PARENTING LIFE HOOD 'DISCIPLINE THE ENABLING ENVIRONMENT'.

Discipline is perhaps only a tool in the art of parenting but it is so important that it has been treated in an entire chapter. Such is the importance of discipline that it is considered the enabling environment for the entire teaching project. Once the habit of discipline is in place, all other issues relating to parenting will flow easily and naturally.

Take control early or lose control forever.

Once issues of discipline are sorted out, you have created the ideal environment for all that the child will learn.

To help understand discipline better, let us note the Advanced Learner’s dictionary’s definition.

Discipline             Is the practice of training people to obey rules and orders and punishment for not obeying them.

                            The controlled behavior or situation that results in this training.

                            

                             The ability to control your behavior or the way you live and work.

Establishing rules

The first step in establishing discipline is therefore establishing rules.

Children learn better in regulated environs anyway so we should establish rules for almost everything. The number one rule in the home is, parents are in charge, (you will be surprised that the most basic things need to be established).

When in school, children should be told that they automatically should convey the authority and respect for their parents to the teacher, the head teacher, the school authorities. Parents must protect the authority of the teacher and the head teacher as dearly as they protect their own and so, they must never undermine the authority of the teacher or the school, either in the presence of the child or in the absence of the teacher!

Research has shown the following:

0-7           Years ……age of regulation

This is the age when a child should be closely regulated and good habits can be established.

Suggested rules for this period include the following

·        Time to sleep and time to wake-up

·        Time to eat and what food to eat (if possible have a food time table)

·        Time to clean up  (after food, after play)

·        Time to do Home work

·        Time to bath or shower

·        Time for going out with friends, playing football

·        Time for television

8-12 Years ….age of imitation

The children will imitate you at this stage so as parents, you have to ‘do what you say’- when we are seen to obey rules ourselves, they will

more easily follow the rules we lay down.

Suggested rules for this period include

·        Time to do Home work

·        Time to bath or shower

·        Time for going out with friends, playing football

·        No cheating

·        No lying

·        No breaking school rules

·        No jumping queues  

13-20 Years ….teenage years

These years are identified as the difficult years. Physical changes begin when girls are between the ages of ten and thirteen and boys are between twelve and fifteen years old.

Research has shown that adults think with the prefrontal cortex – the rational part of the brain located in front. The pre frontal cortex is however not fully developed till after the age of eighteen.

Before then children think with their ‘Amygdala’, another organ in the brain which acts more on impulse than on reason. We can therefore begin to understand why children cannot be abandoned to their own reasoning. We must be our children’s coach & consultant till they can reason maturely.

Suggested rules for this period include the following

·        Time for going out with friends, playing football

·        Time for dating

·        Time for make-up

·        Time to be home- curfews

·        How to dress

·        How to talk (no talking back, no funny accents, no slurs)

·        How to manage pocket money and allowances

Enforcement of Discipline

Rules must then be enforced and punishment must be meted out when they are flouted.

Methods of enforcement

These will range from simple commands or even mere disapproving looks to physical action, examples include:

1. Saying a firm “no”

2. Smacks or the cane for younger ones

3. Withdrawal of privileges and toys (such as television time, mobile

Phones, electronic games, footballs, etc)

4. Lectures

5. Grounding

Use of Enforcement Tools

Study your children in order to identify the best tool to use on each child.

Children are usually different. They could be rebellious, co-operative or passive.

Parenting styles are also different and will depend on our character.

Authoritarian       Rules clear and inflexible, domineering, set family goals, gives rewards. 

Equalitarian         Family a team, decisions democratic, rules simple and flexible.

Permissive      Compassionate, sympathetic, and encouraging, motivates children in the right direction, respectful, open.

THE AFRICAN FATHER

For some of us discipline is not a particularly happy subject as discipline seemed to be the particular preserve of the African father. Some remember with trepidation the stern, silent, uncompromising father, who ruled the entire household including the, mother (or mothers) and any number of children with fear! Some even remember running under the seats as soon as they heard the horn of their father’s car, for fear of the cane that would most certainly be inflicted when the latest misdemeanor was discovered.

The female children in particular vowed not to have husbands like that, whilst they also determined they would not practice that type of discipline in their own homes.

To a large extent however, most of the men felt this was how to be the man in the house and this explains why they strove to put this mode of parenting in place.

We now find, with hindsight, that our parent’s style did at least keep the entire family in check even if it did not allow for much expression of individual creativity! In addition to that it was motivated by an intention to keep the family name and reputation intact.

Parents must together now determine their own individual methods of disciplining our children, with an intention to raise balanced and responsible adults. Parents should not display divergent disciplinary methods as it encourages children to play one against the other for their own benefit and at the parent’s detriment.

Parents must not undermine each other’s authority, neither must they undermine the authority of the school or anyone they put in authority over their children, such as lesson teachers, grandmothers and grandfathers and even house helps.

Special cases where parents are divorced or are “warring” require special care and will be discussed later on.

If parents have an issue with the school they should discuss it with the school away from the child’s presence. Parents should work with the school as a team. There must be no division!  A house divided against itself will surely fall!

Time for starting discipline

I believe you begin to enforce discipline right from infancy!

Several babies have been trained to wake up for their nightly feeds by parents enforcing the discipline of not picking them up every time they cry.

Discipline requires commitment and resolve on the part of the parents. Rules that are not enforced, or inconsistently enforced are no rules!

DISCIPLINE MUST BE SERVED IN LOVE

Compared to what obtained in our parents days we have learnt to be more expressive and demonstrative in our show of affection and love towards our children, therefore when we discipline them it should also be in love.

·        Respect the kids.

