In Babies and more We have explained to you on several occasions that punishment is not really a good educational method and that the cheek in time is not a good remedy either, advising to use our intelligence and creativity to look for alternative methods or tools that are more respectful, less humiliating and, in the background, more useful in the long term.
Many people read or listen to what is explained about cheeks and punishment, think of childhood, remember how they felt when their parents beat or punished them and begin to open their minds. They open it to the unknown: "Ok, I want to try not to do it as the elders did when I was little, but how?" Well, let's give you six tips to educate without punishment, to start that path.
I don't know if they are the best six tips, and it is likely that someone can explain them better, but I think they are a very good principle to have a base to work with to, then, listen to more ideas, read articles and books that talk about it or go to see other parents solving conflicts avoiding cheeks, shouts and punishments.
1. Have you done it willingly or unintentionally?
Your child has just done something that you don't like, annoys you, or thinks it's not right. You consider the possibility of punishing him, because that is what you usually do, or because in that situation most parents would do that (or when you were little and you did it, they punished you). Well, before doing anything ask yourself this question: Have you done it willingly or unintentionally?
Children are not as skilled as we are and sometimes they try to do things for themselves. If we pour a glass of water, surely all the liquid falls into the glass. If they decide to do it themselves, surely part falls into the glass, part on the table and part on the floor. If it is water, it dries quickly, but imagine that milk or juice has been spilled. It makes you angry, huh? All the floor sticky, splashing everywhere and mop and rag safe for a while. It makes you want to… but no. He hasn't done it wanting. In fact, I was doing one of the things parents like best: being independent. All parents want their children to be independent, to spend time alone, to be entertained with their things without having to be calling dad and mom constantly for everything. Well, it turns out that it has to be independent and autonomous but only at times. If it is for drinking, it better not be. Well, it will be that no, children become autonomous for everything (so it is we who have to tell them "I love that you try to do it alone, but to throw water / milk / ... let me know and help you).
Asking the question we realize that he just wanted to drink, and not to disturb, or because he has learned, he has decided to do it alone. Only with this should we be clear that we cannot punish him.
Most things that annoy or exasperate us do them because they don't know how to do them better or because they don't know that they are wrong. It's normal, they have been with us for a short time. Is your son 3 years old? Look for a picture of yourself three years ago and realize that it was the day before yesterday, that you have barely changed ... well, your son, by then, did not even exist! How will you know in such a short time everything that is right or wrong?
2. Isn't it that I expect too much from him?
Because we compare it with other children, because someone has told us that at that age they should already do this or that or they should no longer do this or that, because they just had a brother and have grown up suddenly, many times we are demanding the rest.
It is linked to the previous point. They are children, they are small and sometimes we believe that they have lived the same as us or that, because we have explained something to them once, they already have to totally control all situations. We must ask ourselves this question: Isn't it that I expect too much from him? Won't our expectations be above your means? Because if so, we will live one conflict after another.
They have been with us for a short time, so for being new in the world deserve infinite patience and much dialogue. It cannot be that we have more patience with adults than with them.
3. If you have done it willingly, why have you done it?
It turns out that the answer to the first question does not help much because it is clear that what the child has done has done wanting, with bad intention, trying to annoy. Here many parents would opt for the thinking chair, "go to your room", "you've run out of dessert" or the punishment they decide. Or if it's bothering you, that's why I ignore you: "I don't pay attention, precisely, because you're trying to get my attention."
But we cannot keep the concrete act, because we would be working on a superficial level. If you have a humidity in the ceiling you do not solve it by painting, you look for where water comes from because if not, in a few days, you will have a spot on the ceiling again. Well the same, Why have you done it?
It may be because he is bored, because he feels alone, because he asks you to spend time with you and you don't spend enough time with him, because he feels that you don't love him, because doing bad things is the only way to listen to him, because ... The cause It is important. Solve the cause and you will avoid many problems.
