Noteworthy Principles Prior to Initiating Child Discipline - Research Paper Example

worthy Principles Prior to Initiating Child Discipline Introduction The best way to discipline a child is to show him/her how adults practice what they preach. In other words, before parents could correct their children they should be highly disciplined and motivated to accept change, correction and learning. If they want change, they themselves should be the first to change. Prior to eradicating certain behaviors from their children, parents should start evaluating themselves and analyze if there is something wrong with their behaviors as well. This is a noteworthy biblical principle. Before an individual could look at the speck of sawdust in someone’s eye, this person must first be able to pay attention to the plank in his or her own eye (Matthew 7:3). In this illustration of how influence could be powerful or meaningful in someone’s life, the environment is considered a significant factor in individual learning. However, it may also depend on the responses of a person to its environment. In fact, the environment and people’s responses to it are what make them who they are (Cloud & Townsend, 2009; Clinton & Sibcy, 2006). It is important then to motivate an individual, especially the child, to create a positive response to its environment to facilitate substantial learning or, in other words, to accept discipline in a meaningful and positive way. In this paper, the proponent elaborates the importance of the child’s environment and his/her responses to it to facilitate discipline or learning. Furthermore, this also highlights the importance of motivating child’s responses and application of parental knowledge and control in discipline to ensure effective response from the child. Psychological theories and Biblical principles are also integrated in order to create substantial illustrations of all the necessary points included in the discussion. The role of environment A child raised in a Christian family is most likely to end up being prayerful, unlike those who are raised by parents who did not have any chance to become religious at some point. The ultimate reason for this is that this child was able to observe what his or her parents were doing or exercising. From a psychological perspective, the environment significantly plays important role in ensuring or facilitating learning from the point of view of an individual’s experience (Feldman, 2003). It is found that there is a high probability of a child to smoke when he or she is raised in a family with either one or both parents would smoke (Feldman, 2003). It is also most likely for a child to become obsessed with alcohol when his mother, father or both parents are more than just occasional drinkers (Feldman, 2003). Even the first word of a child is substantially influenced by the environment. It is found that a child is highly sensitive to what he hears from his immediate environment, which leads to the point when some might assume that the kind of words he utters would reflect what kind of environment he is being raised in (Feldman, 2003). This only illustrates the fact that the environment is very important in influencing someone’s behavior. It is hard to teach a child not to smoke if the parents who would tell him/her not to do this could not even let the day end without lighting a cigarette. To facilitate learning, especially in ensuring discipline, what the child potentially sees should consistently reflect on how adults and their supervision constantly meet the requirements of doing what is considerably good. In doing this, there is a great chance that whatever is preached and put into practice at home should be observed on the child’s actual behavior. It is in fact a common observation that a child who does not have the right discipline would potentially show the kind of training or practice that he or she receives at home. The Bible illustrates the fact that a tree is recognized by its fruit (Luke 6:44). Respectively, no good tree could bear good fruits. Conversely, this context would mean that there must be something wrong with the fruits if the tree is not good enough. Parents, therefore, have great role in forming their children’s character, behavior, attitude or even perspective in life as all of these would substantially reflect the way they lead them. This is another proof that the child’s environment has a great role to play in creating what kind of person he/she would be in the days to come. Thus, in child counseling it is important to always trace the root cause of a child’s behavioral problems (Feldman, 2003). Mostly, the root cause lies at home. It depends largely on the way parents have raised their children how they will behave when they grow up and usually the behavioral problems will be efficiently addressed if there is proper parental directives to be implemented. Generally, it is not only at home where children’s behavioral problems are created. In fact, children could get them from outside home, from other children, adults and external experiences (Feldman, 2003). Things may become complex then but the point is that the environment has a very important role on how it influences an individual. The role of child’s response The entire activity of disciplining a child would be meaningless without a specific response from the subject. A child needs to respond positively to discipline but it is important to point it out that everyone has always a choice. A child seems to have no choice but in reality there could be a form of strong resistance to discipline, especially if it is done in a