Threats
I went to pick up the little girl I babysit from school today, and was met with a frown. She said “Josh (her step-father) was supposed to pick me up today.” I asked if she was disappointed, and she said “Yes!” with a frown.
This is the first time I have ever seen her sad. She is one of those happy, bouncy giggly kids, who everyone loves to have around- but she was not happy, or bouncy, or giggly when she saw me today.
After I put her in the van and buckled her up, I told her we were going to where her mommy works, so she could see her for a minute. That brought a smile. All of a sudden, the giggles were back, and she was bouncing in her seat. I asked her if that makes her happy . She said, with a huge smile on her face “Yes! But I am still disappointed!” followed by giggles.
When I told her mom about what had disappointed her, she told me that Josh was threatening her with him picking her up, rather than me this morning- thinking she would behave better with that threat, which he had no intention of carrying through.
I find it amusing and extremely sad, that parents don’t take discipline seriously enough to think before they threaten. I have done it many times myself, but now that I have been practicing carrying through more, I am more careful about what threats I make.
If I tell my kids “If you do this, this will happen”, and don’t carry through, they won’t take me seriously. The threats we make have to be something we would really do, or they mean nothing. They may work for a while, but eventually if you make a threat, you may be called on it. If you don’t carry through, the child will think you don’t mean it next time.
This is something we need to do on purpose. I find myself wanting to threaten things like, going to bed without dinner. But that is something I would not carry through with.
Being a parent in control, means we have to control ourselves, and that includes our threats and actions with our kids.
For more on disciplining, read Training Vs. Punishment, by Michael Davidsen.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Great point. Also, if you threaten with a duration, say”no sartoons for a week” you need to srick to that. Think before you talk, then follow through.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:25 am
While I agree with needing to stick to the time limit- I also believe in giving them grace a day or 2 early- if they have earned it by true repentance, and changed behavior. (True repentance means they have come to whoever was responsible for the discipline, and if they offended someone else they need to go to him too.) If they are sincerely sorry, and say so, as well as change their behavior to be in line with the way it shoud be- I have on occasion explained to them that I am letting them off early for these reasons. They need to be old enough to understand, and I tell them this was a one time thing, and that they only got off because I gave them grace for having a good attitude and changed behavior.