ON THE SURFACE, THE JACKSON family in rural Vermont may seem to have little in common with the teachers at Ohio Ave Elementary School. But I hope you now see how both life skills and social and emotional skills contribute to children’s self-discipline—and how critical it is to build capability in both arenas. When children can take care of themselves and contribute to a household or community, they feel a sense of competence and purpose. This naturally lessens their impulse to act out. The more kids practice emotion management and impulse control, the better their self-control becomes, even for those kids without a trauma background.
Just as the PAX game builds students’ self-discipline little by little, you can work gradually on developing these behavioral skills in your kids. Keep track of their development and age-appropriate goals. Invite them to participate in setting goals for themselves. Given how slow the process can be, it’s important to continually remind children—and yourself—how much they’re growing, whether in a handwritten journal, notes on your phone, or even a voice-recorded diary. Choose whatever method will help you quickly note where your kids are today—as a reference point for tomorrow.
Even though we aren’t trying to control our children, we still hope to influence them. Unless we claim our role as our child’s primary teacher of life skills and values, popular culture and peers will rush to fill the void. As you observe and listen to your kids more often, in keeping with the lessons of Chapter 7, you’ll begin to identify skills and character traits that they could stand to strengthen. Tackle them one at a time. If your child struggles with keeping track of belongings, brainstorm together ways they can remember items when they leave school or a friend’s house. If you notice that your child lacks empathy, begin modeling that quality in your conversations and mention it when you see them expressing even the smallest amount of empathy.
Capability is the final pillar in the Apprenticeship Model, and you will return to it over and over again as your children grow and tackle bigger challenges.
9
Limits and Routines
“THAT’S NOT FAIR!” MY ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD screamed at me. Maddie stormed from my parents’ porch, where we’d been talking, and slammed the heavy oak and glass door leading into the house. Opened it. Slammed it. Opened it. Slammed it.
The house reverberated with the sounds of a tween thwarted. Soon her angry footsteps thudded in the direction of the living room. I took a deep breath as I felt the heat rising in my chest. My body itched to storm across the room and yell at her. Or maybe throw her bodily from the house. I took a deep breath of the cool breeze wafting across the porch. I struggled to be calm and firm. I reminded myself of everything I’d learned. Her amygdala’s activated. She probably has no access to the problem-solving, rational parts of her brain.
This wasn’t how I’d imagined the first day of summer vacation unfolding.
My children were done with camp for the season, and I’d cleared my work schedule for a couple of days so we could prepare at a leisurely pace for our family trip to California. Then I committed the parental crime of enforcing our family’s screen rules. Just as with our chore chart and bedtime agreement, we created the screen time rules by consensus. Days before this explosion, I sat down with my nine- and eleven-year-old kids to rewrite the screen rules based on their suggestion that the daily limit be bumped from thirty minutes to forty-five minutes. It was summer, they argued, and I conceded the point. We were vacationing at my parents’ lake house in Wisconsin while Brian worked back home, so the three of us drew up a fresh agreement to post on the wall. After the kids ate and cleaned up from breakfast, dressed and brushed their teeth, did ten minutes of math practice, and completed chores, they could enjoy forty-five minutes of screen time.
Usually the screen rules were a workable compromise between our kids’ desire for some entertainment and our goal to include healthy activities as part of the day. But my daughter had violated the rules by picking up her iPad before she finished (or even started) her jobs for the day. When I caught her with the tablet in her room, she made a lame excuse. “I can’t start the laundry until Ava brings me her clothes!” I expressed sympathy but didn’t budge on banning her from screens for a day, which was our agreed-upon consequence.
This is the part of the Apprenticeship Model that skeptics sometimes fail to understand. Just because we tolerate a fair amount of chaos and include our kids’ input in decisions, that doesn’t mean there are no limits. Sure, we’re more likely to respond to a yelling child with a hug than by banishing them to their room. Instead of ordering our children to do something, we give them information about the impact of their action (or inaction) on others. But when they violate an agreement we’ve set by consensus, we don’t lift the consequence.
Because of our emphasis on honoring our kids’ feelings and perspectives, when they are angry about a limit, boy, do they tell us! For the rest of the morning, my daughter grumbled and grumped about the house. First, she twisted around in the one squeaky chair until her sister complained. Then she came back to me with a renewed set of arguments against the screen time ban. Next she loudly complained that nobody cared about her.
My temper rose at each provocation. I tamped it down. Engaging would only prolong the conflict and distract her from experiencing the consequence of her actions—being banned from screens. “I care about you deeply, and I hope you decide to join me and your sister when we go to the library to check out guidebooks,” I told her. I started packing up a lunch to take on our outing, with a sinking feeling inside that she would sulk away the entire, beautiful summer day.
Then a small miracle happened. She came trotting up to me with a neutral expression on her face. Not a scowl.
“Are you coming with us?” I asked, with a smile. She nodded. Before I knew it, she had talked her sister into joining my father on an errand and we two former combatants were companionably driving to the library. I wondered aloud: had she arranged this so the two of us could have time alone? “Yeah. I felt bad about this morning. I’m sorry,” she said. I reached back and squeezed her hand.
