Mild discipline!

[Malin]

I'm very curious on your views on milder forms of discipline!
I was never smacked (it's illegal where I was born) I never had time outs, my Mum is a great believer in free will and with no punishment. My parents practised very mild discipline and talked to us when we had done something " so called wrong", we had real load argument yes but I was never scared of them, they were not perfect sometimes the argued in front of us kids but they hugged in front of us more often.

To me Australia is a lovely country, with lot's of lovely happy people in it! But I feel parenting here is a little harsh ( I really hope I'm not offending you).
I'm nearly in tears sometimes when I see children getting smacked for not reason at all, or when talked down to. I'm not a perfect parent, but I have a free spirited child that loves people, has so much fun where ever he is, most of all he is not scared of me...

To me happy childhood, happy children is what it's all about!

[Artemis]

I agree... we treat our child with respect, have age appropraite expectations for behaviour and try and model the best behaviour we can ourselves. I am always really confronted when I see people using shaming as a way to punish their children.. I find it bizarre that we would physically harm the most vulnerable members of our society. When I have a friend that is feeling upset and a little *over it* I don't smack them, tell them to sit in a corner or ostracise them - I listen to what they have to say, try and find strategies to make it better and give them love... why would we treat our children differently than we would treat other adults..

[nemosmum]

I agree, in our family we try and create an environment where DS can succeed not fail; where his respected and treated with dignity.

We feel like we've created this amazing little human being that we need to protect, love and cherish not hurt with words or hands. Children feel emotions so strongly as they are experiencing them for the first time, so they need so much guidance and understanding.

We teach through setting a good example and hey were not perfect but we do our best and that is all any parent can do. :)

[tickle]

I agree 100%.
Orlandosmum, your my kind of mummy!

[nemosmum]

Thanks O's mum,
I have my first devotee I should start my own cult LOL :p HEHEHE Just kidding
From O'smum :)

[jaydensmum]

I agree with you all totally, especially orlandosmum! You have stated some good points of parenting. Not that i have started any disipline at all since jayden is only 7 months. I would like to think that i could follow someone like orlandosmum's example of great parenting practices! :D

jaydensmum

[bec79]

Having worked in retail when I was younger, (I say that at the ripe old age of 26),
I witnessed some pretty terribile forms of disipline, both verbally and physically. I am a new mum myself, but I can't understand how some people can treat any child, even their own with such disregard for their emotional development.
How can any child develop healthy relationships later in life if they haven't been shown what a healthy relationship is.
I think I've been watching to much Dr Phil. :D

[Elfin]

For me the fundamentals are building up self esteem, self worth and confidence. I always praise the good behaviour and try to explain why certain behaviours are not nice. I never harp on about something they might have done or bring it up later. Once we deal with something it is left in the past never mentioned again.

When all else fails, I try to divert and distract :p

[Funkychicken]

It's so wonderful to read about parents and families who are parenting consciously. I truly believe it is those who do this who will lead the way in bringing about better ways of dealing with our children when things aren't perfect. I also feel that a lot of mums/dads who criticise/smack/shame their children in public places such as shops do so as they have learnt from watching other parents do this. The best way to help these parents to understand that there is a better way is to lead by example. I know whenever I have witnessed a kind interaction between mum and child in a public place, it makes me feel all gooey and proud to have been witness to this and i usually walk away with renewed hope that "I AM A GOOD PERSON TRYING TO BE A GOOD PARENT" and if other parents can show this beautiful side to parenting then so can I! Bring on the parents who actively and consciously parent their little ones without shaming or abusing them.
Sal-counting down in single weeks now!

[nemosmum]

I agree with you all totally, especially orlandosmum! You have stated some good points of parenting. Not that i have started any disipline at all since jayden is only 7 months. I would like to think that i could follow someone like orlandosmum's example of great parenting practices! :D

jaydensmum

Oh Shuks Jaydensmummy you made me blush :p

I'm certainly not the Guru for good parenting LOL :D
But I do have strong convictions when it comes to how I want my DS raised.

Its a very hard Job as we all know but so worthwhile when you know your doing your best to create a loving,thoughtful human being who feels loved and accepted.

Every parent wants the best for their child..........When we know better we do better (I think I got that one from Oprah LOL :p )

[mimi]

I was never smacked (it's illegal where I was born) ...To me Australia is a lovely country, with lot's of lovely happy people in it! But I feel parenting here is a little harsh ( I really hope I'm not offending you).
I'm nearly in tears sometimes when I see children getting smacked for not reason at all, or when talked down to...
Malin, even though I was born and bred in Australia, I still find it heartbreaking to see [and hear] how children are treated sometimes. :(

I think I have said to you before how lucky you are to have had such a wonderful childhood!! I'm sure it makes it easier to be a great parent.

