Our Discipline: a novel

I'm not a fan of most parenting books- the few I've looked up online or heard other people talk about usually offend me or make me roll my eyes. I’ve found I prefer to use other people’s experiences, combined with JP and my collective common sense and knowledge of our child, to guide us down this path of raising a human being. So because I've found other people's stories so helpful, I've wanted to share our current (but ever evolving) approach to discipline with Landon. I haven't yet because as it turns out, it's really hard to put something like that down on paper. I usually draft beautifully eloquent blog posts in my head when I can't sleep, and then I turn them into much less eloquent blocks of writing later. In this case, I couldn't even get through the post in my head. Plus, I very much don't want to come off as preachy or as sounding like we have it all figured out. I believe we have found something that works well for our particular son at this particular age. That is all. So in order to keep this post less than 1,000 pages long, I’m going to write the rest of this without all the equivocating that is probably running through my head, but please read it like it’s there.

I guess I should start by explaining that we use time-outs. No physical or corporal punishment and no sticker charts or incentives (though we temporarily and unsuccessfully used incentives for potty training, but I consider potty training to be a developmental thing and not a discipline thing anyway). When he was younger, like around 18 months, time-out involved us sitting with him away from whatever sparked the tantrum. Around age 2, he sat in a corner of our living room right next to the kitchen. He was a few feet from me, but through an archway, so it was a separation. Also around that time Landon discovered he could move his body out of time-out, so we resorted to putting his kitchen table booster chair on the floor and using the little straps to buckle him in. That worked wonderfully for nearly a year- he’d even proudly tell his Gigi that “that’s my time-out chair for when I don’t behave.” It kept him in the mini corner and kept us from having to hold him there, which never went well. At around 2 1/2 we started sending him to his room. We don’t have baby gates or special knobs on his door, so he could leave when he was ready to come downstairs and apologize. That has worked really, really well, but probably wouldn’t have at any time younger than 2 1/2.

the chair (we took off the tray)

We chose time-outs because I don’t really like corporal punishment ever, but definitely and absolutely don’t like it at this young exploring/limit-testing age. I believe in discipline, but I don’t like the idea of punishment that involves pain when so often his misbehavior is based on tiredness or a level of frustration that I can’t help but sympathize with. The reason we don’t use incentive charts for behavior is because I believe Landon should behave because he’s supposed to behave. He doesn't get dessert because he ate a nice dinner or a toy because he was good on errands, he does those things because that's how he’s supposed to act. If he doesn't, he goes to his room. That sounds harsh, but the very few times we did the "if you do X, you get Y," it introduced a whole world of haggling and after about a day I got sick of it. We do always try to explain why he's supposed to do X, and we revisit our rules if X isn't working with our routine, but at the end of the day it sometimes comes down to "because we're your parents and we said so" and he can go to his room until he comes around.

We don't have a time requirement for the time-out. If it's minor and he's not upset, it's a few minutes, usually to give us time to calm down or clean up or whatever, and then we go up to talk to him and walk back down with him. If he's upset, then it's until he calms down. After a few minutes, one of us will go up to try to talk to him, to remind him that he can come back down as soon as he's ready to stop crying and apologize, and we'll keep doing that every 5-10 minutes until he gets a hold of himself. It very, very rarely takes that long. And we always talk to him once he comes down- he has to remember why he was sent up, why whatever he was doing wasn’t okay (which gets at him understanding the reason behind our rules), and how he can fix it (like by doing what we asked him to do before he jutted out his chin and decided he wasn't taking orders from anybody). We do hugs, say I love you, and continue on with our day. He never has any lingering resentment and usually quite openly announces to whoever is around that "I had to go to timeout because I wasn't behaving.” I'm definitely not someone who thinks disciplining my children risks crushing their delicate spirit. Landon's spirit is fine, and his world makes more sense when there are repercussions for things he knows are wrong.

Okay, so here are our basic principles:

(1) We are in charge, always, and we try to make decisions with our whole family in mind. No one parent is in charge of discipline- if Landon is acting up, that parent needs to deal with it, and then that parent is the one who talks to Landon afterward and springs him from his room. We both love him and we both want him to be safe and happy, and occasionally that requires sticking him in a timeout chair or tossing him in his room until he calms down. For a while I was the easy one. Partially because I was pregnant, but I can admit it was also partially because it is SO MUCH EASIER to ignore things - the early tremors of defiance before an outright tantrum. And you just can't. Within a month I noticed that Landon was significantly better behaved for JP than for me and I knew I had to suck it up and start being stricter. It seems counter-intuitive, but Landon is a million times better behaved and is honestly happier when we are very strict with him. It's part of my toddler chaos theory described in #5. Also, as part of this, we try not to push it or set him up to fail. If it's the end of a long day, we're not going to take him to a restaurant. But at the same time, if we're traveling and that's just the way things had to work out, we absolutely still expect him to behave while we're there.

(2) Our toddler is not in charge of the family and does not get to dictate what the family is doing or the environment in which the family is doing it. This is shown by example in #4, but basically I think Landon is allowed to be mad if he's mad. I get mad sometimes too. But like me, Landon is not allowed to express it in a way that interrupts or affects the people around him. He can object and we'll talk about it and figure out a way to do what he wants too. But if he wants to scream about an injustice done to him, he has to do that in his room (or in the car if we're in public, but if the screaming began when we were actually in a restaurant he's also going to be punished for it when we get home, which will be as soon as the other parent can pay the check). He can't continue on with his day until he calms down and either does what we asked him to do or apologizes if whatever led to the screaming involved disobeying a parent or hurting someone or something.

