One of the most frequently asked questions I get in my position is “how should I appropriately discipline my child?” Historically we see spanking, yelling, and time-outs, and most of the time we are not seeing the results we hope to get. Reactions like spanking or yelling are considered punishment. The word “punish” is interestingly derived from the Latin word punir which means “to chastise, take vengeance for, inflict a penalty on, cause pain for some offense.”
Parenting and discipline is a taboo topic however it is important because we are on a team attempting to teach our children life-long coping skills for stressful moments. When we resort to violent punishment like spanking or yelling we are modeling that when we are angry we should be violent. We often say to children as parents, “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and then model a wrong when we want our children to do a right. We need to ask ourselves what is the goal of discipline. The word “discipline” comes from the Latin word disciplina, which means “to teach, to guide, to instruct,” and that is exactly the goal we should have when it comes to correcting a child’s behaviour.
I have taken the Triple P Parenting course that teaches skills and strategies for appropriate discipline and positive parenting. There are a plethora of great strategies that I would love to put in this article but the word count would be long enough to create a book. Instead, I would like to encourage you as parents to take the time to access the online training to learn how to positively parent! We have to remember that most of our strategies are learned and not to blame our parents or ourselves for using something they thought was effective. Remember we all are in the process of growing, learning, and trying to do better. Here is the link for the training:
Triple P Parenting Training