You mention smacking being illegal where you came from - sad that, to 2004, there were only 13 countries in the world who have this law. I would really like to see it introduced here ... but I can't see it happening anytime soon :( .

[JanetF]

How excellent to see a discussion of this. Our mainstream childrearing practices are unnutterably brutal. The incongruence of the practices never cease to puzzle. Babies are too fragile to sleep with but you can feed them anything and leave them to cry for hours without damage? We ignore children's emotions when they cry but expect them to be loving, sunny and affectionate somehow? We hit them and then wonder why they're scared of us and hit us back? We start it in pregnancy when we avoid soft cheese like it's a death sentence but have major narcotics pushed on us in labour which cause real damage to mothers, babies and breastfeeding. None of it makes any sense at all. But it breaks my heart to hear of these poor tortured babies and those disgusting sleep trainers who make money lying to parents about the biological needs of babies. I found these great articles the other day which really sum this up.
Try these little exerpts. The whole articles are excellent though.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1345420,00.html
If you ignore a crying child, tell them to shut up or put them in a room on their own, you can cause serious damage to their brains on a level that can result in severe neurosis and emotional disorders later in life,' said Professor Margot Sunderland, a leading expert in the development of children's brains and a British Medical Association award-winning author, who has already written more than 20 books on child mental health.

Based on her four-year study of brain scans and scientific research, Sunderland entreats parents to reject the modern theories of baby experts such as Gina Ford and Channel 4's Supernanny, Jo Frost, who preach strict discipline, routine and controlled crying.

'The blunt truth is that uncomforted distress may cause damage to the child's developing brain,' said Sunderland, the director of Education and Training at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London.

http://drbenkim.com/articles-attachment-parenting.html
Do babies cry more when they are attended to? A 1986 study concluded just the opposite: the more a mother holds and carries her baby, the less the baby will cry and fuss. Cross-cultural studies also show that parents in non-Western societies are quicker than parents in Western societies to respond to their crying babies, and babies in non-Western societies cry for shorter spans of time. Caregivers in 78% of the world’s cultures respond quickly to an infant’s cries. For instance, Efe caregivers in Africa respond to a baby’s cries within ten seconds at least 85% of the time when the baby is between three and seven weeks, and 75% of the time when the baby is seventeen weeks. !Kung caregivers respond within ten seconds over 90% of the time during the baby’s first three months, and over 80% of the time at one year. In contrast, American and Dutch caregivers have been found to be deliberately unresponsive to an infant’s cries almost 50% of the time during the baby’s first three months. Infants in non-Western societies have been found to fuss just as frequently as those in Western societies, but due to the prompt response of caregivers in non-Western societies, the overall cumulative duration of crying is less than what occurs in Western societies.

It has been suggested in the past that CIO is healthy for infants’ physical development, particularly the lungs. A recent study looking at the immediate and long-term physiologic consequences of infant crying suggests otherwise. The following changes due to infant crying have been documented: increased heart rate and blood pressure, reduced oxygen level, elevated cerebral blood pressure, depleted energy reserves and oxygen, interrupted mother-infant interaction, brain injury, and cardiac dysfunction. The study’s researchers suggested that caregivers should answer infant cries swiftly, consistently, and comprehensively, recommendations which are in line with AP principles.

CIO supporters tend to view their infants’ cries as attempts to manipulate caregivers into providing more attention. Holding this view can be detrimental to the immediate and long-term health of the baby. In the field of cognitive psychology there exists the premise that our thoughts underlie our behaviour. Thus, if we think positively about an individual, our behaviours toward them tend to be positive as well. Conversely, if we think negatively about an individual, we will behave correspondingly. Consider people in your own life whom you consider manipulative – how does that perception influence your behaviour toward them? It is unlikely that the interpretation of a manipulative personality will result in the compassionate, empathetic, and loving care of that individual. Infants, quite helpless without the aid of their caregivers, may suffer both emotional and physical consequences of this type of attitude.

[mimi]

I hear ya' JanetF! I hear ya'!!

What you say all seems so clear and logical to me...but obviously not to everyone :confused:

I have recently seen some reviews on a book I think I just MUST have on my shelf, that goes into this as well -
Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain by Sue Gerhardt.

