Guest Author on Discipline

My new friend Beth McKenzie is one of the people I have asked to help provide some more practical stories regarding discipline in her home. I have found what she has written to be INCREDIBLY helpful to me, for where I am right now regarding discipline and Laney. Beth learned these helpful ways to discipline from a Navigator's Conference, I do believe.

When our first son was seven months old, my husband and I thought we were on the same page concerning discipline. As the rubber met the road, we realized we were in the same book, probably in the same chapter but not on the same page. We agreed on so much but didn't feel like we had the tools to train and instruct Micah as he began to show his own will. We happened to be at a conference at this point of realization so decided to attend a seminar on how to train toddlers. The gentleman leading the seminar began his talk stating that if we would implement what he was about to tell us, we would never face the terrible twos. Pretty big statement as far as I was concerned! Well, ten years and three more kids later, I feel like I can honestly say that we never really experienced the terrible twos. Not that we had first time obedience each step of the way...we still work for first time obedience!, but I do believe that what John shared with us really helped us to flesh out how to train young children.
His premise is this: train your children to respond to five command words before age two and as the children enter the time of really exerting their wills, they will already be well trained in obedience. I think this is an area that we as young parents make the mistake. We fall into the thinking that because our children can't clearly communicate with us, then they must not be able to clearly understand our communication with them. They understand so much more than we give them credit for!
The five command words are this: no, give, come, hush and obey. This is generally the order of learning these words as well. The age of beginning this training will be largely determined by your child and his behaviors and abilities. For instance, you can't train a child to come that can't crawl or walk. As a parent you will be able to sense when the baby begins to discover the ability to do what you have said not to do - with our boys, this was around six or seven months.
With each word, there are three stages of learning. First is the training, then the discipline and then the consistency. When training the baby with a new word, use one swat or flick. Discipline (at this young of an age) is three swats and consistency is one or three swats depending on the timing. I've never tried to explain this in written form so please be patient with me in the explanation - it should make sense by the end.
We started with no - as couples you need to determine what the "nos" are going to be so that you are both training in exactly the same way for the exact same things. My husband and I both wear glasses and we wanted to be able to hold our babies and not worry about them ripping off our glasses all the time so that became a "no" for us. When Micah would touch our glasses, we would say "No" firmly and then flick or swat his hand one time. Practice on your own skin to see that it stings but that it is not too hard. In order for the training to be effective, IT MUST HURT! If there aren't painful consequences, the baby has no reason to stop. The command needs to be the same every time - so decide whether you are going to say no, no touch, you may not do that - whatever it is, keep it the same. We did this for two reasons - 1. Consistency helps the child know what to expect - disobeying command words always has painful consequences. 2. There will be times when you can't discipline as you would in your own house. At those times you can change how you correct your children so that they are still being instructed, but that you do not have to discipline publicly. For instance, I never allowed our babies to play with my glasses, but at the doctor's office I was not going to flick their hands. So instead of saying "no", I would say something like "you may not do that" or "that's a no-no" and then try to remove the temptation for them.
So for the first few weeks of training, every time Micah would touch my glasses, I would say "no" and then flick his hand one time. You will be able to tell when you cross from training to discipline. Usually this will happen by the child giving you indication that he understands that glasses are a "no". Micah would begin to reach for my glasses and pause. He might make eye contact even. At this point I would say "no" and he would pull his hand away. This showed me that he understood my "no" and that he would need to be disciplined for touching my glasses from now on. I had trained him that glasses were a "no" and he knew that pain would come from touching them. Then over the next few weeks, he would continue to test to see if it was still a "no" and would sometimes go ahead and touch anyway. At this point, I would discipline him with three swats on his hand. Expect tears. And then you get to comfort and hold him close and reassure him of your love. Over the years, my husband developed a song for forgiveness that he would always sing to them after discipline. I always talked to them about my love and God's love and that I disciplined them so that they would learn to honor God with their lives. Even at six months we would start this - consistency develops patterns of thinking and starting early helped me to iron out the kinks in what I wanted to really communicate each time.
The last stage of training with a command word is consistency. Now that Micah knows he'll be spanked for disobedience, he might not try to touch my glasses for three or four weeks. So the first time he touches them, I say "no" and give him one training swat on the hand. After that one reminder though, the next time it needs to be full discipline again. Freebies will breed disobedience. Consistency will breed obedience. As parents we really choose how hard we want it to be - it is so cyclical. I work to get my children to obey and then I slack off with training and discipline and before you know it, the house is chaotic again and I feel at a loss to gain control. This just happened again in our home about a month ago as I was too slack - give them an inch and they take a mile. Be consistent and we love our home - the children play well together, are respectful to me and to each other, obey when told to do something....
So briefly with "give" - have you taken a toy away from your child and they scream, fuss, throw their head back, arch their back? You should be able to take a toy or anything from your child and have them respond appropriately. You should not have to bribe them with something else. Training them with give will help with this. Say "give" and take the toy away. Then, when the baby reacts negatively, you say "no" and give him a training swat or flick. (Often we would flick the cheek if the inappropriate response was fussing or screaming, but would swat if it was trying to hit or arching their back.) Eventually, the baby will give the toy without a fit. Then you will know that from now on, you need to discipline.
With "come", you train the child by saying the word and then going and getting the child and carrying him to where you were when you called him. This one can take months of training, but one day you will say "come" and you will see the baby begin to crawl or walk towards you. At this point you need to praise a lot. Same with all of the commands - let the baby know you are pleased with obedience. With come, we did not do the training swats until they showed some evidence of understanding the concept. They would stop what they were doing and look at me or they would take a step and then stop. This is when I would swat once. After a few more weeks and once the child comes to you completely, then you change over to discipline.
"Hush" is a great word for helping your toddler sit through church or listen during a meal or prayer time. This one we did not start until around 12-15 months. And the training flick was a littler softer than normal. I want them to hush, not burst into tears. So I would speak softly and get right beside them before saying "hush" and of all of the commands, this one is the one you need to train with a flick by the mouth and then turn to spanking on the bottom for discipline. Three flicks on the mouth would probably be too much. We used this word as well if our boys were throwing a bit of hissy fit and needed to stop. We still use this command word in our house. If there is fighting going on, I'll say "hush" and then allow one person to talk at a time, not allowing the boys to interupt.
Finally "obey" - the catch-all command. I often have found myself saying "Obey Mommy." If I asked Micah to pick up his shoes and put them by the door, I might word it "Micah, obey Mommy and put your shoes by the door." At 15-18 months and with so much training throughout the last the year, they catch on pretty quickly to obey. Also, when I discipline I always talk about obedience so by the time I start using obey as a command word, the child already has a decent understanding.
Going from hand swats to bottom swats is again determined by the child. We had one boy that when I said the word "no" he would burst into tears. We didn't start spanking him on the bottom until he was 1 1/2 years old. Another boy, strong-willed from conception!, was being spanked on the bottom at seven months of age. I'm not joking. Hand swats meant nothing to him. Often with spanks, he would look up at me and smile afterwards. Or I would pick him up off my lap to comfort him and he would slap my face. I spanked him more times than I can count and so repeatedly for the same offenses that I would put him in his crib for a long time because I couldn't bring myself to spank him for the same thing again! But the interesting thing is, he is our son with the most sensitive heart to sin now. He can't hold it in and can't hide it. He truly repents over his sin and has a beautiful start to a deep understanding of forgiveness and grace.
I hope this hasn't created more parenting headaches but has helped give some practical ways to help your young children begin to learn obedience to God through obedience to you.