Parents often have a hard time deciding if their child’s behavior is defiance or childishness. But since your job as a parent is not just to control your child’s behavior but to shape their character, it’s important to distinguish between the two as you guide them toward maturity.
Your ultimate goal is to move your child from parent-controlled behavior as a very young child, to self-controlled, independent decision-making and ultimately to a lifestyle where your child makes wise choices on their own.
Keeping that end goal in mind, let’s distinguish between defiance and childishness. Willful defiance is a deliberate act of disobedience in which a child knows what their parents expect, but chooses to do the exact opposite.
This is not the same as childish irresponsibility, which happens when a child is forgetful, makes mistakes, has a short attention span, or gets easily frustrated.
Discipline is needed when a child exercises defiance. Discipline may or may not be needed when a child is simply irresponsible. Either way, the ultimate goal of discipline is to teach, not punish. Remember, you are grooming your child to grow into an independent, strong, and wise adult. Punishment alone rarely achieves that. But discipline–comes from the Latin word disciplina meaning “instruction and training,” and is derived from the root word discere meaning“to learn”–addresses the heart of your child and will hopefully have life-shaping results. I say “hopefully” because, ultimately, your child will grow up to make their own choices, some of which you may or may not think are wise. But the probability for them to make smart choices is greater if you’ve focused on discipline and not punishment.
What are the characteristics of life-shaping discipline?
First and foremost, it’s done in love. Your motive is rooted in your love for your child, and your desire to see them grow and mature. When your “discipline” is done out of anger and frustration in a reactionary way, it changes from true discipline–remember, this means to teach so they learn–to mere punishment.
It’s done with purpose. Your child needs to learn to take responsibility for their own attitudes, actions and reactions. Your job is to help your child see the error of their ways and then to point them to the right way.
It should be timely. It’s okay if you need to give yourself some time to calm down and think about what your child needs to learn and how you can help them learn it, but make a point of pointing out the behavior right away. It’s important to catch bad behavior patterns before they become set. Your child must understand right away that the behavior is wrong. If you must calm down or think about it, you can say, “This behavior was not acceptable and there will be consequences. I’m feeling very angry right now and I need to calm down, so we will talk about this shortly. I will be back in 15 minutes.” Or something to that effect.
It includes restoration. As much as possible, seek to reconnect with your child after discipline. When your child is small, this may mean holding them or hugging them and expressing your love. When your child is older, they may resist physical affection, but your words still need to assure them that you love them and only want what’s best for them. And sometimes you just need to grab your tween or teen and give them a hug anyway, even if they are still mad. They need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not disciplining them because you are angry with them or because they’ve disappointed you, but you are doing it because you love them and want them to learn and become mature.
Your job as a parent is to guide, discipline and pray that the character you’ve worked to instill in your children will take root and produce wise adults. That’s why knowing when and how to discipline your children is key.
Always discipline when your child is willfully defiant and exercise discretion when your child is simply being irresponsible. There are times when their immature behavior may produce its own negative consequences and need no further input from you, and there are times when they may need that extra nudge of discipline and consequences to learn the full lesson.
It’s hard to always know what’s best for your child. That’s why being intentional and really thinking through your responses as a parent are so important. If you don’t have a plan or would like some guidance in doing a better job at disciplining your child, please schedule a free intro call here. I’d love to give you some parenting tools that will help make your job less stressful and more effective.
