Discipline Advice
Good discipline advice is hard to find. Beware the sites that help you ‘self diagnose’ your child! Diagnosing your own child with, for example, ADHD or RAD is a very dangerous thing to do. For starters, most children can’t be diagnosed with these types of labels until 4 – 5 years of age or even older! Most pre-schoolers would fit the diagnosis for ADHD at some time in their life! So don’t become your own expert just by reading the internet! It can lead to all sorts of unnecessary parental anxiety and can actually point you in the wrong direction and stop you from finding the real parenting solution that you need.
When I was a young parent an older friend told me, “When your son has a temper tantrum, just put them in a cold shower, clothes and all. I did that and my children never had a temper tantrum again!” Practical? Yes! Easy to do? Yes! Good for the long term parent-child relationship? NO!! We do not recommend this sort of discipline technique! Quality discipline advice is hard to find. How do you know that the advice you are reading on the internet is evidence based while being parent and child friendly? Sometimes practical ideas are not best for children. Sometimes what we do (like putting a temper-tantrum child in a cold shower) is simply wrong! It can seriously harm your parent child relationship and your ability to influence your child.
Every child is different: some are shy, sensitive, anxious, emotional… Others are strong willed, determined, angry and loud… That’s why practical advice that just lists steps or stages to follow is seldom right for you. All good advice honours and strengthens the long term relationship you need to have with your child. It also honours attachment science (commonly called neuroscience these days). Any discipline that uses your parent-child relationship as a threat or punishment (e.g. time out) is likely to weaken your influence so is not in the long term interest of your child. Curious and want to know more? Search our site for parenting advice that fits your particular question or contact us for specific advice or an appointment.