4. Run away
When we get angry, when we lose patience, when we notice that we reach our limit, our rational brain is disconnected, but it is not the only one, the emotional brain also does so and then we enter what I have defined more than once as "automatic mode ", or what is the same, the reptilian brain, the most primitive, which only has as its function comes into operation prepare for flight or fight. Come on, the worst comes out of us, the screams, the "it's all right", the cheek, the reactions and hot decisions. Is the fight With our son or daughter. At that time we do not think that we can do physical harm or moral damage (the rational disconnected) and at that time we do not feel (the emotional disconnected) and there is nothing that can avoid the "automatic" against that child that in other circumstances we eat Kisses flooded with love.
We start the fight because we know we can't lose. The problem is that our son loses and, in a way, we lose. If we abuse the automatic we get used to it and it will jump more and more often. If we use the automatic, we take our son away from us. You we move away emotionally. We can get you to lose confidence in us, and no relationship of love or affection needs those who form it to lose confidence in each other, but quite the opposite.
That's why don't fight, flees. If you see that you lose control, if you see that you can do something you can regret, run away. Do not face the problem yet. Take a deep breath, do not try to educate your child at that time or explain anything and do the minimum while you take a deep breath, count to 10, 100 or a thousand and control yourself again.
I do it often, while I go for the mop, the rag, while I fix the mess. I move, act, shut up, like an automaton. I'd rather not say anything to say it all because if I spoke, alas! If I speak.
And then, a few seconds or minutes later, I tell the child what I think about what he has done or I urge him to solve what he has done, more calmly. A secret: this does not usually work for me when they are sticking. There is nothing that bothers me more than seeing them hurting themselves, and that makes me act in the moment, without giving me time to count (I would separate them the same, but I would wait to calm down to give my arguments). Then I tell you how little I like and that "you don't hurt who you love". Luckily, my automatic mode is quite light.
5. Remedy. What is the real consequence of what you have done?
Punishments are consequences that adults invent before an act we don't like: no dessert, no TV one day, so many minutes in the room, no park, etc. Each father or mother invents the consequence according to the severity of the act or according to the time of day, because at noon, with more patience, the punishment is lighter than in the late night, when you are more tired and the last thing you want is to have to deal with some similar problem.
But, this is a mistake. The child may not learn because he is not able to make the association between what happens and what he has done, basically because the consequence can always be different and because, in reality, it has nothing to do with one thing with another. What does it have to do with breaking something with which I can't watch TV?
We should try help children see what the real consequences of what they have done are. If our son has broken something, he must see that it is broken and, if possible, fix it with him. If you have stained something, clean it with it. Yes with him. The consequence of staining everything is that you have to clean it and "I help you, but keep in mind that we are going to waste a lot of time cleaning, you and I. We could be playing together, or reading a story, or doing something more fun, but now we have to clean up, and I prefer to play, read or do something else. "
If he has hurt someone, explain that the other child is crying, say "look how the child cries, I do not think he wants to play with you again" and put him in his place "imagine that you are playing and another child comes and hits you. You wouldn't like it, right? He didn't like it either. "
Those are the real consequences of their actions. That is what they should know and many children do not know because they are punished with other things without knowing the extent of what they have done. "Ask for forgiveness and we are leaving," some parents say. Well, "sorry", a kiss, and we go home. No not like that. One day I saw a child cracking another and, saying "does not stick" he approached the child, kissed him and left so happy. Sure, they had taught him how to solve it like this.
6. The mantra to turn to when we forget everything else
When time passes, when the five previous tips are oxidized, for whatever reason, and you need to read them again but don't know how to find them again or don't remember or where you read them, remember this sentence: "Love me when you least deserve it, because it will be when you need it most".
It is a phrase that the psychologist Rosa Jové uses a lot and whose origin is the book of 'The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and that serves to help change the chip and understand that the worse they behave, the more they are Demonstrating that worse we are doing.
Photos | Thinkstock
In Babies and more | Five basic steps to breed positively and without punishment, "Using prizes and punishments has very strict rules": interview with psychologist Teresa García, "Natural consequences are not punishments": interview with psychologist Teresa García (II),
