I wrote this in a word document and then copied/pasted it as a blog entry….I’m not a fan of all the capital letters that Microsoft Word so kindly changes for me – but I’m not up for changing them to lowercase either.
Someone who I love and respect and admire so very much sent me this question -- how did you discipline/train your children when they were too little to understand what you were saying? Through the toddler years and all when they can't understand what the word "obedience" means, how did you teach them to obey you?
Challenging question…cause I don’t always feel like I’m getting the obedience from my children that I’d like!! I often feel like a broken record, saying things like “obey first, ask questions next” and “I need to see immediate obedience…” and “what I am expecting to hear is ‘yes ma’m” – not ‘yes ma’m…but…’ just ‘yes ma’m.’” So if anyone else has thoughts that they’d like to add to this, feel free to email me and then I can post your thoughts – I’ll site the source and everything!! (I guess this is the time when allowing comments would be helpful….but I don’t wanna….)
My very first thought when I read the question is that training ME is just as important as training my children (maybe even more so?!). I think it’s important to start training/disciplining your children early – even before they understand - so that you “know” what you’re doing by the time they do understand (but do we ever truly “know” what we’re doing?!?). Consistency is valuable. It’s confusing for something to be allowed and then all of a sudden it’s off limits. If I don’t want my children ripping books up as 2 year olds, it’s my goal and desire to go ahead and help them learn that as a 10 month old (that’s just a random age….not the official “age of obedience training” or anything like that). My other immediate thought is that it seems like children understand a lot more than we may think they do. Emma is barely one and she very much knows when she has done something she shouldn’t – she gets this pitiful little look on her face and sort of tilts her head/eyes downward. Child development experts could probably contribute lots here about when children are cognitively aware of doing/not doing what is being asked of them…
So – to actually answer the question – HOW did (d0) I discipline/train my children when they were (are) little? Basically I just did my best not to let them get away with things as little ones that I wouldn’t let them get away with as an older child – for example: dropping food on the floor (of course, on accident is not what I’m talking about here….the intentional “I’m looking at you and I know you don’t want me to drop this but I’m going to drop it anyway and see what you do” is the kind I’m talking about.). if emma intentionally drops something on the floor, I look her in the eyes and take her by the hand and say semi-sternly (not tooooo harshly the first time!) “no, emma. We don’t drop food on the floor.” If she does it again, I say the same thing over again and I thump her little hand – not too hard, just enough to get her attention. (I know I know….some people disagree with that! And that’s ok! I’m just sharing what iiiiii do…I feel comfortable with the thump after the initial verbal instruction…others don’t…so then they need to find what works for them). if she does it again, i repeat the thump and the same phrase– but the thump doesn’t get stronger (and i TRY not to let my tone get stronger)….If she continues I remove the food (cause if she’s throwing it on the floor apparently she’s not hungry enough to eat it!).
Another example – we have stairs and I’ve never allowed my babies to climb up the stairs on their own. So if emma starts up the stairs I look at her and say “no, emma. You cannot climb up the stairs on your own. Mama needs to be behind you.” if she moves away from the stairs, great! End of discussion. If she doesn’t, I go and move her away from the stairs and give her another option (usually a toy to play with). If she heads back to the stairs, I immediately give her a thump and repeat the “no, emma. You cannot climb up the stairs on your own….” And I move her away again. We repeat this until she stops attempting to climb the stairs. All of my kids quickly learned not to go up the stairs on their own…so having stairs in our house without a baby gate has never been an issue for us (we do have a baby gate at the top of the stairs…but that’s more for my convenience – I can lock all 3 kids in :) and let them play upstairs without fear of emma tumbling down the stairs…though even if the gate happens to be open, she’ll just wait at the top of the stairs for someone to get her… I guess you could do the same training for coming down the stairs – but children tumbling down the stairs seems a bit more likely than tumbling up the stairs….)(random side note, when my children do start coming down the stairs on their own, they are taught to crawl down backwards....)
I think another thing I do is just talk a lot to my children about obedience – even when I have no clue if they are understanding a word I’m saying. That’s back to the “training me” part – it’s important to me that my children know WHY I am expecting them to obey – sometimes going ahead and putting words to it helps me realize that what I’m expecting is ridiculous OR that it’s right on.
I don’t know that I can say that I discipline my littlest one very much (yet) – I feel like I do more training than disciplining (I heard a quote that “the more you train now the less you’ll have to discipline later). So…I thump on occasion….i remove her from situations (I guess that could be considered a loss of a privilege)…I tell her that ______ (fill in the blank – pitching a fit, screaming, throwing a toy, taking something from someone, etc.) is not ok. Sometimes those things are discipline – sometimes those acts are training. Not sure I’m doing a good job of explaining the difference.
Who knew I had so many thoughts on this - and I sort of feel like I’m just scratching the surface (and I feel like the thoughts I’ve put out here are pretty random and scrambled….feel free to ask for clarification!). So glad the question was put out there. Obedience is definitely something that is worked on daily at the Cash House....we'll keep at it....we'll keep striving to be obedient to The One who most deserves our obedience - the Only One who disciplines and trains perfectly. And I'll trust Him as I seek to be the mom He wants me to be...
