A Recipe for a Happy Home

A recipe for a happy home comes with a few simple ingredients like lots of love and care, but what about the main ingredients? Communication and positive discipline because lacking these ingredients results in frustration and anger. What happens to a
happy home, when it contains toddlers, who are constantly testing everyone’s patients? That happy home turns into chaos and often results in physical punishment such as spanking. That’s when positive discipline helps to keep the happiness going. Positive
discipline is a form of discipline that does not include any form of physical punishment, it involves letting a child know what they are doing right and not what they are doing wrong. Spanking is often the result of parents, who lack in early childhood educational skills and need to explore other means of discipline.

Parents often become frustrated when their toddler is throwing a tantrum and immediately resort to spanking, yelling and time outs. This gives the parent a short time of relief and the child knows they are in trouble. Often when this form of discipline is used over and over again it becomes a game for the child. They start to learn a parent’s limit and they try and push them over the edge. Spanking at first might have been hurtful to a child, but after awhile they will begin to take threats less serious and even find
spanking funny because they have reached their goal of making their parent upset. By using positive discipline the child knows that the parent has recognized their good behavior and has explained their bad behavior in away that the child knows what was not acceptable about it. The result is neither parent nor child becomes frustrated and both are able to communicate with one another. An example would be if a parent came into the kitchen and noticed that their child is sitting quietly at the table coloring a picture, but they also notice that the child has also colored off the paper and onto the top of the table. This situation could be handled in two ways. The parent could run into the room waving
their fist in the air yelling “ How many times have I told you not to color on the table?”Automatically the parent and the child’s frustrations level goes through the roof and the child starts crying, the parent gives them a firm spanking and sends them off into their room. Now the child is sitting in their room wondering exactly what happened because all they were trying to do was to make a pretty picture for the refrigerator and the parent is stuck out in the kitchen scrubbing angrily away at the crayon on the table. A positive approach would have been the parent entering the room and saying “I like the way you are coloring so nicely, but I see that you colored onto the table and that upsets me because I have asked you not to do that before.” and then instead of sending them away, they could become a helper and remove the crayon themselves. Both walk away feeling calm and the child knows exactly what they did to upset their parent and the child’s feeling were not hurt.

Tantrums are a result of lack of attention a child gets from a parent. A child wants a parent’s attention weather it’s negative or positive and they will take drastic measures to get that. When a child is fighting with a sibling or throwing a tantrum the last thing to do would be to make threats to spank them or to deprive them of their favorite things. “If they can’t fight and if you don’t answer them, they should stop fussing in about ten minutes, for tantrums loose their appeal when no one pays attention to the
tantrumners” (Kelly, Marguerite, The Washington Post). This quote was a tip to parents on what to do when a tantrum starts and the first thing is to separate them into another room to allow time to cool down. By doing this both the parent and the child has time to cool down and will have more success in resolving the issue. That is a good way to being the positive discipline process because allowing time to cool off will make it easier to communicate with the child.

The other type of tantrum is the one in the store when the child is laying in the middle of the grocery isle kicking and screaming because they did not get that box of animal crackers they were hoping for. A parent may be inclined to spank or grab the child
and take them out to the car. Which of course the child does not get what they want and the parent did not get the grocery shopping done. Most important thing not to do is to give in and give them the crackers because they won, got what they wanted and now know what they need to do next time to get it. The positive approach would be even before leaving the house discuss with the child what they will be allowed to get and if they ask for more then that one thing than they receive nothing. At the store hand the child a list let them know they have an important job to do and allow them to place the items in the cart. The child will feel proud and will forget about throwing tantrums.

Positive discipline is an excellent way to communicate with a child, but what about the parents, who still believe that spanking is effective and necessary. “I believe if a parent includes spanking in their discipline, there’s less chance 13 and 14 year olds will get in your face” (Surgenor, Robert, police detective). That is a statement saying that spanking teaches children to respect adults time they are teenagers. However, spanking
also teaches a child that violence is ok and they may choose to use violence instead of words, when they are faced with their peers later in life. Parents should be remodels on how they want their child to act and keep in mind the saying “Monkey see monkey do.”

Another aspect that raises the question is spanking ok as long as it’s done in a calm matter and not overdone? “Wellington, New Zealand- Parliament passed a measure that tightens New Zealand’s existing laws against child abuse but still lets parents spank or otherwise discipline their child using ‘inconsequential’ methods” (Liley, Ray, Seattle times). Many people think that it is the parents right to spank as long as it’s just a spanking, but isn’t also the parent’s right to do what best for their child. Spanking a child has never taught a child to do anything, so how could it be best for a child. It only makes them feel less valued and loved and does not show any real benefit. Where is the fine line between calm and spanking out of anger? If they are saying it is ok as long as it’s “inconsequential” Who determines where the fine line is drawn? Some may say it is only appropriate if the child is spanked with a parent’s hand and some say a wooden spoon may not be considered abuse. Any form of hitting with any object or a hand is abuse and it is not ones right even a parent to strike a another human being out of anger. There are just too many other options out there to be educated on like positive discipline to ever have to result in violence, unless people want children to grow up to be abusive adults.

When achieving positive discipline always remember that for every negative deserves at least three positives. Never tell a child what they are doing wrong only what they are doing right. Physical punishment only results in the child getting hurt and left feeling confused and the parent left only momentarily satisfied and extremely frustrated.Positive discipline results in a calm and happy home and the child learns from their mistakes and they tend not to repeat them. When a child receives lots of positive attention from a parent, they will tend to give the same back to the parent.

Bibliography : Kelly, Margurite “ Dealing with Tantrums: Diversion, Timeouts (The Washington Post) 28 July 2006. Pg. C.5, proquest.

Surgenor, Detective Robert “Spanking Children Good for Discipline” (NewsNets) 25 July 2000.

Liley, Ray “Wellington New Zealand” (Seattle Times) 17 May 2007. Pg. A.2 proquest.umi.com