(3) Kids can learn to behave at an early age; they do understand you, and they can remember things you've told them in the past. This was SO hard for me. I remember many times of JP putting Landon in time-out when he was around 18 months and I’d hiss at him that he's too young, he doesn't understand, he can't be blamed! JP, who has never read anything about children except what I've forced him to, always said, yes he does. And even if he doesn't, he's learning. We're not hurting him, we're just making him sit for a minute in a corner because he wouldn't say please (or whatever). In the end, I think JP was right, and I was partially using him to make me feel better for my misbehaving child because I could yell at him and not Landon. I was also big on saying, "he doesn't know that's the rule!" and JP kept saying, yes he does (and once again, even if he doesn't, he's certainly learning it). Now that Landon is so verbal and so obviously understands everything we say (too much of what we say really), this is no longer much of a problem, but I think it was important we started young. Looking back, when Landon spent like 3 months resisting “please” and constantly turning it into a huge battle to the point where I’d try to give him things before he requested them just so I wouldn’t have to make him say it, I think it was all one big test to see if he really always had to do it. Once I cracked down and didn’t allow exceptions, the issue went away in less than a week. Sometimes they make things so hard on you (and them) but establishing your world order is important and “please” was going to be part of ours if it killed us all. (That was over a year and a half ago and I’m glad to say he always says it now.)

(4) Screaming, hitting, kicking, throwing are absolutely unacceptable ALWAYS, no matter how tired, sick, etc. the child may be. I’m always thinking of reasons for why Landon is misbehaving that seem like they should mitigate punishment. No. That was a road to nowhere. I may understand that the reason he has a meltdown over the soap being the wrong color when he washes his hands before dinner is because he woke up early and didn't have a nap, but that doesn't mean it's okay to scream instead of washing his hands. It does mean that my child isn't possessed by evil spirits, which is a relief, but it doesn't stop him from being sent to his room until the screaming stops (which is usually pretty fast, particularly when we're eating something he really likes). That's also why, as I said before, we don't focus on making him stop screaming- if he's mad, he can be mad, but he cannot do it in the kitchen where the rest of the family is trying to talk and eat dinner. When he has decided he has expended enough energy protesting the soap situation, he can come back down and try washing his hands again. He also has to apologize for not behaving and yelling, and then we all move on and enjoy dinner together. If he comes down but is still grumpy and refuses to wash his hands or apologize, it's straight back up to his room.

(5) The rules are enforced always, no exceptions for public places, parties, etc. Exceptions = chaos, and chaos for a toddler = tantrums. I thought I was being nice by trying to ignore the occasional bad behavior in public or at a birthday party because surely he didn't want it interrupted and if I ignored it he would stop doing it, but no. As it turns out, not being punished is also very upsetting because it means the same action can produce different results. This is chaos and toddlers do not thrive in chaos. If I'm out with Landon and Claire by myself and really can't deal with a situation as it develops (like the grocery store), we leave as quickly as we can, occasionally resulting to temporary bribery to stop any loud acting out, and then it is time-out immediately when he gets home, even if he's reformed before we get there. That's hard to do, but I've found it works better in the long run. We talk about it as we go up the stairs, about how "remember at HEB when you yelled at mommy because you wanted a snack, and mommy explained we were eating dinner soon, but you yelled again? You weren't behaving, so that's why you're going up to your room." The punishment is definitely less effective, and he doesn't have to stay in his room long, but I think it's important to still do it.

Those are the principles, the rules have grown as he's gotten older, but include things like eating with good manners, no whining, do as your told (by your parents and teachers), no hurting other people or animals, say please and thank-you, obey higher standards of behavior for restaurants and public places, clean up your toys when you're done with them and clean up everything before bed, use "excuse me" and don't interrupt when other people are talking (really only grown-ups), etc.

Discipline is hard and it's exhausting, but at least for us, we have reaped enormous benefits from sticking with it. I read once that children need two things more than anything else: unconditional love and clear boundaries. That has really shaped our parenting, and I think enforcing firm boundaries is part of loving your child. Landon is extraordinarily well behaved- every teacher he's had comments on it. I think about 50% of that is just him and we can take no credit for it. I think the other 50% comes from us and what we do to work with his personality. When he gets mad he'll scream and cry, but he's never physical and has never thrown anything. If he did or he had a harder time calming down, I'm sure we'd have a different way of dealing with it than letting him extinguish his own rage up in his room (which usually takes 5-10 minutes and involves him sitting on his bed yelling, he doesn't even try to leave, which of course he could do if he needed to).

Over 18 months of trial and error have brought us here, to a system that works when consistently enforced, and to a kid who is full of smiles. We do lots of other things, like complimenting him when he's being good or helpful, and talking him through what we're going to be doing that day and why. I was going to say that we don’t need to discipline him much, because it doesn’t seem like it, but I’ve been paying attention over the last few days and it turns out he goes to his room about once a day. I’d never have guessed that. I think because it’s dealt with quickly, he recovers quickly, and we all move on quickly- it’s like a blip on an otherwise idyllic radar screen. So that's where we are now. We’ll see how it goes as he gets older and as Claire starts discovering she can push boundaries too. I've discovered parenting is just one big learning process for both parent and child, and as soon as you have something figured out, it changes!

a happy, fully accessorized Landon

P.S. I added these two more things regarding discipline in a separate post after I wrote this one.