DISCIPLINE

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DISCIPLINE
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The role of the parent...
To produce a child is simply a matter of
biology. To parent a child is a difficult role
to fulfill.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a Pyramid
of Human Needs, an heirarchy of needs critical to
survival.

• It is the parents job to help meet these needs
  of their child
• The child has physical needs of food, water,
  shelter
• The child must feel and be safe from harm
• The child must feel love, a sense of belonging
  acceptance
• The child must feel a sense of self-worth
• The child must strive to be all that they can
  be (fulfillment/ self-actualization))

In order to help the child satisfactorily meet
these needs throughout their lifetime, the parent
must provide guidelines for behaviordiscipline.
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Definition of discipline...
One of the most challenging aspects of the
parents job is discipline. Discipline is the
task of helping children learn to behave in
acceptable wayswithin the family and within
society.
The term discipline does not mean punishment it
means guidance or direction. Punishment is
only one small part of guidance.
With excellent guidance, children gradually begin
to understand why certain actions are right or
wrongdeveloping a conscience!
The ultimate goal of discipline is to help
children achieve self-discipline the ability to
control ones own behavior.
Human beings possess the ability to use logic.
They choose to behave in certain ways, and with
every choice comes a consequence. The role of
the parent is not to shield children from bad
consequences, but to guide children in learning
to make good choices that have good consequences.
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The parent-child bond is important...
An adult can discipline a child without having an
attachment to that child, but a strong bond
between the parent and child is very effective
making the process of disciplining easier.
Continue attachment parenting after infancy

• Communicate your love to your child in word and
  deed each and every day.
• Listen and respond to your childs feelings as
  well as their words.
• Show respect for your child's unique ideas and
  opinions.
• Discuss mutual goals, plans, and responsibilities
  with your child frequently. This includes the
  short-term daily plans, goals, and
  responsibilities as well as the long-term ones.
• Your child should know where you are and how to
  reach you, but should not need to make frequent
  contact throughout the day.
• Continue to touch your child affectionately with
  hugs, pats on the back, sitting together to read,
  etc.
• Model and teach courtesy, patience, kindness,
  thoughtfulness, honesty, loyalty, responsibility,
  fairness, and forgiveness.
• Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities
  at home. This solidifies their sense of worth in
  a measurable way.
• Recognize, acknowledge, and praise your child
  when he makes an effort to do something good
  -good school papers, obeying parents, helping at
  home. Make a big deal out of it!
• Avoid destructive expressions of anger such as
  insulting, sarcasm, shaming. Try to discipline
  with dignity. Never threaten to withhold or stop
  loving your child.

