Podcast Episode 63: Mistakes Every Parent Makes When Disciplining Their Kids (and how to avoid them)
You’ve tried everything! And nothing is working with the misbehaviors!
You have taken away screens, told your kids about the consequences of failing their 9th grade math class or riding their bike into the street without looking, but the behavior continues!
Why won’t they listen?
Why isn’t it working?
I hate to tell you this, but you’re sabotaging things.
Here are 3 ways that you sabotage your discipline at home:
1. Assuming You Know What the Problem Is
First of all, we all know the saying…when you “assume” you make an ass out of you and me. While crass, it tells the truth.
Why do we often assume that we know what’s causing a problem with our kids when we haven’t even asked them something like, “What’s up?”
In the book, The Explosive Child by Dr. Ross Greene, he suggests that parents drill down the problem by using reflective listening and asking these 5 questions:
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
2. Looking for the Right Punishment
When we are upset and in the heat of the movement, we often believe that if we just found the right punishment, the behavior would stop. Somehow we fall prey to that momentary lapse of judgement where we actually believe that if our kids feel “bad enough” their misbehavior will stop.
Let me tell you something…that pretty much never works out the way we want it to.
Often times it leads to our kids feeling mad or even worse, vowing to not get caught next time, even if it means lying.
Instead, we need to focus on teaching our kids how to solve the problem they have by working with them.
You broke your gaming controller because you were mad that you lost a game? Well, now we have no controller, and no controller = no video games. But let’s problem-solve about why you got mad, what you can do in the future so you don’t break the controller, and how we are going to fix the broken controller.
READ: Positive Discipline at Home: The Four Basics of Positive Parenting
3. Because I said so! (A.K.A. I know best)
We’ve all had it said to us by our parents…
Because I said so!
I don’t know about you, but that reasoning only made me angry as a kid and made absolutely no sense to me 90% of the time.
These unilateral statements completely disregard your child’s opinion and makes them feel powerless and unheard. A perfect recipe for them to act out and misbehave yet again!
Instead, try asking your child to join you in the problem-solving process. In the book, Thrivers, Dr. Michele Borba talks about how kids can use a “Pocket Problem Solver” to come up with solutions. They can simply open up their palm and use their thumb to name the problem,
then use their next 3 fingers to come up with 3 things they could have done differently,
and then the pinky holds the one thing that they can do right now to help solve the problem.
And that’s the 3 biggest mistakes parents make that are sabotaging their discipline at home, how you can stop doing them, and what to do instead to fix it.
Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think. Have you been doing any of these sabotaging behaviors?
Resources We Shared:
No Guilt Mom Podcast- How to Raise a Thriver with Michele Borba
Download the transcripts HERE
The best mom is a happy mom. To better take care of you, download our No Guilt Mom mindset here . These reminders will help you second guess less, and feel more confidence every day in your parenting.
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Brie Tucker
COO/ Podcast Producer at No Guilt Mom
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