Parenting and Punishment: A Necessary Duo?
A few months ago I wrote a blog called Why Don’t They Mind? Today I want to talk about the necessity of punishment in the process of teaching a child to accept limits.
You are all home on a Saturday. You’ve had a good trip to the park where you played and ate lunch and now you are back home. Your child has taken out her favorite set of building blocks and started to build. You tell her that it is nap time, not time to build. She needs to put the blocks away and come for her nap. She does not want to take a nap and starts to get upset and angry. You repeat that she needs to come to nap a few times. She starts really yelling at you in a very disrespectful manner and refuses to put the blocks away. Her temper tantrum escalates. Now what do you do?
One school of thought is that it’s time for a punishment to be imposed. Refusing to put the blocks away is unacceptable and yelling and screaming at you is unacceptable. The child needs to suffer some negative consequence in order to learn that. So she needs a time out or the removal of some privilege, like playing taking away her favorite blocks for a day or two or even a week. And they need to know they have made you very, very angry!
Do children need to experience punishment in order to learn to behave well? Do they need to have a negative experience like being sent away in order to accept limits on their behavior? Is there another way to teach them to accept limits? I think there is.
The task is to help children learn to regulate their emotions, accept reasonable limits, and learn to behave in socially acceptable ways. When they engage in unacceptable behavior, a parents’ job is to stop that behavior. If, when the limit is imposed the child loses control and becomes extremely angry and the unacceptable behavior escalates, the child needs to get past her anger and accept the limit. This is something children under 5 are not really good at. They are still learning how to regulate their emotions and their emotions can overwhelm them from time to time.
Rather than imposing a punishment, you can absolutely enforce the limit, in this case stopping the block play and coming to bed, and stay with your child while she works through the anger and disappointment. When your child is done being angry, you can proceed to nap time. While your child is angry, let them know that you understand that they want to play with the blocks. But unfortunately they can’t right now because they need a nap. You understand that this makes them angry. Most of the time, the anger expressed through crying, angry screaming, etc., will run it’s course and at the end of the temper tantrum the child will feel relieved of all the difficult emotions that have been unloaded and the stress that has been released and return to her cooperative self. You and your child can enjoy a snuggle and move on to nap.
Has the child gotten away with something? She hasn’t gotten away with continuing to play with her blocks. You have stopped that activity. Has she gotten away with not taking a nap? No, she still needs to do that. Has she been allowed to express her anger? Yes, but since I think expressing anger is good for children, it’s not that she “got away with it.” This temper tantrum has offloaded all the stress and tension that comes with being too tired and not being able to do what you want to do. And after, the child is most likely to be ready to comply with your request.
How does this approach help a child accept limits? The limits in this case were clear and no matter how angry the child got, they were not going to be lifted. Let’s run through a few more quick examples. A friend comes for a play date. Your child refuses to share any of his toys. This is a violation of the rules for play dates in your house. Your child needs to be excluded from play with his friend until he is ready to share. “I know you want to play with your friend, but the rule is you need to share so let me know when you are ready to share and you can play with your friend. Until then, we’ll sit in the living room and your friend can play with the toys by himself.” Your child won’t pick up her toys to get ready to go to the park? You don’t go to the park until the toys are picked up. “I understand you don’t want to pick up your toys. But until the toys are picked up, we can’t move on to do something else fun.”
My main point here is that you don’t need to punish in order to set limits. And I don’t think children need to experience “pain” in order to accept limits. If limits are developmentally appropriate and you are not asking your child to do something he or she is not able to do, and you are consistent in holding to the limits a child can learn to accept them.
All children get overwhelmed by their emotions from time to time and succumb to temper tantrums. I don’t think these should be regarded as bad behavior. If temper tantrums cannot be used to get around the limits (and that is up to you), then they will not be used manipulatively and will probably not happen frequently. Accepting and affirming your child’s feelings by putting words to them will help your child learn to regulate them in the long run.
Staying with a child who is extremely angry is not easy. It takes a lot of energy! And tantrums often happen when everyone is out of good energy. But finding the energy to help our children when they have fallen apart is part of our job as parents. If you can’t summon up the energy to deal with an angry child or if you are getting too angry, call in your partner to take over. (One reason parenting alone is so challenging!) Parents rarely do a good job of imposing limits when they are angry.
And one final thought. As with all parenting advice, those of us who give it and those of us who consume it need to always keep in mind that every child and every parent is different. There are numerous ways to fine tune techniques to fit your particular situation and value system.