Discipline and Setting Boundaries for Consistency
Submitted by Nina Patterson, LCSW
On December 18, 2008, the HCI Parenting Discussion series continued with Brian Bortnicker, Tony Goldsmith and me, Nina Patterson, LCSW, leading the discussion. I am a child and family therapist with an office located in Chadds Ford, Pa; and was asked to present on the topic of Discipline and Setting Boundaries for Consistency. I would now like to share with you some of the important points of our discussion.
“Why do we discipline our children?” was the first question that I asked the audience. We discipline, most importantly, to help our children feel safe and secure. A young child needs to feel that their parents are controlling a world that he/she cannot control for him/herself. This, therefore, lays the foundation for a healthy sense of security. Discipline teaches children how to set limits for themselves. It provides children with techniques for controlling their own behavior. Discipline also helps a child know that we love them and are being responsible in our parenting role.
In order to be an effective disciplinarian, first you must be a model of self-discipline. Parents must model acceptable behavior for their children. “Has anyone heard the old saying: Don’t do as I do, do as I say?” It doesn’t work this way. The inconsistent parent is, in effect, undisciplined. Therefore, an undisciplined parent becomes like the blind leading the blind.
So, parents create rules, and children test them. “Why do children test rules?” was the next question for the audience. Testing is a child’s only way to know if a rule truly exists. Only telling a child that a rule exists isn’t enough. They must be shown. So, when a child breaks a rule, parents have an obligation to impose some form of discipline. This tells the child that you were telling them the truth. Consistency, therefore, is a demonstration of reliability. If a child breaks a rule, and the parents, instead of enforcing the rule, threaten or yell until they are blue in the face but then don’t do anything, the child is forced to test the rule again, and again and again.
Furthermore, in attempting to reduce his own insecurity, the child tries to control the world on his/her own terms.
As a result of this, a child can become: self-conscious, self-centered, demanding, disrespectful, disruptive, in other words, disobedient.
An important thing to remember is that if a parent’s actions are inconsistent with their words, a child learns that they are unreliable and incapable of controlling the world for them. The more that a child feels he can rely on (or believe in) his parents, the more secure he feels. Because consistency frees the child from having to repeatedly test rules, it helps the child become all that he/she is capable of becoming.
We then briefly discussed discipline specifically with reference to adolescents. Major points to remember: families with adolescents must now establish flexible and permeable boundaries. Flexible boundaries allow the teen to move in and be dependent at times when they can not handle things alone, and to move out and experiment with degrees of independence when they are ready. Parents now no longer maintain complete authority, but at the same time, must continue to maintain appropriate boundaries and structure.
In order for adolescents to develop strong separate identities, teens need to be nurtured and accepted. They also need encouragement to become more responsible for themselves. The peer group now becomes more important, if not the most important relationship that they have. This new found autonomy doesn’t mean that adolescents are cutting themselves off emotionally from mom/dad; it means that the teen is no longer as emotionally dependent on their parents.
In closing, I reminded the audience that if parents have provided strong, clear and consistent Boundaries & Expectations, while still allowing the teen to become more independent, we can expect to see the personal characteristics of trust, autonomy, competence, self-esteem and hope in the future in our children.