Obey When?
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Thursday, September 09, 2010 10:27 PM
Earlier this week I read a fascinating piece about children and discipline, at the blog Like Mother, Like Daughter.
The piece’s attention-grabbing title is “Six-to-eleven year olds need less patience from you,” but at heart it’s about how to raise children to practice true charity, defined by the author (“Mom” blogger Leila) as “simply treating people with that very love you would like to receive.”
I feel like discipline is one of those parenting challenges to which each family must find its own solutions. There is no “one size fits all” answer. But as a mother who’s still in the early days of this journey, I find it very helpful to read the experiences and advice of those who’ve already raised children to adulthood.
The piece at Like Mother, Like Daughter is ostensibly about teaching children who have reached the age of reason, but there’s also quite a bit about children who are in the three-to-six-year-old age, like my daughter. While reading it, I sat up a little straighter when I got to the author’s standards for obedience in that age group.
She specifically references the scene in Little House in the Big Woods when a bear is nearby and Ma tells Laura to go into the house. Laura can’t see the bear, but she obediently goes inside anyway.
“Would your little girl do what you said in that situation?” Leila asks.
Well, I don’t know about your little girl, but mine wouldn’t. She’d go the second or third time I told her, after I’d reminded her of the possible consequences of disobeying, but she wouldn’t just do it. There would be a lot of “but Mom!”s in the process, too.
So, inspired, I decided that what Camilla and I need is a kind of Discipline Boot Camp. And really, the main problem is not her. It’s me. I need to be better about follow-through, to be willing to put down what I’m doing in order to show my child that I mean what I say.
I’ve taught her that, in theory, she should obey the first time. (If I ask, “Camilla, when do we obey?” she’ll wave her index finger around.) But I’ve given her no reason to believe that it’s actually necessary for her to do it.
It’s been just forty-eight hours since we started this, so it’s too early to report on the long-term effects of Discipline Boot Camp just yet. I will say this, though: this evening I told Camilla to get me something from the other room, and she said, “Okay, Mama!” and skipped off to get it. My husband looked at me in amazement. (We’ve been arguing with “I don’t feel like it!” for far too long.)
Like I said, I really think discipline is a learn-as-you-go proposition for each family. We’re still in the very early stages of our learning process. But this week, at least, we’ve taken a step.
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