As their children grow up, many parents will encounter various troublesome problems, especially when their children have no rules, cry, and make mistakes again and again. I have seen many situations where parents and children are in conflict. Usually the parents' patience has reached the limit and the children are disobedient again and again. At this time, the parents start to use punishment, such as "Go back to your room and think about your mistakes behind closed doors, and you are not allowed to come out!", " I will never allow you to watch TV or play games again!" In serious cases, children may even be beaten.

I understand how parents feel when they choose to do this. On the one hand, they are angry and can't help but get angry. On the other hand, they feel that the child's problem is serious and if they don't punish the child, he will get worse in the future.

However, we have never advocated parents to use punishment to solve problems. These punishment methods may seem effective at the time, shock the children's emotions, and curb some bad behaviors of the children, but in the long run, the gains outweigh the losses, because many times punishment It will have adverse effects on the child's body and mind, and the behavior that parents want to stop their children will reoccur later, which cannot fundamentally solve the problem.

Some parents know the dangers of punishment and will try their best to restrain their emotions and not punish their children. However, another worry arises, that is: If I hold back my anger, will my children become more unruly? If I don’t use punishment to get my children to correct their mistakes, will they become less disciplined in the future? So, when a child exhibits some bad behavior, how do we make the child correct it?

In fact, when children make mistakes, what they need is not to accept punishment, but to learn to take responsibility! We can analyze it through the following scenarios:

Scenario 1

After a busy day at work, my mother went home and cooked dinner. The child felt that he was not hungry at that time and did not want to eat. He wanted to watch TV and play games. The mother patiently told the child to eat more. The food cooked today was delicious, but The child just won’t listen. After the mother coaxed her for a long time, the child reluctantly agreed, but during the eating process, he was thinking about playing, and even impatiently knocked chopsticks and threw food to make trouble for others.

Punishment practices:

The mother finally couldn't help but get angry and sternly told the child that she had worked hard to cook and for the sake of his health, he must eat on time. But the child still didn't eat well, so the mother picked up the child and stopped him from sitting at the dining table. She made him stand for an hour. The child cried and refused, and in the end the whole family didn't eat well.

Why such punishment is ineffective:

Such punishments are often ineffective because this series of practices allows children to understand the following information:

When I'm not hungry, my mother insists on letting me eat.

I wanted to play, but my mother stopped me.

I couldn't play, so I had to find something interesting to do at the dining table. My mother made me stand for an hour. During the process, I felt aggrieved and angry.

Let your children learn to take responsibility:

Explain the rules: Tell the children to eat only during meal time. As long as it does not affect the child's health, children are allowed to skip meals when they are not hungry. However, explain in advance that dinner is only eaten during dinner time. If everyone has finished eating , I will not give him separate meals or prepare snacks for him.

Provide choices: Make it clear that if the child does not eat and continues to interfere with others' eating, he will be asked to leave the table and let the child choose to eat quietly at the table, or go to his room or other places.

Let the child bear the consequences: If the child continues to lose his temper at the dinner table, then let the child go back to his room or go somewhere else, and wait until he does not affect others before he can come back. Tell the child when he can come back or go to play. It's not decided by his parents, it's his own decision. What needs to be noted here is that it is not mandatory to stipulate that the time for the child to stand or go back to the room must be a fixed time. Let the child understand that the parents are not punishing him as a person, but letting him learn to respect others and control his emotions and Behavior.

Scenario 2

My mother has always thought that her son is a careless person, because he either forgets to bring textbooks from home to school or forgets to bring homework from school. She originally thought that was enough to worry about. Recently, the child missed an exhibition because he forgot the time. If the validity period of the ticket is exceeded, the money will be wasted.

Punishment practices:

In a fit of anger, the mother got angry with the child, complained that he was really worrying her, and stipulated that the child could not participate in any extracurricular activities this month.

Why such punishment is ineffective:

Parents check whether their children have completed their homework every time and help them pack the things they need to go to school, so that their children can get used to it. After this serious warning, it may be difficult for children to remember, because the information summarized by children is:

My mother thinks that I just forget things easily, and these problems I have are normal. Anyway, when I don't forget, she doesn't remember either.

Usually my mother will help me think about the small details in life. If I fail to do it and I have a problem, my mother will usually solve it for me.

I forgot to participate in the event because of carelessness, and my mother got angry and told me that if I was careless, I could not participate in the exhibition I was interested in.

Let your children learn to take responsibility:

Talk about the situation: Don't label your child just because he or she has some bad behavior, because it is easy for the child to reinforce this behavior and feel that you have given him a stereotype anyway.

Inspire children to think of solutions: When a child is delayed because of forgetting, do not solve it for the child. Let the child think of a solution first. For example, if he forgot to bring his homework, can he explain to the teacher that it will be handed in another day? If he forgot to bring his book, can he borrow it? Others use it, etc., and let the children try to come up with their own solutions.