substantially wrong way. It is proven that discipline without shouting or spanking could be possibly obtained by parents in the first place, not teaching them how to shout, how to hit, how to fear and so on (Wyckoff & Unell, 2002). This at some point would show that a specific level of response to discipline cannot be overlooked. A child should show either negative or positive response, depending on the appropriateness of the disciplinary actions involved. Parents, therefore, should be more keen and willing to observe the kind of response their children are showing as a result of some disciplinary action they had initiated. One important benefit of being able to note the child’s response to discipline is the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of implemented disciplinary actions (Barnes & York, 2001). For instance, children could react with stubbornness to discipline and the usual response of parents is to deal this with corrective teaching techniques. Unfortunately, this behavioral problem could be better addressed if self-control is taught or implemented. With self-control, a child is able to increase his effort not to respond to discipline with tantrums but consider it as a normal way of how his parents deal with bad behavior. Therefore, children in the first place must be able to understand the distinction between good and bad behavior. It should be built up in their system that the reason why they are punished is because they did not behave and that would mean punishment for behaving so badly. At some point, disciplining a child would be a trial and error experience. Aside from that, it requires high level of patience on the part of the parents. This character would be highly influential to child’s ability to respond positively to discipline. If they see their parents with high level of patience, as stated in the latest principle earlier about the importance of the environment in influencing behavior, they would also potentially grow with high sense of endurance. Thus, another important point in understanding child’s response to discipline is to see the reflection of how parents effectively performed disciplinary actions with their offspring. This means children are not only the ones checked in the entire disciplinary action, but it is also an opportunity for parents to know more about who they are. This is the best occasion for them to make some corrective actions about themselves. This is a very important point for them to initiate rules for themselves. In doing so, they would be able to clearly define rules for their children too. Those strongly defined rules at home are very effective to be used to control children, especially those difficult ones (Bodenhamer, 1995). Motivating child’s response Punishment and reward systems are necessary. Punishment, reward and either of them can be effectively used to motivate child’s positive response to discipline. The Bible tells that sparing the rod would spoil the child (Proverbs 13:24). This substantially depicts the fact that punishment is an essential component in disciplining a child and motivating a positive response. Applying authority through punishment is what the Scripture would want to emphasize. The theory about punishment points out that inflicting pain or undesirable consequences of an action would facilitate learning in a positive way if done at the right timing or situation (Feldman, 2003). Punishment, therefore, should be used with a precautionary measure as it would further lead to negative impacts if not implemented at the right way. For example, children at some point have many things to learn and this is the reason that from time to time they have to be reminded about certain rules and everything else. Inflicting punishment on them without a better grasp of why they experienced such treatment would probably result in misleading interpretation about discipline (Barnes & York, 2001). Thus, it is necessary to call their attention from time to time just to let them know the bottom line about why they have received punishment from their parents. In Proverbs 13:24, the Bible simply does not suggest to use bare hands in initiating discipline with punishment but through a rod which should be necessarily applied in order not to spoil a child. Most probably, the Scripture simply is making a suggestion about the divergence between the human hand and the rod in applying authority. The rod is simply a depiction of authority while the human bare hands are to be used for initiating comfort after the authority has been applied to a child. Thus, it is important to console children with a friendly human touch and explain them the reason why they are punished. Usually, a human touch would restore the sense of trust as this is the basic requirement in child’s growth (Saxon, 2003). It is, therefore, important not to use hands in punishing a child in order to facilitate and motivate learning, and above all trust. Reward on the other hand is a good tool to influence the child’s problematic behavior. When children are praised because of the good things or behaviors they showed, this would create an inner joy within them and most often will motivate them to show more desirable behavior (Barnes & York, 2001). In fact, this is a good approach to ensure a highly motivated response to discipline. By compensating good behaviors children would learn to appreciate the good benefits in maintaining those and would please their parents. Therefore, if parents find out that their children enjoy playing with them, they can probably use this as a kind of reward in exchange of good behaviors. For example, parents