Banbury Crossroads
Independent School

ON DISCIPLINE

Oh my! What a topic! It is a basic premise among those who love and support young people that it is better to build healthy children than to repair dysfunctional adults. In the service of this admirable purpose, parents, teachers, and others who cultivate the lives of children often misconceive the appropriate means of doing so. Unfortunately, the concept of discipline has come to be synonymous with coercion and manipulation, with power struggles, tears, and conditional love. Discipline is one of the most overused words found in the realm of child rearing. I define it as being those behaviours that adults employ in their attempt to create smooth social, emotional and intellectual functioning within their relationships with young people. According to this viewpoint, intentions are usually honorable. Adults with good hearts hope to create an atmosphere within their Banburys, schools and public places wherein youth will feel secure and accepted, and wherein they will gain knowledge and productive skills, as well as dignity, social conscience, self-responsibility, and mastery of their environment. The goal is to assist our youth as they grow into adulthood, so that they will take their places as constructive and honorable citizens of a democracy in this immensely interesting world. This leads us to the question: how do we accomplish this complex task?

To begin, we must examine our underlying attitudes and values regarding power, motivation and relationship. Traditionally, the use of discipline implied a power structure wherein children were held at the bottom of the list. It was commonly acknowledged that young children were physically weak, intellectually undeveloped and socially unaware. Therefore, adults believed that it was their duty to somehow make sure that their offspring behaved in socially acceptable ways, since the children were incapable of doing it themselves. At this point, beliefs diverged, as some people considered that force was what children needed, whereas others considered that the necessary intervention was guidance. The reason why these beliefs diverged was that underlying them were different attitudes. Those who believed in force, or power, believed that human beings were essentially selfish, sinful, socially unresponsive and lazy. Realizing the human capability for making harmful, even cruel, choices, they believed that people had to be coerced into goodness. Under this negative conception, children were not considered intrinsically motivated to be altruistic or scholastic. Therefore, social control was the idea behind the disciplinary techniques devised within schools and Banburys. The threatening and punitive aspects of these power-imposing approaches damaged the trust and goodwill within adult-child relationships. Nevertheless, since adults believed that their actions were for the good of the children's spirits, they chose to ignore the harmful impacts that these techniques created in the short and long term. The fact that socially compliant adults were being created was at the crux of the issue, not the quality of the relationships created in the process.

Conversely, those who believed that guidance was the suitable vehicle for transmitting social conventions had a different set of expectations and values governing their lives. They believed that power, externally imposed, was not necessary to shape children's lives into social acceptability. They believed that a child's mind was open to information and capable of responding to other people's emotions. All we needed to do was to present ideas and rationales through deep discussion and planned experiences, in order to cultivate logical and moral reasoning. Intrinsic motivation would thus prompt the child to behave in socially acceptable ways, because that child would understand the reasons for those behaviours. The relationship created between adult and child was thus a crucial element, since the more positive and nurturing that relationship, the more likely the child would be to listen and to accept advice and information. Trust was necessary, and future consequences mattered. From this position, the old saying, - Spare the rod and spoil the child, alluded to a shepherd guiding and protecting his sheep with his staff. The shepherd didn't hit his sheep with it! This approach carried the concept of adult influence into the realm of teaching. The other approach to discipline kept it within the realm of control and punishment.

Today, these two beliefs are still in evidence. In the March issue of our newsletter, we unwittingly published an article entitled, - Smiling and willing they do their chores! It could happen. This article demonstrates clearly the power-seeking approach to child rearing. In it, the author describes the means whereby parents can manipulate their children into following the rules of the - pack (family) so that they will feel secure and not challenge their parents' authority. This transformation is accomplished by consistently demanding that arbitrary rules are followed, and, should they be transgressed, that the children ought to be punished, mainly by withholding rewards or activities that they like. The end result is that the children - no longer question the rules. There's no point. They don't change. It reminds me of a piece of information I picked up a few years ago about street children in Brazil who do not cry there is no point, since no one is there to listen or care. The question is, is that a good thing? My answer is NO. Children need a healthy connection with significant adults.