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Be a parent, not a friend...
While parents can be friendly, they should not be
a friend. Children have lots of friends who tell
them what they want to hear. They don't need you
to be another friend. They need you to be an
authority figure who lets them know where the
boundaries of acceptable behavior are. Trying to
be his or her friend will only undermine your
authority as a parent. Friends often come and
go friends do not love unconditionally.
A child, especially a teenager, might tell you
that he/she wants you to be their friend. Parents
that try this are doing an injustice to their
child. Children cannot always assess or verbally
define their needs.
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The psychology of discipline...
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904,
in a small Pennsylvania town. Burrhus received
his BA in English from Hamilton College in
upstate New York.  He didnt fit in very well. He
wanted to be a writer and did try, with poetry
and short stories.    After some traveling, he
decided to go back to school, this time at
Harvard.  He got his masters in psychology in
1930 and his doctorate in 1931, and stayed there
to do research until 1936. Also in that year, he
moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University
of Minnesota.  There he met and soon married
Yvonne Blue.  They had two daughters. In 1945,
he became the chairman of the psychology
department at Indiana University.  In 1948, he
was invited to come to Harvard, where he remained
for the rest of his life.  While not successful
as a writer of fiction and poetry, he became one
of the best psychology writers, including the
book Walden II, which is a fictional account of a
community run by his behaviorist principles.
August 18, 1990, B. F. Skinner died of leukemia
after becoming perhaps the most celebrated
psychologist since Sigmund Freud. He was renowned
for his theories on human behavior... the basis
of many of todays discipline methods.
B. F. Skinner 1904-1990
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Operant conditioning...
B. F. Skinners entire system is based on operant
conditioning.  The organism is in the process of
operating on the environment, which in ordinary
terms means it is bouncing around its world,
doing what it does.  During this operating, the
organism encounters a special kind of stimulus,
called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a
reinforcer.  This special stimulus has the effect
of increasing the operant -- that is, the
behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. 
This is operant conditioning  the behavior is
followed by a consequence, and the nature of the
consequence modifies the organisms tendency to
repeat the behavior in the future. Imagine a
rat in a cage. This is a special cage (called, in
fact, a Skinner box) that has a bar or pedal on
one wall that, when pressed, causes a little
mechanism to release a food pellet into the
cage.  The rat is bouncing around the cage, doing
whatever it is rats do, when he accidentally
presses the bar and -- presto! -- a food pellet
falls into the cage! The operant is the behavior
(pressing the bar) just prior to the reinforcer
(the food pellet).  In no time at all, the rat is
furiously peddling away at the bar, hoarding his
pile of pellets in the corner of the cage. A
behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus
results in an increased probability of that
behavior occurring in the future.
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What if you dont give the rat any more pellets? 
Apparently, hes no fool, and after a few futile
attempts, he stops his bar-pressing behavior. 
This is called extinction of the operant
behavior. A behavior no longer followed by the
reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased
probability of that behavior occurring in the
future.
Behavior extinction...
Skinner discovered, however, that if you
re-introduced the reinforcer again, the operant
behavior resumed more quickly than it had
originally been developed.
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Schedules of reinforcement...
At one point in his experiments, Skinner decided
to reduce the number of reinforcements he gave
his rats for whatever behavior he was trying to
condition (in other words, he didnt always give
the rat a food pellet even when they did the
desired behavior), and lo and behold, the rats
kept up their operant behaviors, and at a stable
rate.  This is how Skinner discovered schedules
of reinforcement!
To encourage or produce a specific behavior,
continuous reinforcement must be used initially.
Once the pattern of behavior-followed-by-reinforce
ment appears quite well established, the
reinforcement does not always have to be used.
The desired behavior will continue with only
intermittent or variable reinforcements.
Can you explain how schedules of reinforcement
are used by teachers when they use gold stars,
grades, or comments on students papers.
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An aversive stimulus is the opposite of a
reinforcing stimulus, something we might find
unpleasant or painful. An aversive stimulus is
commonly referred to as punishment. A behavior
followed by an aversive
stimulus results in a
decreased probability of
the behavior occurring in the
future.  
Punishment...
If you shock a rat for touching the wooden cube
placed in the Skinner box, then the rat will stop
touching the wooden cube (maybe). If you spank
Johnny for throwing his toys he will throw his
toys less and less (maybe).
Statistics show that behaviors change more
quickly with the use of punishment than with the
use of reinforcers, BUT more permanently with the
use of reinforcers rather than punishment.
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Negative reinforcement...
The reinforcements we have referred to in
previous slides are positive reinforcements in
rats this might be a food pellet in children it
might be a desired stimulus such as praise, a
gold star, a special candy treat, rewarded with a
special activity such as a picnic, getting a
longer recess, a hug.
There are also negative reinforcements. These
are not the same as punishment. The childs
behavior changes in order to stop an existing
punishment or aversive stimulus.

• Example
• 1. The child does not like the parent to nag
  them about taking out the garbage.
• The child takes out the garbage.
• The parent stops nagging.

