Discipline without punishment

[FabIsGettingFit]

I have been thinking about this for a few days since the house rules were using their effectiveness and the children were getting violent towards each other. DD (6) pushed and kicked DS1 (9) in the back this morning and threw a heavy magnetic toy in DS2's (5) face on Saturday.
DS2 was in trouble yesterday at school for pushing some other year r kids. He said they weren't listening to him.

JamieJay it is quite scarey as I have never seen your name before but you got me 100% right.

Had a really good day today.. Was consistent and carried through when I said anything.

This morning I said to DD that we don't hit or kick anyone in this house, ever. She seemed to accept it.

It isn't a contradiction, it can be done. I think it's semantics though - to me "punishment" is something unpleasant that the adult makes happen to the child because of something they have done. Whereas consequences are something that would happen anyway even if the adult wasn't there, sometimes negative, sometimes not. Punishment is a kind of negative consequence, but it's a parent-imposed consequence.

The idea of discipline without punishment is that punishment "distracts" from the issue and because you want them to behave nicely even when you or another adult is not there to enforce the consequences. The argument against punishment is you want your child to think "I won't hit X, because that would hurt X and it's not nice to feel hurt" not "I won't hit X, because I might get put on the naughty step"

I don't necessarily think that ALL punishment is bad but I do think that if a discipline strategy relies too heavily on punishment then all it teaches children is how not to get caught. Look at the amount of adults who speed where they know there aren't any speed cameras. So the basic premise of discipline without punishment is not so much to teach the child not to do something, but to teach the child WHY they should or shouldn't be doing something.

Interesting long running thread on it here

Thanks, Bertie - I didn't realise that thread was still running.

I don't think it's been posted on recently but I'm sure it would get replies if anyone wants to revive it. Lots of good examples in the posts already there though if nothing else.

Well, we have a interesting situation going on in our house. DS (10yo) kicked his sis hard yesterday, I am very worried about her knee (I fear ligament damage), she may miss out on loads of her regular activities for a while, too.

I have come up with some punishments, only to be imposed today and tomorrow. I have no idea what the "natural consequences" could possibly be for DS's violence?? Meanwhile, my parents are visiting and said "Oh you mustn't punish, you must talk to him". I almost snorted in derision but I gave them the green light to talk and talk and talk all weekend, they can try to persaude him to do better in future...

I don't expect the talk to work, but I know the punishments don't work as well as I'd like, so I rather hope my skepticism is misplaced. I guess this is the experiment -- to see if DS is amenable to their arguments (My parents are both lawyers so they should be persuasive! Alas I have no powers of persuasion!)

PS: That's how I imagine Kohn's ideas are supposed to work: you're supposed to be able to "convince" your children that they want to be good just by talking to them.

If I had the last beer on Earth I couldn't manage to sell it to an alcoholic, that's how bad my powers of persuasion are.

I haven't read the whole book yet but no I don't think it's just about talking. Although I think that Alfie Kohn is a bit too extreme - he focuses too much IMO on having a good relationship with your children and trying not to ever upset them etc which I think is not quite right - yes I would love to have a good relationship with DS when he leaves home, but not to the detriment of him developing a good sense of ethics etc! "How to talk so kids will listen..." is a good place to start, I think.

The natural consequences of your DS kicking his sister is that his sister gets hurt. Since that was probably what he wanted to happen, it's not really a deterrent! So I suppose the idea is you have to show him the direct effect of his actions - if you are worried she might have ligament damage, are you taking her to the hospital or GP to get checked out? Maybe he could come too to see first hand what his actions have caused to happen.

The problem with solely using natural consequences is that up to a certain age children do lack empathy and other attributes which are necessary for it to work. So in the above example, when you tell your DS "Your sister could be seriously injured" he will probably think "So? That doesn't affect me!" - it doesn't mean he's a horrible person, it just means he isn't mature enough to realise the effect on his sister yet.

I would probably go with "logical" consequences in this situation - so a punishment I suppose - but related to what he has done. So his sister may have to miss out on some activities, logically he should have to miss out on some activities as well. This has the dual purpose - punishment ie I had better not hurt my sister on purpose again, or I will be banned from football etc, and also helping understanding - he's experiencing the direct effect he's had on his sister by sharing her experience of missing out on things.

Hope that makes sense!

He doesn't do any activities, so that wouldn't work!

I was thinking that a natural consequence would be on the basis of "I can't trust you unless I supervise you closely" so I could MAKE him shadow me, not allowed to leave my side for an hour but I am always busy so it wouldn't just be a chance to chat. That might annoy him suitably .

Yes, that could work - that's a good example of natural/logical consequences - rights come with responsibilities