What is Discipline?

Discipline means teaching the child appropriate and desired behaviors, gaining habits, and educating the child to ensure that he/she obeys the rules.

Discipline is often equated with punishment and is therefore ignored, especially in modern families. However, discipline is not a punishment, but a set of rules. The first and safest place to learn the rules is family. If the child has not learned to obey the rules at home, the place where he will learn this is the school environment. The school environment may not always be loving. This may damage the child's self-confidence development and cause him to exhibit negative behavior.

Discipline is effective when accompanied by unconditional love. A child who knows that he is loved and accepted by his parents under all circumstances, no matter what he does, does not react to discipline methods. In children who cannot receive unconditional love, the child constantly rebels against authority and does the opposite of what is said.

Rules should not only be applied when the child exhibits inappropriate behavior or disobeys, but should be applied under all circumstances. Rules should belong to the behavior, not to the person making the rules. If the mother has made a rule that chocolate can be eaten after the meal is finished, this rule should be applied not only when the child is with the mother but also with other people (such as father, grandfather, aunt).

How Should Rules Be Determined?

When determining rules, the child's age, skills and personality characteristics should be taken into consideration. Not every child may have the same skills at the same age. First of all, the skills of the child's current age should be examined and compared with the skills the child has. While the skills he or she has difficulty doing can be supported, what he or she can do can be made a rule. For example, making this behavior a rule for a child who has difficulty folding his clothes and expecting him to comply will not be beneficial and will also damage the child's self-confidence. Instead, while the ability to fold his clothes is developed with support, on the other hand, if he can make his bed, this behavior can be made a rule and he can be expected to comply with it.

Concrete rules make it easier for the child to show the expected behavior. For example, instead of expecting the child to be tidy, It would be more useful to concretize the idea and translate it into actions (such as making your bed, hanging your clothes on the hanger).

In order for the rules to become a habit and for the child not to forget what he needs to do, parents can make a list of the behaviors they expect from the child and hang it on the wall of his room. For example, when you wake up in the morning, wash your hands and face, make your bed, brush your teeth, collect your toys, hang your clothes, and pack your bag before going to bed. In this way, the child can follow the tasks he will do every day from the list.

How Should the Rules Be Explained to the Child?

          Parents should determine the rules together and explain them to the child together. If the child can read and write, the rules can be written down and the whole family can talk about the rules together. It would be unfair to explain all the rules to younger children and then expect them to comply with them. Because young children can forget most of what is said.

          Immediately after observing an undesirable behavior in the child, the parents should confront the child without getting angry and shouting and tell the child in a calm but determined voice that his behavior is not appropriate and that he should not do this again. The same method should be applied every time the child repeats this behavior. When the child sees that his parents are determined on this issue, he puts an end to the undesirable behavior after a few tries. For example, when hitting behavior is observed in the child, parents may say:

            “…., hitting is very wrong. Nobody gets hit. We don't want you to do this again.”

          Explaining the rules in a positive way is one of the factors that make it easier to comply with the rules. Telling the behavior to be done in command sentences may cause the child to exhibit contrary behavior. Telling the child, "If you don't do your homework, you can't play with the computer" means the same thing as saying, "When you finish your homework, you can play with the computer." While the first sentence feels like a punishment, the second sentence feels like a reward. Positive statement makes it easier to comply with the rule It not only improves but also supports child-parent communication.

          Parents sometimes start making explanations as to why a behavior should not be done. Of course, it should be explained why it should not be done. However, the explanations made must be age appropriate. As the age increases, it is enough to increase the explanation, and at younger ages, it is enough to say that the behavior is wrong.

When Should Rule-Making Begin?

          The need to make rules arises as the child begins to crawl. . The child who begins to crawl, with the urge to explore his surroundings, rummages through cabinets, empties drawers, and engages in behaviors that may put him in danger. In this case, the most common method used by parents is to say "don't do it" or even shout and get angry. Instead, for young children, it is necessary to say "No, it cannot be done" and take the necessary precautions (such as hanging locks on cabinet doors, removing items that may endanger the child's life out of reach), and remind the child of the rules as the child grows older.

Reward or Punishment? :

          One of the important factors that change behavior is punishment. However, instead of encouraging the child to learn and learn from his mistakes, punishment causes anger to accumulate within the child. The punished child thinks "I am bad". However, when he is allowed to experience the natural consequences of his mistake, he receives the message that his behavior, not his personality, is inappropriate.

          The most effective way to learn and teach appropriate behavior is to reward. With the idea that "appropriate behavior is the behavior that should be done anyway", parents do not say anything to the child in the face of positive behavior. Just like the mother who cooks dinner every night is often not given feedback on the meal she cooks. However, rewarded behavior is repeated and reinforced.

          However, when the child exhibits inappropriate behavior, the parents' attention is immediately focused on the child. The important thing for children is to attract the attention of their parents. How did this happen? This is not very important. If the child realizes that his parents are paying attention to him at the end of his inappropriate behavior, he will continue to behave inappropriately to continue this.

          Punishment indicates what should not be done instead of showing appropriate behavior. Parents may think that the child who learns what not to do will understand what to do. However, there are different appropriate behaviors and children learn these behaviors with guidance and guidance from their parents. With reward, desired behaviors become established more easily. As age increases, the sanctioning power of the punishment decreases. Moreover, problems such as rebelling, doing the opposite of what is said, and constantly behaving negatively may occur. Therefore, it is important to reward the child's desired/appropriate behaviors.

          The reward method can be used at all age levels. While more concrete rewards (such as candy, wafers) are used at younger ages, using fun activities (such as going to the cinema, to a match, playing games together) as rewards becomes effective as the age increases.

          When determining the rewards, the reward to be used should be valuable and easy to obtain for the child. It is important that it cannot be done. At this point, rewards can be determined together with the child. This makes it easier to motivate the child to obey the rules. When the reward to be used is determined as an activity that the child will do with his/her parents, both the child and the parents will enjoy it. Thus, the concept of "discipline" ceases to refer to authority and punishment and enables family members to live a harmonious and enjoyable life with each other.

          Another point to consider is that the reward is for concrete behaviors. The child must know clearly what the behavior is expected from him and what he will get as a result, so that he can perform that behavior. Just as a salesperson clings to his job more tightly when he knows how much bonus he will receive after making a sale, children also comply with that rule more easily when they know that they will win as a result of their behavior.

What Parents Should and Shouldn't Do

• When disciplining, parents should His duty is not to be an authority, but to guide the child.

• Parents should also implement the behaviors they expect from the child.

The child should brush his teeth. If this is expected, parents should set an example for the child by brushing their teeth.

• What behaviors are expected from the child should be clearly explained.

• Behaviors expected from the child. It should be appropriate for his age and personality traits.

• Parents should determine the rules together and tell them to the child together.

• While explaining the expected behaviors of the child. Positive expression should be used.

• Except for very special situations (such as death, one of the parents leaving home, serious illness), the rules should be fixed and the child should understand that his parents are determined and consistent on this issue.

• The reward method should be used to make it easier to comply with the rule and to make it permanent.

• Do not get angry at the child, shout at him, request him, or even It is not appropriate to beg. Instead, parents should just remind the child of the rule. It should be the child's choice whether to follow the rule or not. However, he should be rewarded when he obeys the rules, and he should experience the consequences when he does not.

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