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Shaping is a method of successive approximations.
Basically, it involves first reinforcing a
behavior only vaguely similar to the one
desired.  Once that is established, you look out
for variations that come a little closer to what
you want, and so on, until you have the child
performing a behavior that would never show up in
ordinary life. 
Shaping behaviors...
Example A little boy was about four years old,
and was afraid to go down a particular slide.  So
I picked him up, put him at the end of the slide,
asked if he was okay and if he could jump down. 
He did, of course, and I showered him with
praise.  I then picked him up and put him a foot
or so up the slide, asked him if he was okay, and
asked him to slide down and jump off.  He did.  
I repeated this again and again, each time moving
him a little up the slide, and backing off if he
got nervous.  Eventually, I could put him at the
top of the slide and he could slide all the way
down and jump off.  His behavior was shaped.
Application I want my
child to be quiet and sit relatively still during
an entire 20 minute sermon every Sunday at
church. What steps might I take to shape this
behavior?
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Behavior modification...
Behavior modification is the therapy technique.
Simply, you extinguish an undesirable behavior by
removing the reinforcer, and replace it with a
desirable behavior by using a reinforcer.  It has
been used on all sorts of psychological problems
such as addictions, neuroses, shyness, autism,
schizophrenia, obsessive/compulsive tendencies --
and works particularly well with children.

• Example
• Undesirable behavior Susy bites her nails
• Remove the reinforcer cover her hands with
  gloves or paint the nails with bad-tasting liquid
• Catch Susy in the act of NOT BITING her nails
• Offer Susy praise or a gold star or her choice of
  polish color for not biting her nails

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Token economy...
Token economy is a method of discipline used
primarily in institutions such as psychiatric
hospitals, juvenile halls, and prisons.  Certain
rules are made explicit in the institution, and
behaving yourself appropriately is rewarded with
tokens -- poker chips, tickets, funny money,
recorded notes, etc.  Certain poor behavior is
also often followed by a withdrawal of these
tokens.  The tokens can be traded in for
desirable things such as candy, cigarettes,
games, movies, time out of the institution, and
so on.  This has been found to be very effective
in maintaining order in these often difficult
institutions. In normal situations, is it like
buying good behavior?

• Example
  
• Get a smiley face beside your name for every day
  that goes by without a physical fight
• A grumpy face sticker gets pasted over a smiley
  face when you start or join in a fight
• When you get 5 smiley face stickers showing, Ill
  rent the movie of your choice for you

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Classical conditioning...
Also known as respondent learning or Pavlovian
conditioning. A behavior occurs that is a
learned response to a stimulus that was not
originally capable of producing the response.

• Based on the theory of Russian scientist
  Ivan Pavlov (1849-1946)
• 1. A bell rings, and means nothing to
  the dog
• The bell rings and food becomes visible the dog
  starts salivating
• Upon salivating, the dog gets the food
• Repeated often enough, the dog will start
  salivating at the sound of the bell

• Application
• The teacher flicks the light switch in the room
  on and off it means nothing to the noisy
  students
• The light flickers, and the teacher says shhhh
  and gets very quiet the children get quiet
• When the children get quiet, the teacher smiles,
  praises them, and continues with the lesson
• Repeated often enough, the children will get very
  quiet as soon as they see the lights flicker

