Thoughts About Accidents & Discipline
Before we talk about discipline and teaching, we should think about how to handle accidents. Often accidents will happen, and sometimes they can be very hard for a parent to handle, such as when a child breaks your favorite vase that belonged to your great-grandmother or a child is throwing a ball and it bounces into the television, breaking the screen. Accidents happen to all of us, and the last thing any of us needs is to be disciplined right at that moment. When a child causes a problem and realizes that his/her parents are truly saddened by what happened, the child feels as bad as the parent does when he/she has caused someone else pain through an accidental occurrence. As hard as it may be, a parent must make room for accidents in the child’s growing process. Now if the child has been taught not to play with the ball near the television, then appropriate discipline may be used, but otherwise, it must be chalked up to “accident”, and no discipline is warranted. Use this as your first “teaching” moment. Children learn from accidents. They learn that things can happen to them that are truly not planned. They learn to try to fix the problem if they can. They learn that even when they have caused a problem, they can be forgiven and that they are not “bad.” And always, as a parent, be glad that any accident that does not result in an injury is not such a problem really!
In thinking about discipline, we must first embrace teaching. The word ‘discipline’ comes from the same root word as the word ‘disciple,’ and to disciple a person means to teach. In the same way, really discipline is teaching. We have come to use the word to describe what we are doing when we are using uncomfortable means to make a child learn to listen to our instruction. In Part 1 of this series, I talked about teaching a child three times about what is expected by the parent concerning each issue. No discipline is warranted if no teaching has happened first. A child cannot be held responsible for something he or she does not know.
Going on from this idea of using uncomfortable means…many children do not need much in the way of this aspect of teaching. “Easy” children seem to come out of the womb pretty accommodating and pretty able to adjust to changing conditions. Those children fit into the flow of a family and have learned to please others by watching what other children do or by getting parental attention in this way. Some children are able to amuse themselves, and they simply are not demanding.
Strong-willed children want control. It seems to be a part of their internal make-up.
Parents of a strong-willed child will have to wrestle for control, and the issue is not to break that child’s spirit, but to help the child learn to control him/her self. As an adult, a strong willed child will often become a leader, and the way he/she leads others will be formed to a great extent during those first years of life. A strong-willed child may need more discipline and structure to learn how to fit in with others and to lead without demanding. Parents will have to show stronger leadership and more consistent discipline in order to maintain control within the family.
Whether a child is difficult or easy, you will have to discipline every child. It is just a part of the learning process. Children need to fail as they learn, and they WILL fail to obey their parents and they WILL get to experience whatever results of their disobedience you have set up in your family. This is teaching them the truths that we all need to learn early; that life is smoother when we are able to follow rules that make sense, and even some days to follow rules that don’t make sense, but that are set up by people who have the authority to do so. And we all need to learn that we must own our mistakes, and that often we hope for mercy when we have messed up in some way. Good parents are a child’s first and best teachers because no one else will love them in quite the same way. This is the reason that families are the best places for children to grow into fine adults. May we all be blessed to grow up in a family full of love.