Discipline and Your Child: Overview
It is simply impossible to adequately cover a subject like discipline within the confines of one article. There are entire books written on the subject that only scratch the surface. Even worse, there is simply not the same kind of consensus within the attachment parenting community, with regard to discipline, as there is on the other five tools that the community promotes: connecting with baby after birth, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, sleeping together as a family, and responding sensitively to baby’s cues. About the only thing that 90% of attachment parents agree on is that yelling and hitting are not the way to go. So what I have tried to do with this article, is represent as wide a view of discipline within the attachment parenting community as possible, and do the best I could with the space available. As with all the attachment parenting tools, you need to take what makes the most sense for your family, and leave the rest behind.
That said, I would like to include one note of caution. I am less inclined to encourage parents to follow their instincts, when it comes to discipline, than the other attachment parenting tools. Many of us were raised with violent systems of discipline that left permanent marks on our psyches: unresolved feelings of fear, rage, and helplessness, issues around trust and control. I feel that makes us bad candidates for “going with our feelings” when it comes to discipline. Also, the whole idea that “Badness must not go unpunished!” runs deep, deep, deep, in the collective psyche of this culture.
Demonstrations of "negative" feelings, and “not listening” seem to be issues that generate the highest levels of upset in parents. In the heat of the moment a parent’s first reaction may be to lash out violently towards the child, an urge that might feel instinctual, but certainly would not be the best course of action. Open defiance from a child seems to dredge up the hottest rage, making even the average parent see red, and bringing up all sorts of issues around fear and control, left over from childhood. Isn’t that ironic in a culture that is so obsessed with “independence”? For what is defiance, but strong evidence that independence is blossoming within the child?
Attachment Parenting has a bad reputation for being “soft” when it comes to discipline, and for allowing kids to “run wild”. I think it is important to acknowledge that children do need structure. But, gentle discipline, appropriate to the situation nurtures the creation of internal controls in the child, as s/he learns to behave ethically in order to satisfy an internal need feel “good”, rather than behaving correctly out of fear of punishment or retribution from the parent. Internal controls last a lifetime. Control imposed from the outside only lasts until the child leaves the parent’s direct jurisdiction, or sometimes, is simply out of a direct line of sight.
I think of the behavior of my children as a river, water that can not be stopped from flowing. It just keeps coming and coming. It is my job first to lay the foundation for a good course, and then steer it, divert it, and distract it until it reaches the shore of reasoning, on the sea of adulthood. Stepping on negative behavior, squishing it down violently, damming the river, only causes it to run underground for a time then pop up somewhere else, in an even less convenient location than before!
It is simply impossible to adequately cover a subject like discipline within the confines of one article. There are entire books written on the subject that only scratch the surface. Even worse, there is simply not the same kind of consensus within the attachment parenting community, with regard to discipline, as there is on the other five tools that the community promotes: connecting with baby after birth, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, sleeping together as a family, and responding sensitively to baby’s cues. About the only thing that 90% of attachment parents agree on is that yelling and hitting are not the way to go. So what I have tried to do with this article, is represent as wide a view of discipline within the attachment parenting community as possible, and do the best I could with the space available. As with all the attachment parenting tools, you need to take what makes the most sense for your family, and leave the rest behind.
That said, I would like to include one note of caution. I am less inclined to encourage parents to follow their instincts, when it comes to discipline, than the other attachment parenting tools. Many of us were raised with violent systems of discipline that left permanent marks on our psyches: unresolved feelings of fear, rage, and helplessness, issues around trust and control. I feel that makes us bad candidates for “going with our feelings” when it comes to discipline. Also, the whole idea that “Badness must not go unpunished!” runs deep, deep, deep, in the collective psyche of this culture.
Demonstrations of "negative" feelings, and “not listening” seem to be issues that generate the highest levels of upset in parents. In the heat of the moment a parent’s first reaction may be to lash out violently towards the child, an urge that might feel instinctual, but certainly would not be the best course of action. Open defiance from a child seems to dredge up the hottest rage, making even the average parent see red, and bringing up all sorts of issues around fear and control, left over from childhood. Isn’t that ironic in a culture that is so obsessed with “independence”? For what is defiance, but strong evidence that independence is blossoming within the child?
Attachment Parenting has a bad reputation for being “soft” when it comes to discipline, and for allowing kids to “run wild”. I think it is important to acknowledge that children do need structure. But, gentle discipline, appropriate to the situation nurtures the creation of internal controls in the child, as s/he learns to behave ethically in order to satisfy an internal need feel “good”, rather than behaving correctly out of fear of punishment or retribution from the parent. Internal controls last a lifetime. Control imposed from the outside only lasts until the child leaves the parent’s direct jurisdiction, or sometimes, is simply out of a direct line of sight.
I think of the behavior of my children as a river, water that can not be stopped from flowing. It just keeps coming and coming. It is my job first to lay the foundation for a good course, and then steer it, divert it, and distract it until it reaches the shore of reasoning, on the sea of adulthood. Stepping on negative behavior, squishing it down violently, damming the river, only causes it to run underground for a time then pop up somewhere else, in an even less convenient location than before!
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