This is what effective discipline can look like. Sticking to a limit doesn’t always feel great or elicit a child’s instant, sunny cooperation. But if I had yelled back when she exploded, it would’ve deepened our disconnection. If I had given her a time-out, she would’ve spent that time in her room plotting revenge on me. Instead, I had calmly cited the family rule. Nothing more. That had given her space to calm down and decide that she’d rather have a nice afternoon outing than sulk alone.
WHEN I STARTED THE RESEARCH that became this book, I imagined that with the right combination of encouraging language and developmentally appropriate strategies, my home life would become orderly and calm. But since I am raising children, not robots, I’ve had to accept that parenting is messy no matter what. Even after I’d internalized PEP principles intellectually, it took years for the language and mind-set to come naturally, especially in the midst of a conflict with the kids. I had to uproot some of my most closely held beliefs about parenting, and I relied on Brian and other like-minded parents for willpower to stay the course. It was painful to let the kids experience the full consequences of their choices—for instance, they missed cuddle time if they dawdled during bedtime—without twisting the knife with a snide comment or guilt-inducing look. Sometimes it took weeks to see even the slightest progress. At those times, I had to stick to my path based on faith alone.
I had to stop thinking that my goal was to say the perfect thing and make the right decision in every circumstance. So often the parenting advice industry tells us to be consistent above all. But we are all human. We have good days when we have bounteous patience to set a calm and firm limit with a disrespectful child. And then we have those bad days when we lose our cool. The bad days aren’t cause for shame. They’re an opportunity to model for our children how to apologize and make amends—or, if we can catch ourselves before we explode, a chance to model taking a five-minute break to cool down i
nstead of reacting in anger.
Moreover, it’s a lie that any parenting method works as long as you’re consistent. Consistently berating or striking your child has been proven to cause long-lasting damage.
It’s not easy to trust that kids will learn without pain or shame. When I first started relying on consequences instead of punishment, my tone of voice was often blaming and I sometimes rubbed in the lesson. Limits are arguably the toughest part of this parenting approach—as is often the case. You want to let the experience stand alone, so the child can learn from the consequences. That means having faith in the teaching.
Unfortunately, this also requires that we throw out some parenting tools that can feel satisfying—especially when we want to show the world we’re a good parent. But there’s no more shaming kids in public, and no more rescuing them from their mistakes, whether it’s a forgotten school lunch or a now-regretted decision to sign up for the cheer team. This looks different when parenting a four-year-old as compared to a teenager, but the basic principle remains the same: give kids as much ownership as possible, with support, predictable routines, and agreed-upon consequences.
For example, a preschooler might not be able to come up with ideas for a smoother morning routine, but can choose whether they prefer to dress before breakfast or afterward. A ten-year-old, on the other hand, might be able to brainstorm an after-school schedule that includes independently getting a snack and doing homework before moving on to playtime. And a second-grader is old enough to sign an agreement that if Mom and Dad pay the soccer fees, they will participate in practices and games for the eight weeks of the season—even if they stop enjoying it after three weeks.
What is most important to remember is that it’s okay for your kids to be upset. Sometimes it’s those feelings of unhappiness or discomfort that prompt people to change. Certainly, your kids will develop resilience only by experiencing unpleasantness, not by being shielded from upset by you. When you’re implementing a new approach like this, conflict may rise before it subsides, especially if you have older children.
How do you know if a consequence might actually be a punishment in disguise? Follow the “four Rs” rule. Consequences should be related to the behavior, reasonable in scope, respectful of the child, and revealed in advance. So if your child is having trouble remembering to put his bike away in the garage, you could brainstorm a consequence, such as losing the privilege of riding the bike for a week. It would be unrelated for the child to lose screen time. It would be unreasonable to lose the bike for three months. It would be disrespectful to yell at the child that they were irresponsible and call them names. And of course, you wouldn’t want to announce that they were losing the bike for a week if you hadn’t agreed on that consequence ahead of time. (See Jane Nelsen’s Positive Discipline for more examples of the Rs.)
Don’t worry about always needing a consequence for every problem behavior. You can brainstorm after the fact, because most likely the situation will occur again. Waiting for your chance doesn’t mean you condone the behavior—you can tackle it at the next possible opportunity.
This chapter addresses limits in several of the most common areas of stress for parents: healthy eating, self-care, the morning routine, homework, chores, screen time, sibling fights, and taking responsibility for belongings, including lunch for school.
FOUR-YEAR-OLD ALEJANDRO AND HIS SEVEN-YEAR-OLD sister, Mariana, tumbled through the front door of their family’s Washington, DC, rowhouse, hair and clothes rumpled after the drive home from school. Alejandro wore belted baggy pants that pooled around his ankles, while Mariana sported leggings and a red T-shirt from her school, short-sleeved despite the December day.
Mariana made it as far as the stairway, which cuts through the front of the house, leading steeply upward. She crumpled into a lumpy ball of child, coughing and resting soft short curls on a rounded forearm. Her father, Colin, headed to the bathroom for a thermometer, which quickly confirmed what the parents suspected: Mariana had a fever.
