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| Catch Them Being Good by Saralee Sky Back to Home Education page
When your baby is new – really for the whole first year – nothing he can do is ‘wrong’. No behavior, no matter how nerve-wracking, is in need of correction or discipline. When your baby cries, he is telling you that something is wrong. He is trying to tell you that he’s hungry or wet or tired, – something! It is up to you to learn to read his cues, and understand his different cries. Sound impossible? Don’t worry. It’s really not as hard as you think. Just relax, take a deep breath, and have faith that your baby knows what he needs and will tell you if you listen and trust your connection to him to help you out.
As your baby grows and becomes a toddler, she will begin to test out her new-found freedom by getting into everything she can reach, things she’s been watching for a long time, but was unable to get to. My grandson started crawling in his fifth month. When he finally mastered the art of going forward, he made a beeline for his big sister’s toy box! He’d been watching that box for months! Your baby is not being naughty, just exploring her world. Put safe things on the shelf she can reach or in a cupboard she can open and move unsafe things out of her reach. Then her explorations will be like a treasure hunt.
As your baby approaches 18 months to 2 years old, he will start to define his boundaries, as in, “This is me and this is NOT me.” NO will be heard a lot around your house – and it should be. It is vital that he learn where he stops and the rest of the world starts. This is also the stage when some discipline may be called for. He may start to experiment with hitting or biting, and temper tantrums are just around the corner.
When you need to discipline your child, please remember, her behavior may be ‘bad’, but her motives are pure and so is she. She is only looking for attention or love or understanding – the same things we adults need from those we love. Resist the urge to assign negative or nasty motives to the unpleasant behavior. In fact, ignore the bad behavior as much as possible. This is where the title of the piece comes in: try as much as possible to catch her being good.
In other words, ignore him when he is being bad and pay attention to him and lavish him with praise when he is being good. This sounds simple, but it is actually harder than it sounds. We are programmed to fix what is wrong, and a whiny, fretful kid can definitely disturb your peace. When he’s playing quietly you can go about your own business – read a book, do the laundry, go to the bathroom, whatever. When he’s being bad you stop what you were doing and attend to him. Turning this process around will take a lot of practice.
First determine whether the ‘bad’ behavior is unsafe to your baby or anyone else. If not, ignore it. Don’t even make eye contact. As soon as she stops whining or crying or pushing her food on to the floor, look right at her, smile and say something like, ‘Oh what a good girl you are! I like it so much better when you are a happy, smiling girl.” Or – “Thank you very much for asking me in a nice voice. You have such a sweet voice when you are not whining.”
If the behavior is unsafe, e.g., your toddler is pinching your baby’s cheek really hard, remove his hand, say something like, “No, that hurts the baby.” Say it firmly, but make as little eye contact as possible. When your toddler stops the behavior, take him on to your lap and thank him for being nice to the baby. Now you can also explain more about how pinching hurts, but in a calm, kind voice. See the difference? In time your baby will learn that he gets much more attention for being good than for being ‘bad’ and the not so nice behaviors will disappear.
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Setting Limits and Using Consequences by Joe Sky-Tucker
I am not a parent yet. My experience comes from the eight years and counting that I have worked with children, from after school daycare to a locked residential unit for “at-risk” youth and everything in-between. This article comes from my personal experience working with children and my great respect and love for them.
Disciplining your child has a negative connotation. There are books about positive discipline and different philosophies from using “time-out” to spanking. Whichever method is used there are some important things to know:
There is a rule when working with children called the ‘20 to 1 Rule’. That means 20 positive interactions with a child for every 1 negative one. Positive interactions can include compliments, physical affection, spending quality time with him. With parents that number is even higher: some say 50 to 1 and others say even 100 to 1.
Too much of discipline is punishment and negative consequences. Another method of discipline is reinforcing positive behaviors. Catch them being good and make a big deal out of it. If you are teaching table manners say, “I like how you are using your napkin to wipe your face. Good job!” This will work much better than yelling, “Stop wiping your mouth on your sleeve!”
When a child is chastised and put in “time-out” constantly, it can become the only form of attention she gets, thus creating a cycle in which she will act out just to get attention. That is why after every major consequence like a “time-out” it is important to repair the relationship. Your child feels like she has failed you. So talk about what happened, making sure to let her give you her side of the story without interruption. Then correct anything that didn’t happen or was untrue and come up with a more accurate version. And make sure she knows you still love her.
Ask her what she was feeling and if she doesn’t know you can suggest the feelings for her, “Were you feeling sad, mad, frustrated…?”. Validate her feelings, then talk about positive ways she could have expressed those feelings, “When you were mad, instead of throwing your shoe, what could you have done?” Then make a plan for the future when she gets mad again, “Next time you can stomp your feet and say ‘I’m mad’, then we can figure out what to do about it.” By doing this after major conflicts you are providing a structure in which your child’s voice is heard, and you are teaching her about expressing her feelings and the proper ways to behave.
Here is a little parental cheat sheet:
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Bios:
Saralee Sky is the co-owner of Womb To Grow LLC and www.babynut.com. She has over 20+ years of experience working with children, first as a therapist for abused women and children, and then as the director of three nonprofit agencies serving children. Ms Sky left her position as director of Camp Fire USA Samish Council to create and run Babynut in 2003. Joe Sky-Tucker is Ms Sky's 28 year old son and the subject of her article My First Home Birth! Joe is currently attending Antioch University and works full-time with emotionally disturbed youth in an inpatient setting.
Saralee Sky |