I will steal part of one of the reviews, to post here, from http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1262302,00.html Definitely worth reading the rest too ... and if anyone has read the book already, please let me know what you thought!!

Sue Gerhardt's book Why Love Matters shows that early experience has effects on the development of both brain and personality that none of us can afford to ignore.

She takes the hard language of neuroscience and uses it to prove the soft stuff of attachment theory. Picking up your crying baby or ignoring it may be a matter of parental choice, but the effects will be etched on your baby's brain for years to come. Putting your one-year-old in a nursery or leaving them with a childminder may turn out to be a more momentous decision than you thought.

Drawing on the most recent findings from the field of neurochemistry, Gerhardt makes an impressive case that emotional experiences in infancy and early childhood have a measurable effect on how we develop as human beings.

Who we are is neither encoded at birth...it is inscribed into our brains during the first two years of life in direct response to how we are loved and cared for..."There is nothing automatic about it. The kind of brain that each baby develops is the brain that comes out of his or her particular experiences with people."

Good parenting isn't just nice for the baby; it leads to good development of the baby's prefrontal cortex, which in turn enables the growing child to develop self-control and empathy, and to feel connected to others. Interaction, it turns out, is the high road from merely human to fully humane.

It's hard to read this book and feel complacent about the conditions in which many children today are raised.
Gerhardt is not the first person to say these things, but research findings in this area have been very slow to filter out to the general public.

Why Love Matters is hugely important. It should be mandatory reading for all parents, teachers and politicians.

[nemosmum]

I Love a good read and that book sounds great Mimi thanks, I just might have to buy it :)

[mimi]

I Love a good read and that book sounds great Mimi thanks, I just might have to buy it Oh GOOD! You most probably will have it read long before me ... so you can give us some highlights when you're done! LOL
I am currently TRYING to get time to read Robin Grille's 'Parenting for a Peaceful World' - among other things :D - so we might be able to compare notes!! [on second thoughts you had better get your own copy of Grille's book ... I may be a while!! LOL]
:)

[tickle]

I totally agree!!
It is really strange to me that people smack their kids for hitting them. How is a child supposed to learn not to do a behaviour that the parent is inflicting on the child. Children learn from what they see, it just seems so backwards!!
The one time my dad tried to smack me, I smacked him back :o . What else are you supposed to do, cower in the corner. I knew my rites, my mum told me never to put up with anyone hurting me!! I wasn't a bad child at all, but I can here all the pro smackers saying to themselves I probably needed it. But nothing worked better on me than my parents talking to me and explaining what the problem was. I would never hit just anyone in the street, so why would I hit the most important person in the world to me??
I just wish that my 15 month old new what I was on about. At the moment I think it is just a matter of redirecting his attention.
I think if you are honest and open with your children and reinforce the good in the good, then you can have a great loving relationship. :)

[Funkychicken]

I remember when my son was avout 8 or 9 mths old and I was hosting my mum's group at home. My son decided to bite two other babies-the first and interestingly the last time too. One mum was horrified that I wouldn't bite my baby back! She tried to insist that I bite him back "to show him what it felt like". I refused and tried to explain that I would only be teaching him to do exactly what we were saying was wrong. This mum very soon drifted away from our group and I haven't seen her for over 6 years. The other mum brushed it off and rang me later that evening to make sure I was OK. She wanted to let me know that she didn't in any way hold me or my son 'responsible' and she understood entirely that these things happen. I finished that phone call feeling like I had found a friend-indeed seven years later we are the best of friends. I will always be grateful to her for that phone call as up until that point I was starting to doubt myself on the issue. These days I trust my instincts when confronted by 'those who think they know better'.
Sal-counting down in single weeks now!

[nemosmum]

Good on you Sal,

I had the same problem with my mum.....just didnt understand our parenting beliefs. But when I made it very clear she would not be minding DS any time soon if she didnt conform to our standards she soon got the idea and now shes great with Orlando.

The other day I over heard her talking to my nana about it......she said "Sarah's one of those modern mothers she does things a certain way, no smacking and yelling. But it seems to be working for Orlando his a beautiful little boy" I was actually really pleased that she'd finally gotten the idea; our child ,our methods :)

[JanetF]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4429706.stm

Smacking's impact 'same globally'

Researchers interviewed families in six countries
Children who are smacked are more likely than those who are not to become aggressive and anxious, no matter what the cultural norm, a study says.
A global research team studied 336 families across six countries - some of which accepted smacking as legitimate discipline and some which did not.

It found smacking resulted in more behavioural problems in all countries.

Read the rest at the link :)