discipline

How To Correct Your Kids

When raising children there are a lot of situations that can be difficult to handle. One of the most difficult is deciding how you want to handle when your children are doing something wrong. Whether it be a common practice that they are not doing in the most efficient way or if they are doing something that is morally wrong. It is important to decide how you want to handle these issues. Here are some tips that may help you decide:

1. Positive Reinforcement
Some parents make the choice to deal with their children positively, no matter what the situation. This path is often seen as the best way to avoid stifling their creativity and the person that they truly are. Positive reinforcement is defined as “the offering of desirable effects or consequences for a behavior with the intention of increasing the chance of that behavior being repeated in the future”. This means that in order to use positive reinforcement when your child needs to be corrected the process would be to show them the correct way of doing things and reward them when they proceed in that fashion, and also when they continue to do so in the future. This reward can be anything from complimenting them on the way that they have done something to a physical reward. Whatever you decide the reward to be, making sure the child knows what they are being rewarded for, otherwise the reward is wasted and their behavior will not be reinforced.
2. Negative Reinforcement
Negative reinforcement is on the opposite end of the spectrum, but can be used in some situations, while still using positive reinforcement in others. Negative reinforcement is defined as “the reinforcing of a response by giving an aversive stimulus when the response is not made and omitting the aversive stimulus when the response is made”. This means that when you see your child doing something wrong that they need to be corrected for, you make it uncomfortable for them to continue doing this negative action. For example, if you witnessed your child hitting another child while they were playing, using negative reinforcement would mean doing something like pulling them aside and scolding them. Depending on the situation, other examples of negative reinforcement can include spanking, scolding, taking something away from them, grounding them, and anything else a parent sees fit that will teach their child a lesson. Negative reinforcement can be difficult for some parents because they do not enjoy making their children upset. It is a judgement call based on personal preference whether or not a parent wants to practice negative reinforcement in their home.

No matter what way you decide to correct your child, whether you use negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, or a combination of the two, it is most important that you be consistent in what you expect from your child or children. It is important that they know what is expected of them and this will be unclear and confusing to them if the standards are constantly changing.

This is a guest post from Pam Johnson. If you have stories you want to publish on KambingBujang about parenting tips, household economy, young parent, or anything related to parenting, please email me at: filtuse@gmail.com  
Author Pam Johnson enjoys mothering her children and blogging. She is a contributing writer for creditreport.org.
Photo Source: techne

Abusive Father and The Aspect of Discipline and Structure

How come hitting your child give you a good feeling toward the aspect of discipline and structure?

Ruth Liew wrote;

Physical abuse will cause your child to suffer from low self-esteem and become fearful of those who around him. There is no learning in discipline for the child in physical abuse. The one who abuses the child only wants the child to submit to his will. He does not acknowledge the child as a person. He only makes up an excuse for his outrageous act as teaching the child discipline.

The concerned mother was worried about the father constantly hit his son without any good reason. The only reason she got was he wanted to teach him a lesson — with pinch and slap.

First off, what is wrong with him? May be slapping and pinching is the new commodity for communicating with you son.

I’m a cold-hearted father when it comes to discipline: I pinch my son and my daughter; I also yelled at them with high voice of thunder when they do something that terribly wrong or refuse to follow instruction. But it is so surprising that this father hit his son out of nothing like Touch N Go card.

I hope I will not be like this man.

[ Abusive Father via TheStar]

The Elephant and The Rope [opinion]

Photo: el patojo

Kids these days have unlimited potential that we should not — ever — disrupt their potential with decision like this; determine to what’s good to play and what’s not good to play. Let them have it what they want.

Ok, stop right now. If we pretend that our child is so full with potential that we have no right to restrict them at all, then there’s something with this society.  If we agree that by implementing restriction, we discourage our children to spark the creativity within – then all I could say that it is so unwise. We should have some restriction on them, mostly on discipline issues.
Zaid Mohamad wrote:
“The story about the elephant goes something like this. Ever since it was born, the baby elephant was tied to a small rope. Every time the elephant moved, the rope would restrict it. During its growing years, it could only move around within the area allowed by the rope’s length.As it grew older and stronger, the rope was never changed. It looked ridiculously fragile to hold such a strong animal, but years of restricted movement had conditioned the elephant to think that the rope had the power to stop its movement. It stopped trying to free itself long ago because it had failed to do so during its early years. As a result, the elephant remained tied to the brittle rope till its death.”
I think we must have rope in every kid’s life because the story of the elephant is about discipline and structure. How come we should not guide them in proper way and let them lost in their own fantasy? Sometimes, the kids need the invisible hand, just like the government did to us.
But fair enough, too much restriction may discourage your kids talent and therefore, we should determine what to restrict.
Determine what to restrict.
Determine restriction that can make them know what is wrong and right. For instance, I will definitely –without remorse– land my rotan on my kids’ hand if they touched electrical plug that can endanger their life, or hit the glass door with their bare hand.
Other than that, they all can bombard with their toys to every inch of living, dining, and bedroom.
I agree with Zaid that we have to unleash our children potential, but I don’t buy his elephant story. Every life has a major breakthrough. If the rope was so fragile, then the strong elephant could easily unleashed the power, untie the rope.

[Smart Parenting: Unleash your child’s potential via NewStraitsTimes]

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