I believe that blind obedience to autocratic rules allows only a very limited range of responses to any situation, and moreover, that the alienation and rebellion that frequently follows is too-often self-defeating. Human beings are complex creatures. We have needs, but we are not driven purely by instinct. Universally, we are not content to live our lives as automatons squashed by the power of unempathetic controllers. All tyrants are eventually deposed. The pursuit of power by adults over children comes back to haunt both adults and children eventually. The long-term effects are not worth it. First of all, research has shown that punishment, the corollary to control, only works to extinguish behaviour if it is consistently applied and if it is severe.[1] These two elements are problematic. First, parents and teachers can not be consistent enough. They have feelings, experiences, disappointments, and hopes that render them changeable from day to day. In addition, they are not the only influences upon their children the community, through neighbors, cultural events and the media, exerts a powerful influence as well, which may be contrary to the consistency created by the parents. It is this inability to deliver absolute consistency that leads to the frustration that seethes in the parental admonishment, - Don't ever let me catch youˇK! The parent knows that the child is likely to do that very thing, just around the corner. Consistency is necessary to convey the punitive message that is why people who are attempting this approach keep advising parents and teachers to never let children get away with undesirable behaviour, even once. But it is virtually impossible to carry out. Advocates of this method may advise this, but it is hopeless. The advice is on the wrong track.

Even so, it is the severity issue that is most persuasive to negate the usefulness of punishment. Clinical research has discovered a piece of information that many adults have probably experienced firsthand, without understanding its significance. The fact is that punishment loses its impact over time. Since young people are still learning the minutiae of social behaviour, adults who penalize misbehavior find that they need to issue punishment on an ongoing basis, and they usually find as time goes by that they have to continually up the ante. This is what is happening when a child responds to the withdrawal of television privileges with a defiant, - Well, I didn't want to watch television anyway! I'm going to ride my bike! Old minor punishments cease to induce fearful compliance. New ones need to be devised, in a Machiavellian fashion. The unfortunate truth is that behaviorists long ago discovered that in order to extinguish behaviour, punishment has to be so severe that no parent or teacher in their right mind would want to carry it out. The day of torture chambers is over in our culture, and with good reason. The article that was mistakenly inserted in our newsletter focussed primarily on punishment as a means to uphold arbitrarily set rules. I would not recommend this method of child rearing.

Even when adults in authority attempt to side step the negative connotations associated with punishment by calling it - logical and natural consequences, it is still basically the same thing. The adults usually assign these consequences in order to emphasize displeasure with their offspring's behaviour, so that they are not seen as letting the child get away with it. Seeing their only options as being either neglect or action, adults with this polarizing mind-set take action. Usually it is the application of a negative action or the withdrawal of a positive one. That is, actually, the definition of punishment. In addition, these consequences are often not related to the misbehaviour at all. They are arbitrarily assigned. An example of this could be that as a result of a girl biting her brother, she would not be allowed to go to the zoo with her aunt. The real consequence here, of biting her brother, is that he has an injury that needs to be taken care of, and that in addition, he will be in physical pain and emotionally distrustful of his sister. She may also feel some guilt. A true, and helpful, natural consequence would be that the sister would attempt to reduce the pain from the bite by applying ice to it. She would also be advised that she would now need to make amends to her brother for some time in the future, in order to rebuild the damaged trust between them, and the adult could help her think of some ways to do this. Not only that, but the adult would likely consider possible causes of the sister's anger, and attempt to address that situation in the larger sense. But you see, all of this is not a punitive consequence. Most - consequences that people devise are not of this order. They are usually neither logical nor natural, but punitive in nature, and they often do not prevent recurrences of the same negative behaviour.

In addition to this common misconception, I perceive some irony inherent in adults' attempts to control children through the process of setting rules with the accompanying consequences that follow the breaking of those rules. To me, this approach inadvertently implies that the adults assume the rules will be broken! What does this say about those rules? If they are so extraneous that children do not see the need for them, why make them? If these rules were truly advantageous to both parties, then children ought to readily agree to the ideas presented. Also, if we distrust our children so intensely that we feel it necessary to set up in advance a procedure to punish their certain disobedience, what does that imply about our relationship with them?

According to the principles by which I live, punitive discipline is misconceived as a means of social and moral education. The moral reasoning it teaches is that compliance with social standards is necessary to provide protection to oneself, not to promote assistance to others. This is a primitive form of moral reasoning, and it is selfish in nature. In addition, moral education requires the opportunity for young people to analyze options, motivations and potential consequences. Punitive discipline does not offer this opportunity, and therefore, it is limited in its ability to induce long-term understanding of our ethical and social conventions. Behavioral change that is coerced is temporary. Worse than that, it is disrespectful of children's needs for understanding, dignity and social acceptance, and as a result, compliance is frequently tainted with resentment and mistrust.

