Consequences, punishment, discipline, oh my…
In my pediatrics training over a decade ago, during preventative maintenance and anticipatory care for the younger crowd, we encouraged the time out method as well as reward systems for discipline. You know, the sit on the step x 1 minute for each year in age, for bad behavior. Or you get a token for good behavior. Or some variation of this.
After becoming a mom, it was quite evident to me, these systems don’t work the way we think they do. Or the way we want them to.
For a generally compliant, mainstream kid, any time out for unwelcomed behavior may likely mitigate repeat behavior, however they’re going to also feel misunderstood, isolated and worse, that they are intrinsically bad. Depending on their developmental capacity and emotional intelligence, it’s pretty easy for children to equate being in trouble with being bad person, so that last part is not surprising, and also terrible.
These hardline reward vs. punitive action models are also terrible for children who run off the beaten developmental path. And they may have an even tougher time trying to decipher the message. An autistic kiddo who does not share the insight into the connections of his emotion plus action equals time out, is just not going to understand that his behavior was unwanted and in order to stay off the step or to get a sticker, he has to act a specific other way. If he is unable to cue into his feelings in a circumstance, or he is unable to filter his impulsive reaction or adjust his response to be more “appropriate”, then what? Not only does he not understand his own behavior, but he doesn’t understand the punishment. Rinse and repeat. Until everyone is in tears.
If our goal is to get our kid to stop the unwanted behavior, then we have to ask WHY they are doing it in the first place, and dig into clues that could illuminate struggle points. Is kiddo tired, hungry, uncomfortable, requiring more/less sensory input, feeling frustrated about the toy, feeling upset they couldn’t have pizza instead of spaghetti two dinners ago, etc.? Is the area too bright, too dark, too noisy, too smelly, too something? What can the kiddo do – do they have difficulty in motor planning and sequencing? Do they have trouble forming an idea or initiating a task or following through? Run the list.
We should be scaffolding our kids always. That’s our job as adults and caretakers. Scaring, shaming, pushing compliance… that’s all for creating quick adjustments to behavior in order to make our life easier when you really consider it. Hurting a child’s feelings of self worth, and causing the emotional distress from punitive responses, leads to breach of trust and connection in our relationship. While it’s easier said than done, observing the behavior, keeping your own emotions in check and figuring out the why answers are going to be more helpful in addressing situation by situation. Not adding another minute for Molly to sit on the step and think about why she shouldn’t hit her brother.