could tell their children this way, “If you behave and get along well with other children today, mom and dad will play hide and seek with you tonight for thirty minutes.” Of course, parents should be able to fulfill their promises if their children achieved their conditions of rewards in order to effectively facilitate good response to this disciplinary act. The importance of parental knowledge and control Parents should have clear and definite stand with their actions. For instance, if they say yes or no, then they should mean it. As stated earlier, a clearly defined rule which will be put into practice would give parents high sense or level of control on their children. This authority or control would encompass their ability to deal with behavioral problems even in the most and highly extreme cases. Parents with high level of parental knowledge and control are most likely to have high sense of authority over their children (Bodenhamer, 1995). Parenting is a complex activity because it primarily would deal with human’s multifaceted behavior. Children have complex behaviors and this would require parents who have authority to deal with most problematic cases. Children with problematic behaviors are so challenging. Parents need to ensure that they have substantial knowledge of children’s behaviors. In doing this, they will have enough idea on how they could impose their authority at the right timing. They will have a level of control over their children because they know how and when to effectively implement their authority. As stated earlier, inflicting punishment would be either a disadvantage or an advantage depending on how it is applied. Punishment as an indication of showing authority could only work well if parents have substantial knowledge about how to apply it in a positive way. Applying punishment, for instance, as a tool to discipline children cannot be completely effective if parents do not have significant ideas on its importance and potential drawbacks. Furthermore, parental knowledge should not be only confined on what is seemingly the right thing to do. Parenting is a critical activity because it requires one to understand significant parental principles. Parenting according to Biblical principles could be sufficiently applied because it is based on actual experiences which could potentially address complex human needs about parental knowledge and control. The Scripture simply shows how to strengthen moral principles in dealing with children’s complex behaviors. On the other hand, psychological perspective can also be associated with Biblical principles considering that it also talks about human behavior. The Bible simply emphasizes strengthening of human’s complex behaviors and psychological perspective could potentially give scientific details on how to put everything in order. Conclusion Parenting is one of the most exciting and fulfilling activities, yet quite challenging. The reason for it is that it deals with human’s complex behaviors. Children are noted to have complex behaviors and this requires substantial parental knowledge and control. Not only that, parents should be able to understand and appreciate the importance of combining both psychological and Biblical principles in order to have a better grasp at their children’s complicated behaviors. Parental activity requires basic understanding about the importance of motivating children to respond positively to discipline. With this, parents should be able to understand the basic language about how to facilitate learning effectively with their children. A child is able to learn a lot about his/her environment but the kind of person he/she will be in the future cannot only depend on how he/she is being influenced by his/her parents or the things around. One of the most important considerations in understanding how children learn is to know that they have specific choice on how to respond to their environment. It is, therefore, the role of parents to ensure that their children should respond positively to their environment as this would be an essential requirement in acquiring positive results for discipline. Positive discipline is a must but this could not be effectively acquired if parents lack specific skills or knowledge in dealing with problematic behaviors of their children. In this case, what they need is to go back to themselves and learn from within in order to substantially influence their children the way they would want to see them behave in a right way. This is due to the basic principle that children learn much from their environment and the way they would respond to it could be substantially controlled by their parents at some certain level. References Barnes, B., & York, S. (2001). Common sense parenting of toddlers and preschoolers. Boys Town, NE: BT Press. Bodenhamer, G. (1995). Parent in control. New York, NY: Fireside Simon and Schuster. Clinton, S., & Sibcy, G. (2006). Loving your child too much: How to keep a close relationship with your child without overindulging, overprotecting, or overcontrolling. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Cloud, H., & Townsend, J. (2009). Boundaries with kids: When to say yes, how to say no. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. Feldman, R. S. (2003). Essentials of psychology (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Saxon, T. (2003). Baby blessings: a faith-based parenting guide – birth to two. Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing. Wyckoff, J., & Unell, B. (2002). Discipline without shouting or spanking. 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