Unless there is a particular lesson to be taught by humiliating the kids publicly, even when being disciplined they should be respected so that their self confidence is not permanently damaged.

·        Do not tell everyone about their problems.

It adds no value to run our kids down in the presence of the next person that comes in after the child has misbehaved. It can only further erode the child’s self esteem.

·        Praise them when they do well.

Praise is an important tool that works as efficiently as discipline. Encouragement causes them to desire to continue to please.

·        Do not discipline in anger

Though this may be easier said than done, it is better to be calm when administering discipline so that the message is not lost in the surrounding emotions.

·        Keep communication lines open.

It is especially recommended that, after discipline is administered, the reason be fully explained to the child. Sullenness and malice should not be allowed to breed as an aftermath of discipline. Rather, genuine remorse should be the evident emotion.

S.V. Mums

I have a group of mums I call S.V. mums (special vision mums). For some reason, they cannot have an unbiased opinion of their children. I have tried to understand how it happens. The most logical, normal woman has a child and all of a sudden everything about her vision changes. She can only see her child’s side of any story; her child can do no wrong. She can never say no to the child, the child must get whatever she wants, whenever she wants. No harm must befall the child. Indeed she must do all within her means to prevent any harm whatsoever from befalling the child!

This child is the most important of all children. As I see this behavior manifesting in so many, I truly begin to wonder how those women can get out of those situations (incidentally it seems to strictly be a women’s thing, I am yet to meet an S.V. dad.) Because women often do not even know that they have this problem I suggest you conduct a test on yourself. If your children are thoroughly spoilt - this is usually the first external sign, (again how do you know your children are spoilt? ask someone that will tell you the truth!), and you are constantly making excuses for the children, then you are an S.V. mum. If you took offence at the person who told you your child is spoilt, then you are an S.V. mum!

If you are an S.V. mum, for the sake of that child you must not make disciplinary decisions alone concerning him or her. The child will never get any discipline. You have to begin to take decisions concerning the child with your husband or a sensible friend. Usually, husbands of S.V. wives have been ‘battered’ into silence and therefore never express a contrary opinion, for fear of incurring the wrath of the S.V. mum For the good of this child, S.V. mums therefore usually have to work with outside help, and if they can restore ‘battered’ husband’s confidence, his help as well. S.V. mums are incapable of making sensible decisions concerning their children, no matter how sensible they may be about other people’s children or other matters. With consistent help they may eventually become normal mums!   

CASE STUDY

THE IWALEWA FAMILY

Mr. and Mrs. Iwalewa have four children. Kayode who is 15yrs old is known as Kd both at home and in school, though in school KD stands for Kool Dude. He is usually the one Daddy and Mummy put in charge, and when he is in charge he is really in charge. Everybody does their homework and he rules with an iron fist. The good news (for the other kids), though, is that he loves football, and once a match is on, he forgets everything and everybody then does whatever they want. He also loves to play football with the neighbours’ children and has broken the windscreen of Daddy’s Mercedez M class car and several things in the sitting room.

Nkiru is 14 yrs old – Inkybaby (as she is called) is a very careful girl. No one is allowed to enter her room and mess up her carefully arranged beads and makeup. She has lots of money because she saves all her pocket money. She is planning to buy more clothes to wear at Christmas when she plans to go to the cinemas everyday with her new boyfriend who attends St. Georges secondary school and who she loves dearly. She does not let her mummy see the clothes she buys because mummy is always complaining that her clothes are too tight or too short.   

Mopileola (‘Mopsy’) is 12 yrs old – Mopsy is everybody’s favorite. She helps out with everything. She helps mummy in the kitchen, helps KD wash his football jerseys and occasionally helps her baby brother tidy his room. Because of this she often does not finish her homework, especially whilst the T.V. reality show Teen Zone is on, because she would not miss the program for anything.

Azuka, 9 yr old– ‘Ziboy’, is the baby of the house. His room is like a Hurricane Katrina affected zone! His laundry basket is always filled and flowing over. His bathroom smells of the dirty pants he soaked two weeks earlier. His soccer boots and socks smell under the bed. Once or twice he has come back wearing someone else’s shoes and mummy had to go to school to sort it out when the other parent reported that Ziboy had stolen his shoes.

1        Using some of these words, (diligence, thoughtfulness, responsibility, discipline and honesty), what are the qualities that can be found in the different children and how such qualities can be reinforced?

2        State some of the negative qualities evident in the children.

3        What do you think of the parents?

CASE STUDY

SHOULD UNIVERSITY STUDENTS BE LOCKED UP?

Revival University was one of the new private universities the government had recently licensed. It was very well built and equipped with the best science laboratories, computer laboratories etc. etc. It had a good student population also as both parents and students were impressed with the quality of tuition and facilities it had to offer and flocked there for admission. The parents were particularly impressed with the level of discipline the University offered. Students were not allowed off campus without written permission of their parents two weeks before the proposed outing and parties were not allowed on campus. So all was well, or was it really?

The undergraduate students of Revival university jumped over the wall- about a dozen boys and girls – and got into the ‘danfo’ whose driver had been waiting furtively across the street. ‘Tonite was going to be one hell of a nite’! They headed for the club Yesmina in Ibadan. They partied, rocked and had a swell time.

In the early hours of the morning a quarrel ensued. No one could remember what it was all about.

Lo and behold, in the midst of the argument a knife appeared. Someone was stabbed. A student died.

The ‘danfo’ driver disappeared. All the guests in the night club were rounded up by the police. The kids could not get back into ‘uni’. The school authorities found out. All those who were not in ‘uni’ that morning were expelled.

ISSUE

1.     To what extent should undergraduates be restricted?