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5 steps to discipline...
STEP 1 Be committed and consistent. It's
crucial that your child knows that you're going
to do what you say you will. If you explain what
a punishment will be, and then don't act on it,
you will have less credibility the next time.
Make a commitment to your child's discipline, and
be consistent in your behavior toward them.
Dont say no unless you mean no. Dont give
in to begging. Its better to be wrong than to
be wishy-washy in your decision. Dont offer
children a choice unless you can live with their
decision. (Example Would you pick up your toys
now, please?)
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5 steps to discipline...
STEP 2 Be realistic in your expectations of
the child. Don't ask your child to do anything
he/she cannot do. Make sure that what you are
asking of your child is a behavior within his or
her reach if it's not, your child will get
frustrated and be less likely to listen to you in
the future. Expectations will change over time as
the child ages.
I am your mother, and I told you to pick up all
those blocks and sort them by size and put them
back on the shelf in the right spot!
Would this request be a realistic expectation for
the child at the right?
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5 steps to discipline...
STEP 3 Find out what the child
values. Identify the things your child likes or
values. it could be a toy, a particular
activity, or even a privilege like getting to
stay awake to a particular hour. If you control
these things, then you control the behavior those
things depend on. Once you understand what your
child values, you can withdraw positive things
(taking away the toy) or introduce negative
things (making them take a time-out from an
activity) as a form of discipline. What your
child values will change over time, as they age.
While taking away a toy might work for a 3 year
old, taking away TV might work for an 8 year old,
and taking away the car keys might work for a 17
year old.
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5 steps to discipline...
STEP 4 Give the children predictable
consequences. It's important for your child to
understand that the same result will come from
the same behavior. Make your child feel like
he/she has control over their life If your child
behaves in "Way A," they need to be sure that
they will always get "Consequence B." If he/she
can count on the rules staying the same, they're
more likely to abide by them.
Im sorry youre mad, but you heard your teacher.
Every time you try to cheat while playing this
game, youre going to have to spend another
timeout on the bleachers!
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5 steps to discipline...
STEP 5 Use child-level logic. Explain your
values in terms your child can understand. Take
the time to explain the reasons behind why you
are asking he/she to behave in certain ways if
your child understands the kinds of behavior
you'd like them to avoid, they're more likely to
apply that reasoning to different situations,
instead of learning to stop one behavior at a
time.
When I broke my truck, Dad said toys cost a lot
of money and I should take good care of them.
I think he meant this toy tractor, too!
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The corporal punishment debate...
By definition, punishment in the form of physical
contact is called corporal punishment. This would
include punching, shaking, striking (with hand or
object), biting, pinching, and/or spanking.
Licensed caregivers and public school teachers
in the state of Nebraska are prohibited from
using corporal punishment.
Much of the worldincluding Asia, the Middle
East, the U.S., the U.K., Canada and New
Zealandleaves the spanking issue up to parents.
But 11 nationsAustria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark,
Finland, Germany, Israel, Iceland, Latvia, Norway
and Swedenhave laws prohibiting corporal
punishment of children by caregivers or parents.
Sanctions range from fines to possible
imprisonment. Parents traveling with children
should be aware of these laws regarding corporal
punishment.
The debate Is corporal punishment a form of
discipline or a form of abuse? What does
corporal punishment teachimproved behavior or
violence?
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The corporal punishment debate...
PROS Spanking can be immediately effective on
a short-term basis in getting children to change
the negative behaviors that prompted the
spanking.  Spanking has been shown to be most
effective in 2- to 6-year-olds when used in
conjunction with milder disciplinary methods,
such as reasoning and time-outs.   In a study,
parents who combined reasoning with negative
consequences such as spanking had the most
success in changing negative behaviorsmore so
than other forms of discipline such as time
outs.
CONS Long-term consequences of spanking can
include increased aggressiveness, antisocial
behavior, and delinquency.  Spanking without
reasoning may fail to teach the child right from
wrong. The child may simply avoid the undesirable
behaviors in the presence of the parent.  
Physical punishment can send mixed messages to a
child and reinforce aggressive behavior. When
parents model aggressive behaviors by spanking,
they reinforce the idea that physical aggression
is the way to get what you want.   It is
suggested that frequently spanking children
weakens the closeness of the parent/child
relationship.
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Spanking...
If you decide that spanking is an appropriate
form of punishment for your child, and you have
already given a warning, then proceed by
following these rules

• The two places you can spank a child are on the
  hands, or on his/her bottom.
• If spanking on the childs bottom, their bottom
  should be clothed.
• Use your hand to spankNEVER use an object.
• You may be angry, but you MUST be in control
  enough to explain exactly HOW youre going to
  spank them and WHY... BEFORE YOU START TO SPANK!
  If you are too angry to do thatyou are too angry
  to spank a child, because you are out of
  control.
• Follow through with the spanking exactly as you
  have explained.

