All You Need To Know About Parental Discipline.

   It has been widely demonstrated that discipline, whether in the form of rewards or punishments helps children modify their behavior and learn self-control.

  In one common way of studying discipline in the laboratory, children are given the opportunity to reach for an unattractive toy. When they reach for the unattractive toy they are given praise and a piece of candy; When they reach for the attractive toy they receive no reward.

Later, when they are left alone with the toys, children who have gone through this experimental procedure tend to deny themselves the attractive toy and reach for the unattractive one.

Similar result were found when children in this kind of situation were punished with a reprimand whenever they reached for the attractive toy ''No, that's not for you, stay away.''. Then when left alone they withdraw their hands on reaching for the attractive toy, remembering that they were reprimanded earlier.

The results of both experiments, indicate that the effects of both rewards and punishments in the the use of disciplinary measures on children, would be more efficacious if discipline was applied during the early phase of some act than after the deed has already been going on for a while.

   For instance, It would be easier to reprimand and warn a child never to smoke, while giving good reasons while he shouldn't do so, than later run finding out that your child has been smoking.

Surely to discipline the child when the smoking has been going on for a while would be less effective. Worst, discipline by reward would be a stupid disciplinary approach to use here, for what would you be rewarding the child for?.

However, it is difficult to make generalizations about the effects of discipline on children's behavior. In addition to the timing of discipline and and whether it takes the form of rewards or punishments, many other factors influence the impact it has, including who administers it, how appropriate it is to the particular situation and how sensitive an individual child is to being praised or rebuked.

On the other hand it has been fairly clearly demonstrated that children benefit most from discipline that is:

a. Administered consistently

b. Instructive rather than merely punitive, and

c. Directed at their behavior and not at themselves as a person.

We are going to take the three in details to see how effective they are.

Consistent Discipline: From experimental studies of learning we know that behavior that is rewarded sometimes but not always becomes more firmly entrenched and resistant to change, than behavior that is rewarded always. Likewise, it has been found that consistent punishment of such behavior as aggression will reduce it more effectively than punishing it sometimes and ignoring it the rest of the time.

Apparently because allowing certain behavior from time to time acts as as implicit partial reinforcement.

Parents can help their children learn good judgement and self-control by agreeing on standards of conduct and regularly enforcing these standards.

If on the other hand, parents disagree about how their children should behave or punish certain acts sometimes but not always, children may persist in such unsocialized behavior as aggressive, inconsiderate, impulsive and irresponsible actions towards others.

Children who are faced with inconsistent discipline tend to conclude that their parents are unreliable people who do not say what they mean or mean what they say and that whatever rewards and punishments they receive are due, not to their behavior but to unpredictable circumstances over which they have no control.

Children with this view of the world have difficulty establishing and internalizing whatever morals parents try to ingrain in them. Experts refer to this as lack of internal locus of control.

Children or even adults who have external locus of control, that is, no internalization of morals, usually fail to develop an adequate conscience. They see their destiny as being in the hands of fate or of those who wield power, and their morality generally consists of doing whatever they believe they can get away with. Their main reason for not acting illegally or immorally is usually out of fear of being caught and punished.

By contrast people with internalized standards of morality believe they have some control over their destiny, and their decisions about how to act stem from their own sense of right and wrong rather than from fear of external consequences.

Studies with children indicate that those who are developing an internalized sense of morality are more likely to feel guilty when their behavior is harmful to others than children whose actions are governed primarily by external controls. There are also more likely to accept blame when they are at fault, to confess misdeeds that have gone undetected and to resist encouragement from others to commit immoral or inconsiderate acts.

Hence, children who are being helped by consistent parental discipline to develop an internal locus of control are being helped to mature into responsible adults.

Instructive Discipline: Discipline is instructive when it is administered in a reasonably calm manner, when it is based on specific misdeed and when it is appropriate for the act. By contrast, angry scolding and spankings that are not related to the deed or are too severe for the offence are simply punitive.

   When parents are excessively or irrationally punitive, children are found to respond in one of two ways, depending on their personality.

Preschoolers who are passive or timid and perhaps physically frail are often cowed by severe  punishments into becoming overly complaint and fearful of asserting themselves. On the other hand, young children who are energetic, self-confident and physically robust are likely to model themselves after the way their parents instructs them.

Parents whose discipline is based on a ''do what I say'' approach mat be surprised at the results they get. Children do what their parents do, as well as what they say and parents who rely on punitive discipline are likely to experience precisely the opposite outcome of the the one they were seeking to achieve.

   The differences between instructive and punitive discipline have been elaborated by Martin  Hoffman. He describes two kinds of punitive discipline: power assertion, which includes actual or threatened physical punishments or deprivation of material objects or privileges, and the second, love withdrawal, in which parents express anger or disapproval by ignoring their children, refusing to speak or listen to them, or threatening to leave them or give them away to child support.

 Instructive discipline on the other hand involves induction techniques, whereby parents explain to their children why they want them to change their behavior and the benefits of doing so.

In one variation of this techniques, parents call attention to ways in which the child's behavior is harmful to others. ''It makes me sad when you break things,'' or ''teasing your brother makes him feel bad inside,''  ''When you dig a hole in the neighbors yard, they have to fill it in and put all new grass in, and it's very hard work for them.''

Finally, love withdrawal has not been found to bear any consistent relationship to indices of moral development.

Behavior-directed discipline: Discipline can be directed either at a child's behavior or at the child as a person. Generally speaking, discipline directed at their behavior helps children preserve self-respect, whereas discipline aimed at their personality tends to make them feel unloved and incompetent.

Parents should distinguish between their children as persons whom they always love and their actions which they may or may not like. This allows children to tolerate discipline better and learn more from it than if they interpret criticism to mean they are unloved and unlovable.

  It is not difficult to see how discipline administered with a warm and loving attitude helps children internalize standards of conduct.

Accepting parents are more reliable sources of reward than rejecting parents . Likewise disapproval from  loving parents has more impact on behavior than disapproval from cold and distant parents, since a child has more to lose from their being displeased with how they act.

   Presumably for these reasons, the research in this area confirms that parents who administer discipline in a warm, nurturer and loving manner generally encourage their children to develop an internal locus of control, whereas discipline without warmth and support generally encourages externalized morality.