Adapted from Millie Cawlfield’s article “Balanced Discipline”
Children are the “hope or our race.” (Mary Baker Eddy, Pulpit and Press, p. 9) No gift we give them is more important than good discipline. To discipline, in its truest sense, means to teach. If our work with our children results in our child’s wanting and loving to do what is right, we are truly disciplining.
Mary Kimball Morgan states in her article “Foundational Trusts,” “In childhood, it is very essential that right habits of thought become established—honesty, truthfulness, unselfishness, industry, thoroughness, perseverance, loving-kindness, and all noble qualities which make for Christian character…. Helping our children to love and express all that is pure and good requires us to keep very close to them and to seek divine wisdom constantly in our association with them.” Good discipline teaches right concepts and helps develop self-confidence and dominion over erroneous temptations.
Discipline should be a balance of principle and love. We love and understand our child so that he is free to be creative and gain confidence in the value of his own ideas and thoughts, but we also teach him obedience, self-discipline, and unselfed love. This discipline is neither authoritarian nor overly permissive. It takes thought and practice to establish this balanced sense of discipline, and we often tend to swing back and forth. But the closer we get to this goal, the more harmonious the results will be.
Here are some ideas to consider when disciplining:
- Get down on your child’s level to talk eye-to-eye.
- When making demands or setting limits:
- Ask yourself, “Are these right demands based on Principle, not human will? Are they right for my child’s present stage of development?”
- Be consistent in the demands made on the child.
- Give directions clearly and simply.
- Don’t ask the child a question when no choice is intended. Rather, use a positive tone in your voice: “It’s time to go now,” not “Are you ready to go?”
- Provide genuine opportunities for the child to make choices. Abide by his decisions.
- State directions in the positive. “Our feet walk in the house,” rather than “Don’t run in the house!”
- Impersonalize the directions—take “you” out of them. “It’s time to go to bed,” rather than “You must go to bed now.”
- Make good appealing:
- Be courteous when making a request of a child as you would be with a friend. Mrs. Morgan states, “Too often one thinks a child needs no special consideration or courtesy shown him…. A genuine courtesy toward children is true discipline and eliminates much of the punishment which is sometimes called discipline” (Education at The Principia, p. 50).
- Lay clothes out in a line for the child to put on. Then say, “Here is a bell. I’m putting it on the dresser, and when I hear it rung, I’ll know you’re all dressed.”
- Be willing to give the child help with jobs that seem overwhelming to him. The objective is to make the child love order, not force compliance.
- Redirect wrong actions.
- Follow through and make sure your child complies. Don’t nurture self-will by giving in when confronted with crying or tantrums.
- To prevent problems, look for causes of misbehavior:
- Ask yourself: “Should I make changes in his environment? Put an irresistible ‘no no’ out of reach? Install a gate? Close a bedroom door?”
- Plan ahead: Bring interesting toys on a long trip or to a friend’s house or restaurant.
- Don’t make unnecessary demands at “touchy” times in your child’s day (when he’s tired or right before dinner).
- Give your child a good concept of himself by holding a true concept of him in your thought. Expect good.