Let the child bear the consequences: because he is careless, he cannot participate in the exhibition, and because he is disobedient, he cannot watch animations. It seems like a reasonable punishment, but it is actually two things. Depriving the child of the happiness from event A is used to make up for the child's failure in event A. The child may not necessarily understand the responsibility for the mistake in B, and may lose interest because he does not watch the exhibition, and may continue to lose his temper with his parents without watching the animation. If your child likes the exhibition very much and regrets missing it, you can ask the child to think of ways to remedy the situation, such as buying another ticket, but the ticket fee must be paid with the child's own pocket money to let the child know that his parents support his participation in the event. , but he has to pay for his losses and be responsible for his actions.

Scenario 3

The child is very interested in many things, and the mother is also very supportive. She encourages the child to participate in trial classes in painting, music, and dance. The child begins to find them very interesting. In order to cultivate the child's artistic temperament and allow the child to broaden his horizons, the mother gives The child has signed up, which is a big expense, but the child is only interested in three minutes and loses enthusiasm for learning. He does not do the practice homework assigned by the teacher. There is a piano lesson this weekend, and the mother cannot rest. Get up early and send your child to class. The child is bedridden and will probably be late for class again today.

Punishment practices:

My mother was very angry because I didn't practice piano before. Today, my mother called me early in the morning for a long time, but the child was still dawdling. In the end, I couldn't help but get angry and complain to the child, because I was worried that he couldn't rest on weekends. He was so irresponsible, so why not Stop studying, and the child didn’t agree to drop out of the class. In the end, the mother had no choice but to send the child to study and apologized to the teacher on the child’s behalf.

Why such punishment is ineffective:

You think that in order for your child to overcome his fear of difficulties and laziness, you must give him more instructions, but the message summarized by your child is:

I study just for my parents’ expectations.

What was originally a light thing turned into a heavy thing because my mother got angry.

When I encountered difficulties or didn't want to practice piano, my mother told me not to learn at all, which made me hesitate to learn or not to learn.

Let your children learn to take responsibility:

Make an agreement in advance: It is normal for children to be enthusiastic about something for three minutes, because they are often motivated by curiosity when they first come into contact with something. When the child is interested in learning a course of interest, make a small commitment ceremony with the child. Tell your children the effort required to do this, and if they choose, they must persist, at least for a while.

Encourage instead of complaining: In the process of children's learning, parents should also invest time, money, etc. If the child is afraid of difficulties, do not let the child learn passively by complaining to the child about his efforts. In that case, the child will feel that he is doing something for his parents. When it comes to learning, parents are the supervisors of their own learning; a better approach is to actively deal with difficulties with their children, showing that their parents understand them, and that they are also very interested in this matter and look forward to listening to his new works, so that their children can He feels that his parents are with him, and that his parents are his companions in learning.

Let the child bear the consequences: If the child has been resisting, you can stop and discuss with the child why he thinks he should learn? What were the reasons and role models for your original choice? What is your ideal level of learning? You can list down the benefits and difficulties if you stick to it, and the benefits and losses if you don't continue. What is emphasized here is the loss of not learning, not the punishment of not learning. Punishment is different from loss. Punishment is an artificial consequence, while loss is a natural result. Only by allowing children to distinguish these can they have their own internal driving force for doing things, instead of always acting for rewards and coping with fear of punishment. .

If we encounter a problem similar to the one above, we always use the method of punishing the child. It seems to be the fastest way to solve the problem, but in fact it is treating the symptoms but not the root cause. It makes us and the children unhappy, which not only makes the parent-child relationship tense, but also makes the parent-child relationship tense. In the end, the child has not learned to be independent and responsible, and the child may never understand the internal logic of the issues that the parents want to convey.

In addition, in addition to seeing parents having various negative emotions such as anxiety, worry, and anger due to various problems that arise when their children grow up, I also see that many parents will fall into deep self-blame after punishing their children. Blame yourself for not controlling your temper and making a fuss out of a molehill. In fact, parents are also human beings, not gods. Our call not to punish does not mean tolerating children and suppressing themselves. In fact, we want parents to solve the problems encountered in the growth process with their children in a peaceful and happy state. The problem. If you get angry because of the above reasons, please don't blame yourself blindly. Let yourself relax and calm down first, because parents need to be calm and can come up with many intelligent and objective solutions!

You must know that the most effective way to discipline is not to use the harshest punishment or to use material compensation afterwards, but to manage and restrain yourself by letting children know the consequences of bad behavior.

As the contemporary educator Suhomlinsky said:

Only education that can inspire students to educate themselves is true education.

If we apply it to these scenarios, it is:

Only education that can inspire children to manage themselves is a truly effective way of discipline.

Why is your punishment ineffective?