“That’s what I thought. All right. So much for my holiday party tomorrow,” Camila said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“What party?” Colin asked.
“My work holiday party, during the day.”
“I can probably swing by,” he offered.
Alejandro was banging on a nearby cabinet, his face drawn into a knot of disgust at his father’s offer of fruit for a snack. The door hung oddly; hinges askew, it didn’t quite shut. Camila asked her husband to explore whether fiddling with a Phillips head screwdriver would fix it. As Colin moved in to look, Alejandro shifted back, scowl deepening.
“Would you like raspberries or blueberries?” Camila asked Alejandro, in Spanish.
He was having none of that. Why not gummy snacks?
“Because you didn’t brush your teeth,” Camila explained. Under the family agreement, when the children refused to brush their teeth at night, they couldn’t eat sweets the following day.
“You know, the rocket ships and crackers,” Alejandro asked, in English, acting as if Camila simply didn’t understand his request.
“You can brush your teeth tonight and have sweets tomorrow. Today you must have fruit.”
Alejandro responded by swatting at Camila’s hips and legs with his arms.
“Why?” he wailed in Spanish. “No either!”
“Why don’t you eat raspberries?” Camila suggested, setting off another round of wails and “No!” protests from Alejandro.
From her crumpled pose on the staircase, Mariana requested gummy penguins for her “sweet of the day.” Each child could pick one sweet treat daily, as long as they were current on tooth brushing. Camila said yes, in Spanish.
Even worse than missing sweets is your sister getting sweets while you’re banned.
“No, no,” Alejandro cried piteously, at a higher pitch. He followed Camila as she walked into the kitchen. “I want a snack!”
Camila was having trouble finding Mariana’s requested snack. “Did you pull out the gummy bear, penguin thingys?” she asked Colin. “They were in the car with the rest of the groceries, I believe.”
Colin hadn’t seen them.
Alejandro kicked the wall, surprising even himself, but then doubled down on the tantrum by throwing a pen. “I want something else for snack,” he insisted, banging books, backpacks, pretty much anything at hand.
“We’ll get you something,” Colin said.
“I want something else for snack,” Alejandro repeated, voice rising to a shriek of frustration. “This is not working out!”
The parents didn’t try to stop the tantrum. That would’ve just escalated the situation, what Hoefle would call feeding the weeds. They continued with their after-school routine.
Colin spoke to Mariana in a calm voice. “Do you want to be on the steps or upstairs in bed? Is there a place you’d like to be?”
“I don’t like this idea. This is not working out,” Alejandro shouted. “Mama, I don’t like this idea. I don’t like it!”
Camila brushed by him as she strode out the door. “I’m going to check and see if I can find the gummies.”
“I don’t want it!” Alejandro continued in a piteous whine, then broke into full-fledged tears, crying. “Mama, Mama, Mama.”
Camila returned from the car empty-handed. She later told me she’d gone outside not to search for the gummy snacks but to give herself space to calm down.
“Mama, Mama, Mama!” Alejandro said. “I don’t want it!”
“Alejandro, Alejandro, calm down,” Camila said in Spanish. “What don’t you want?”
But Alejandro was beyond reasoning. He continued to wail “Mama, Mama” as he drifted around from entryway to kitchen and back again, finally retreating upstairs to his bedroom. Mariana was still coughing on the steps.
The parents discussed what to do for Mariana’s fever, seemingly unfazed by the mutinous child wailing upstairs. Mariana relocated to the couch in the living room to rest. After barely a minute, Alejan
dro came back downstairs, calling for his mother. She plopped down on the steps beside him, rubbing his back and talking softly.
“What would you like for snack?” she asked. “Just blueberries, or raspberries too? Would you like cheese?”
Alejandro played with one of Camila’s hoop earrings, deciding on raspberries.
“Only raspberries or something else?” she said.
“Something else.”
“What do you want?”
“I want blueberries and then two raspberries,” Alejandro said, completely calm now. “Like my sweet.”
“He wants blueberries,” she told Colin.
“Okay.”
The afternoon continued smoothly as Alejandro went to wash his hands before preparing the snack with his mom. His parents had calmly enforced the limit, while tending to their other child and finding ways to regulate themselves when they got upset. That gave Alejandro space to calm down and accept the household rules about sweets. If they’d ramped up the discipline—when he swatted at Camila, for instance—it could easily have sparked a power struggle that wouldn’t resolve for hours.
EVERYONE HAS BAD PARENTING HABITS. Two of mine were shaming my kids in public and rescuing them from their mistakes. Both arose from my own idea of myself as a competent, nurturing mother. If my kids were rude in public, I’d correct them visibly so that everyone around us would see that I was a good mom. If they forgot a school lunch or left homework on the counter, I’d deliver it to them with a heart full of love before they noticed it was missing. I didn’t see that I was preventing them from experiencing the discomfort that is so necessary to growth. An empty belly or self-conscious feeling would help motivate them to make a plan for remembering their belongings next time.
The Good News About Bad Behavior Page 20