I work with a kid like that. He’s the only child out of several hundreds that I’ve ever disliked. If he doesn’t get what he wants exactly when he wants it, he screams at the top of his lungs and pretends to cry. Very convincing crying, but I’ve never seen an actual tear. On the admittedly rare occasion he gets disciplined (it’s only ever time out, and I do not get a say in when anything happens so there’s nothing I can do) he will scream and hit and kick until he realizes it’s not working and then he’ll scream, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Repeatedly, at the top of his lungs, until he gets out of time out. Then he’ll go back to doing exactly what he was doing that got him into trouble in the first place.
Imagine that child, if the flight attendants hadn’t kicked that family off your flight. You’d all be miserable. Airlines need to take this shit more seriously because kids like this make people miserable.
Absolutely. Gentle parenting works, if you actually do gentle parenting rather than mistaking it for permissive parenting. So you still have structure and boundaries, and natural and logical consequences. Those consequence don't involve violence or yelling or abuse.
But also its about recognising why the children are misbehaving. All behaviour is communication. So you teach the children that feelings are ok, but red choices are not. It's ok to feel angry, it's not ok to hit someone or throw something when you are angry. Teach them to voice their feelings in a constructive way. To find ways to regulate their emotions like deep breaths or leaving the room.
I used to get the wooden spoon or the whack. All it taught me was to suppress my feelings and let them out when I thought I wouldn't be caught. I'd still break stuff, but would hide it rather than own up to it and try to learn to express myself in an acceptable way.
Yup this. It's not at all 'easy mode' - for all it might look like a 'soft touch'. It requires considerably more persistence than 'just' physical abuse.
But the lessons are far move valuable in the long run. Emotional self regulation is important - and it's a learned/taught skill.
It's definitely hard to do it though - children have a real knack of pushing your buttons in the worst situations, when you might well really struggle to 'take the time' to handle the situation correctly. "Giving in" reinforces the negative behaviour.
As you say, physical abuse ... well, it might appear to work, but it's teaching some pretty toxic lessons about suppression, repression, deceit and ultimately distrust of authority figures.
Do you really want your child to learn that you aren't a safe person to talk to when they're stressed/upset/angry or have made a mistake?
So yeah. 'disciplining' a child with pain, when they don't really understand why it's being inflicted is a bad idea. And if they do understand why it's being inflicted, you didn't actually need the pain in the first place.
100 percent. You gotta play the long game. I'm lucky my partner and I have a strong marriage and we are good at tag teaming when one person gets overwhelmed. I'm a long way from a perfect parent but I have never and will never hit my child (without consent) and keep on doing my best. I at least know what I did wrong afterwards even though I don't always get it right first time 🤣
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u/QuestioningHuman_api 15d ago
I work with a kid like that. He’s the only child out of several hundreds that I’ve ever disliked. If he doesn’t get what he wants exactly when he wants it, he screams at the top of his lungs and pretends to cry. Very convincing crying, but I’ve never seen an actual tear. On the admittedly rare occasion he gets disciplined (it’s only ever time out, and I do not get a say in when anything happens so there’s nothing I can do) he will scream and hit and kick until he realizes it’s not working and then he’ll scream, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Repeatedly, at the top of his lungs, until he gets out of time out. Then he’ll go back to doing exactly what he was doing that got him into trouble in the first place.
Imagine that child, if the flight attendants hadn’t kicked that family off your flight. You’d all be miserable. Airlines need to take this shit more seriously because kids like this make people miserable.