I told you not to throw that toy in the house or
youd get a spanking. Throwing toys in the house
is dangerous. You threw the toy anyway, so now I
am going to spank you. Im going to bend you over
my knee and spank you 3 times.
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Time out...
If you decide that time out is an appropriate
form of punishment for your child between the
ages of 2 and 12, follow these rules for best
effectiveness

• The time-out area should be easily accessible,
  and in such a location that the child can be
  easily monitored while in time-out.
• Place the child in time out tell them why they
  are being placed on time out have no further
  discussion.
• Set a timer with an audible bell to signal the
  end of timeout the timeout period should last 1
  minute for each year of age
• While in time-out, the child should not be
  permitted to talk, and the parent should not
  communicate with the child in any way.  The child
  also should not make noises, or be allowed to
  play with any toy, listen to the radio or stereo,
  watch television, or bang on the furniture. Any
  violation of time-out should result in automatic
  resetting of the clock for another time-out
  period.
• Timeout only works if the child is willing to
  serve the time out period. Select an activity or
  object you can take away until the child serves
  the timeout.

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Ignoring misbehavior...
Sometimes children display temper tantrums in an
attempt to get what they want, but in fact, these
tantrums cannot work unless there is an audience.
Kicking, screaming, pounding fists, stomping
feet, disruptions to a group activity, and even
holding their breath to the point of passing out
may be typical of a childs tantrum behaviors.
In these events, the best form of discipline may
actually be no discipline at all. The tantrum is
performed for attention (good or bad), and when
absolutely no attention is given the tantrum is
no longer effective. In other words, you might
choose to ignore misbehavior.
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Do not spoil your child...
Indulgence means over-gratification, yielding
to a wish, a tolerant attitude. To spoil a
child means over-indulgence. Spoiled children
have a very difficult time growing up and living
life successfully. As a parent, you must adhere
to some difficult rules and some form of
discipline in order to keep from spoiling your
child
Your primary job as a parent is to prepare your
child for how the world really works. In the real
world, you don't always get what you want. You
will be better able to deal with that as an adult
if you've experienced it as a child.Children,
like adults, do not need to be happy all of the
time. It is not a parents job to make their
child happy. If your parent/child relationship
is based on material goods, your child won't have
the chance to experience unconditional love. Be
a good role model. A parent is not the only
influence in their childs life, so theyd better
be the best one!
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Redefine what taking care of your children means.
Are you providing for them emotionally and
spiritually? You need not buy them material goods
in order to create a bond. Instead of tangible
gifts, how about spending some time together? Be
careful that you aren't teaching them that
emotions can be healed by buying material
things. Make sure your children aren't defining
their happiness and their status in the world as
a function of what they wear or drive. Sit down
with them and have a one-on-one conversation
about what really defines their worth their
intelligence, their creativity, their caring,
their giving, their work ethic, etc. If you spent
equal time sitting down and talking to them about
what really mattered as you do shopping, you
might be able counterbalance the countless images
they see telling them otherwise. Understand
"intrinsic" versus "extrinsic" motivation. If you
are always rewarding your child with material
things, he/she will never learn how to motivate
themselves with internal rewards like
pride. Make sure your child understands the
value of hard work.
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In order to succeed, you have to do things you
dont really want to do things other people
dont want to, but things that need to be
done. Who does your child idolize? Who is their
hero? Discuss this with your childis this idol
truly worthy of this hero status? Is this a good
role model for your child? Help your child set
goals. Teach her that striving to own nice things
is fine if she understands how much hard work it
takes to afford that, and then doesn't base her
self-worth around what she buys.
Your child does not have to like you every minute
of every day. He'll get over the disappointment
of having been told "no." But he won't get over
the effects of being spoiled.
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Licensed child care regulations...
While regulations for disciplining children by
licensed child care providers are covered in the
lesson on Substitute Child Care, it should at
least be noted in this lesson that child care
providers must operate under entirely different
restrictions than the parent.
The center shall ensure that no child is left
alone, pinched, punched, shaken, struck with any
object, bitten, or spanked by staffno corporal
punishment!
The staff cannot discipline By denial of food By
forced napping For toileting accidents By making
any sort of derogatory remarks about them or
their family By using abusive or profane
language, yelling or screaming, or threats of
physical punishment
A brief, supervised separation from the group may
be used time out.
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DISCIPLINE
THE END
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• Preparing individuals for life and work
• Strengthening families
• Empowering communities
• Created by Barbara L. Swarthout, Family
  Consumer Sciences teacher at Elkhorn High School