Even the slightly more pleasant alternative many disciplinarians espouse, of rewarding children for appropriate behaviour, is manipulative, distancing and distasteful. Rewards are based upon the premise that it is possible for some masterful controller to condition others, such as children, by setting up situations according to the following bribe: - If you do this, you will get that, where the - that is a reward desirable to the bribee. The purpose for rewarding children has usually been to create an alternative to disciplinary punishment. It is preferable in terms of its not being physically abusive, but rewards carry their own downside. Over a hundred research studies carried out over the past 30 years have shown many problematic side effects of rewarding behaviour in order to encourage it.[2] Rewards focus the person's attention on the reward, rather than on the desired behaviour. Thus, the tendency to repeat the desired behaviour is reduced once the reward is discontinued to a level even lower than that experienced before the reward was introduced! In addition, creativity is lessened, because the desired behaviour is seen as a stumbling block to receiving the reward, and the easiest, quickest solution is sought, not the outside-the-box exploration that creativity demands. Furthermore, rewarding a certain behaviour reduces the quality of that behaviour, even when quality itself is the item being rewarded, since performance anxiety interferes with quality of result. Another ill side effect is that rewards tend to be offered as a quick and easy substitute for deeper investigation regarding the sources of undesirable behaviour, and as such are ineffective for dealing with and eradicating the roots of each problem. In addition, the strategy of giving rewards occurs only when there is a power differential between the child and the rewarder. When adults exert power in this unbalanced manner, they are taking advantage of the vulnerability of the child, and in the process, they damage the relationship.

In a school setting, this information is particularly significant. If students see adults as rewarding them for superior performance with high marks, praise, or other artificial means, then they will fearfully avoid letting those adults know of their struggles to gain that superior performance. We have often seen students who are stuck on the idea of attaining high marks rather than of learning the concepts in the material presented. This focus on end result rather than process is what leads to cheating. The high mark is what counts, not the study and understanding. This is very sad, because these students have still not comprehended that knowledge is power. They need to learn how to gather, evaluate, organize and utilize information. Therein lies freedom of thought and action. They also need to understand and appraise their own performance, to devise their own solutions to problems, and to create their own lives. Every decision they make designs the fabric of their burgeoning adulthood, for better or worse. It is imperative that our youth learn to value learning for its own sake, as they embark upon their life quest for happiness and for effective living.

Therefore, if rewards are counterproductive and simplistic, and punishments are slippery and destructive, and both are manipulative and disrespectful, then what are people to do? Granted that parents and teachers play enormously significant roles in developing children's values and behaviours, how can we play such an instrumental role positively? The answer begins by realizing that guidance is the only acceptable discipline. By refining our own values mentioned earlier regarding motivation, power and relationship, we can open ourselves to endless opportunities to be role models and mentors for our young people. The most crucial step is to decide to adopt a basically optimistic view of human nature and life itself. We need to believe that we can choose to be happy, take steps to care for ourselves and create our own happiness. We can believe that curiosity and a drive for self-preservation and for social connection all create intrinsic motivation in human beings to learn how to survive in their physical and social world. If we can hold to the belief that individuals have a natural propensity to learn and to master their environment, then we can respectfully and enthusiastically give back to children the responsibility for being learners. Then, we can participate in the lives of our youth as mentors, rather than as coercive manipulators who merely stuff their heads with information. We can start seeing ourselves as doing things with children, not to them. This is a gentler and kinder approach.

From my experience, children who respectfully question expectations, who examine the cause and effect relationship within problems, and who expect to receive unconditional caring and listening from significant adults, are in a far better position to solve the problems that arise like dandelions during the teenage years. Children who analyze situations for themselves according to constructive life principles are better able to resist negative peer pressure. If children are included in discussions regarding difficult issues, if the adults in their lives attempt to engage their reasoning powers and to convince them, rather than merely to control them, then they are more likely to feel autonomous and less likely to feel resentful or rebellious. Moreover, the sense of power that arises with autonomy is an antidote to depression and weak resolve. It is important for our youth to develop the ability to make healthy decisions. This is only possible if first they gain the basic understanding that they need to care for and nurture themselves. They attain this understanding by receiving nurturing and care from their role models. Furthermore, having had the burden of their issues and concerns recognized by compassionate adults, in like measure, these young people will bring empathy and cooperation into their future interactions with others.

In connection with this, we can acknowledge the limits to our personal power. Ultimately, we are each responsible for ourselves, and we can only love others. We need to respect the right of others to be responsible for themselves. We can realize that punishment and rewards are inappropriate abuses of power that create more problems than they can ever solve, particularly in the long run, and we need to abandon them as responses to difficult situations. We need to accept the fact that we truly are not in control of any other human being. People love us and respond to our needs for their own reasons. They have their own needs and goals and dreams. They decide to participate in our ventures independently of our persuasions. They want to connect with us for the joy of relationship and cultural participation, and they would prefer that these connections be life affirming and constructive. Therefore, we do not need to issue dogmatic rules to young people from a lofty position. What is more appropriate, for creating the trusting environment that we would all prefer, is for us to attempt to cultivate agreements with our offspring, to seek mutually respectful expectations that all parties will readily endorse of their own free will. We also are wise to emphasize the idea that the relationship is more important than any issue.

