them but they cannot keep an eye on everything. Physical abuse is easier to determine than verbal abuse. Parents are the prior source for children to learn that physical, verbal or any form of abuse is wrong, but what happens when parents are abusing their children? Benj Vardigan reports that “verbal abuse can undermine your child’s self-esteem, damage his ability to trust and form relationships, and chip away at academic and social skills” (Vardigan). Parents need to find ways to discipline their children without being abusive because how they are treated does affect their development.

Spanking is an ineffective method for disciplining children as it both validates violence and creates antisocial behaviour while failing to teach a child why their actions were wrong. As some parents continue to utilize spanking, the children often internalize many negative side effects. They learn to “legitimatize violence”2 thus carrying these issues into other interpersonal relationships. Using their caregivers as models, they are more likely to hit others such as peers & siblings “as means of resolving their conflicts.”1 Ironically, this is exactly what some parents are trying to eliminate. Other children may become increasingly antisocial. From the perspective of a child, those who are supposed to protect them chose to hurt them instead.

When a child is reprimanded physically it teaches the child that their behavior is not tolerably. Physical punishments can deter the child from deviant acts. The social behavior can be impacted positively or negatively. Physical punishment is a form of punishment to deter the child from committed deviant acts. Parents want their child to stay away from negative behaviors and guide them to become positive, healthy, responsible adults. Deviant acts can occur when there are no consequences for that child. Being disciplined for deviant acts will teach the child that the acts are unacceptable and in the future the child may not do so. Children will learn what social norms in society are and what are not. Therefore, when the child is not around their

Discipline also leads to more respect from the child. When children are disciplined at home, those children tend to be respectful towards others. Those children say respectful things like good morning, please, thank you, etc. Also, discipline instills appropriate behavior. When a parent disciplines their child for poor behavior, he or she learns about what behavior is acceptable. According to an article in the journal Pediatrics and Child Health, “Discipline can foster appropriate behavior in children, teaching them how to interact with others, when to postpone pleasure and how to tolerate discomfort” (Carpenter). With effective child discipline, that child will be respectful his or her whole life. For example, if a child borrows something from their parents, the parents car or jacket, and doesn’t return it either with a full tank or washed, than next time when they ask, the answer will be no. Next time around they are going to respect the parents and the parents’ things if that child wants access to the parents’ belongings, they are going to return it the way they found it (Radzka).

Many parents lack the skills necessary to properly teach and discipline their children. As a result, out of pure frustration, parents lash out physically and/or verbally. Hitting a child or yelling at one has detrimental long-term effects. Parents-to-be need to be given strategies for dealing with discipline issues. Support groups should also offer parent training.

In today's society people make it very clear about their opinion when it comes to discipline a child. Most but not every parent believes that every form of child discipline is considered child abuse. When in fact traditional acts of discipline are more of a teaching lesion rather than straight child abuse. What people are not aware of is that not every style of discipline works with every child. Some children listen and/or even learn better with specific punishments.

Discipline is one of the basic things a child learns from his parents before he or she faces the outside world to learn more about life as a whole. Teaching this trait can depend on how the parent shows it to their child and how they explain the importance of having this trait both in and out of their homes. Misbehaving children cannot be avoided as they are curious little beings and they have a tendency to explore. But there are some parents, even teachers, who do not tolerate misbehaving and they resort to corporal punishments such as spanking to make sure the child never forgets how painful it is to misbehave as they will remember the punishment entailed to it and become more disciplined. However, not all children would understand the

Children are like flowers, if well taken care of they will bloom. If ignored or tortured, they will wither and die. Child discipline is one of the most important elements of successful parenting. Today, many people have this notion that physical abuse is in no way a solution to helping children discern between right and wrong. Since generations children have been taught the art of discipline through physical punishment. Often this approach to disciplining has resulted in two outcomes, one is where the child becomes more tolerant and is willing to adhere to what he/she has been told, or the other which more often results in children developing a sense of anguish and desire to revolt.