Becoming a participant in healthy relationships is one of the most significant and satisfying quests of our lives. This requires placing a focus upon the giving of ourselves to others our understanding and input, our caring and our time rather than upon the gifts we will receive. If we truly want to be an influence upon others, we need first to respect their inner essence and their autonomy. Then we may share our experience and offer our assistance in a spirit of benevolence. Constructive long-term change that respects the integrity of the person must be learned as a result of an internal thinking process that balances and enhances previous learning. We parents and teachers also continually go through the same process of examining and analyzing information in order to revise old attitudes and beliefs. That is the purpose of this paper.

Once we have cast away negative predispositions and attitudes, and have adopted a helpful and positive spirit, then we are able to participate more constructively in the creation of children's learning. At this point, it is helpful to consider the last stumbling block, the one that creates the storm of controversy around our attempts to create socially and emotionally adept young people. It is this: most problems parents and teachers encounter occur when their own negative feelings are aroused. This means that our responses occur in a flurry of emotion. This is the element that is most challenging to choose the calm and kindly input that de-escalates the troubling situation, rather than to use the crisis as an opportunity to vent our own frustration, fear, and sour wish for reprisal. Many times, the anger and frustration that adults feel over a confrontation arises from distrust a fear that the child will discount our needs, and not listen or respond to us. At these moments, we need to do some clear thinking. The first thing we need to discover when a conflict arises is whose problem it is anyway? If the problem belongs to the child alone, then we may listen actively and with interest to the child, in order to provide comfort and acceptance. The child may merely need to feel heard, and to have unpleasant feelings acknowledged. By listening, we can also provide a sounding board that helps the child to clarify that problem in order to solve it. If, on the other hand, the problem is ours, we need to express this clearly to the child, by explaining exactly what behaviour is troubling to us, what impact it has upon us, and how we feel about it. We must remember that anger is a secondary emotion first we feel some other emotion, such as fear, rejection, loneliness, or lack of appreciation, and then we feel anger that we are burdened with this first negative emotion. If we express this first, more vulnerable emotion to the child, we will find the experience less threatening for the child, and more constructive in the end result, since the child will feel more likely to help us out. We must also remember while confronting conflicts that arouse emotion within us, that we are responsible for finding constructive ways of handling our own difficult emotions. We may need to do some soul-searching to discover the irrational elements, ancient hurts and related issues that may clarify our emotional reaction to the situation. We can also independently attempt to find practical options that would alleviate our pain.

If we find that our initial explanations of our discomfort do not result in a change in the child's behaviour, it simply means that the child's need to keep doing the behaviour is greater than his or her need to please us. At this point, we need to sit down and problem solve with the child. In this role, teachers and parents are mediators as well as participants. We need to remind ourselves that other people do not exist to satisfy our needs, but that as a team, we are together capable of choosing a suitable solution that respects both of our needs. We need to trust our children. This process of finding a win-win solution may take several sittings, since we may at first inadvertently ignore some major factor that later makes itself all too apparent. If this process, repeatedly taken, never seems to come to a satisfactory result to both parties, then the issue, if examined, may prove to be a values issue. When dealing with values issues, the best a parent or teacher may hope for is that the young person will seek our advice. This possibility is greater if the adult has consistently proven good will and caring over time. When engaging in such discussions, we ought to promote the development of higher levels of moral reasoning than blind obedience or the selfish avoidance of punishment for oneself. Altruistic moral reasoning involves exploring the underlying reasons for choices, as well as alternative approaches and possible consequences, all evaluated according to principles such as mutual respect, honesty, kindness, integrity and natural justice.

One final pointer is that when difficulties arise, we have three possible approaches: we may attempt to change the other person through persuasion, to change our own behaviour or outlook, and/or to change the environment. This latter opportunity has immense potential, as it relies on our own power to act flexibly and independently. At all times, we need to be gentle with ourselves and the children we deal with, recognizing that we all have needs and feelings we are all delicate in some way. We simply need to try our best to make ourselves happy, to behave in an unconditionally constructive manner at all times, and to value the act of making amends when we falter. Children need mentors. That is our ultimate role as parents and teachers. If we seek to be of assistance to others, to care about their well being, to value their strength of character, and to respect their own vision of themselves, then we will create those joyful, productive and intimate relationships that define a life well lived.