Myth-information

Parents and professionals use the terms discipline and punishment interchangeably; they are not the same. Discipline refers to teaching and guidance while punishment is retribution or getting even. Here are a couple of definitions to compare:

Discipline: The gradual process whereby a child learns to behave in a way that fulfills the requirements of his social group or society. Good discipline cultivates inner growth, understanding, and self-control.

Punishment: The act of punishing or the fact of punishing, as for an offense or fault. A penalty inflicted for an offense or fault; severe handling or treatment. A penalty inflicted for wrongdoing. Punishment rests entirely on external authority and external control. It utilizes disapproval more than approval and coercion more than education or guidance.

Myth-information refers to incorrect and inappropriate parenting practices and advice given to parents by professionals and others that is false and misleading. Unlike pseudo-info (see below) that gives parents mere reassurance and no direction, myth-info consists of specific parenting advice that is naïve, false, misleading, and ineffective. Almost invariably, the advice given results in confrontation and conflict between parents and children; consequently, many problems that begin simply escalate out of all proportion. I refer to these approaches to parenting as “myth-information” because they have taken on a life of their own and are commonly accepted and sanctioned parenting practices in our society; recommended to parents on a daily basis. They further constitute what I call “Institutionalized Maltreatment of Children”. The strategies are widely accepted in our society…they have become parenting myths and institutions; accepted without question. However, most are mean spirited and continue to exist because they enable parents to overpower their children; forcing them to submit to often inappropriate expectations.

What they all seem to have in common, and what is appealing about them, is that they are “generic” and can be applied to any problem. Parents don’t have to think about discipline to spank, yell, deprive children of privileges, or seat them on a naughty chair. These strategies are also deceptive in that parents wrongly conclude “they work” when they do not. Granted, they are effective in temporarily putting a stop to a particular behavior when applied. However, the goal of parenting and discipline should be to teach self-control and self-discipline. Parents should not focus on putting an end to inappropriate behavior by overpowering or mistreating children. They should focus instead on teaching their children to resist behaving inappropriately; making good decisions on their own and without being told. At any rate, here are some examples of myth-info…the list is only representative and not exhaustive. What all of these approaches to parenting and discipline have in common is that they temporarily put a stop to a problem…deceiving parents into thinking what they are doing “works”.

Spanking. As you might expect, spanking tops my list of inappropriate parenting strategies that have taken on mythical proportions in our society. Let me be perfectly clear on this: there is never justification for spanking or hitting children and doing so is ineffective and abusive! Spanking is not discipline. Parents often come to my office and report they “spank as a last resort”. My response is that having to spank as a last resort should suggest to them that all of the other things they do in the name of discipline, short of spanking, don’t work! I then provide them with alternative noncombative parenting strategies so they don’t have to get to “the last resort” of spanking. Spanking doesn’t teach anything and it doesn’t accomplish anything. It often makes kids sneaky; they don’t stop doing the things they are spanked for…they just stop doing them when their parents are around. Also, when parents “spank as a last resort” they are actually teaching their children what they did was ok…just don’t do too much of it! This is a very hard lesson to learn…how much is too much? Additionally, children who are spanked may behave out of fear of their parents at home (not out of respect) but they frequently become behavior problems away from home (e.g., in school, in the neighborhood, etc.).
Taking away privileges or belongings. Sure…want me to like you and to be more cooperative and agreeable? Take away my stuff and prevent me from doing things I enjoy or seeing people I like. How silly is this? Take my stuff when I make a mistake and I will get mad and I will get even…so will your child.
Time out. Used correctly, time out can be a parent’s best friend and most important disciplinary tool. However, I have never met anyone, parent or professional, who used time out as it should be used. The mythology of time out includes some combination of the following bad advice. First, a time out should take place in a location that is boring and devoid of anything that possibly could be of interest to a child. Dr. Phil McGraw, who should know better if he really is a psychologist trained to comment on parenting, suggests time out should, ideally, occur in a bare room without so much as a window for a child to look out of. Inappropriate and mean-spirited. Second, it is widely and unquestioningly recommended that time out should last one minute per year of age. Dr. Phil says so and the official websites for the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Family Practice Physicians give the same advice. Small wonder that this is what you have been told by your child’s pediatrician. How’s it working so far? Third, naughty chairs are often recommended for toddlers and young children. Or a stair-step. Are you sitting down now because you were bad? Or, are you sitting down because you are reading the content of this page? Parents are admonished to never use their child’s bedroom for a time out and never to leave a child in time out unattended. What? A time out (going back to B. F. Skinner, the Father of Behavior Modification) is intended to be a time away from social reinforcement. Using a naughty chair or stair step just substitutes one problem for another. Parents start with a child who is misbehaving and end up with a child they have to monitor because he won’t sit! Big advantage. There are other problems with time out as commonly used. If you would like to learn how to use time out appropriately, contact me through my Contact or Free Consultation pages.
Rewards and reinforcement. I have never used tangible rewards with my children and I have never recommended use of rewards to parents. However, parents are frequently encouraged by others to use tangible rewards, charts and stickers, etc., to motivate their children to behave better, to succeed, etc. Rewards don’t work and frequently or invariably undermine what parents are attempting to accomplish. For example, research has shown that children rewarded for reading books with charts, stickers, pizzas, or other tangible rewards stop reading when the rewards stop coming. This is true even of children who enjoyed reading before rewards were instituted. It seems that using external rewards undermines internal motivation for a wide range of activities that should be satisfying and enjoyable in and of themselves. Additionally, parents using rewards and charts and stickers are making erroneous and inappropriate assumptions about children. For example, parents are often encouraged to use charts and stickers with children that wet the bed. I don’t think bedwetting children are wetting on purpose or waiting for the right reward. Rather, I think they are children who must be taught to become dry and continent. They are wetting because they have not learned to stay dry and charts and stickers don’t teach them anything. Rewards are often used to encourage children to do better in school as well. Children could be promised five dollars for every A grade or a trip to Disney World if they make the honor roll. Most often, when this is done with children having problems in school, the children don’t get the money and the family stays home. What would be an appropriate reward that I could use with you to ensure that you do well in algebra or calculus? You see, children need help understanding school subjects if they are struggling. Success is a reward in itself. Rewards do not teach anything of value. Of course, rewards do have their place. If you would like a woodpile moved from point A to point B, use the appropriate monetary incentive and it will be moved. However, rewards and incentives work only with trivial and insignificant behaviors.
Punishment. The terms punishment and discipline are used interchangeably by most professionals giving parenting advice; they are not the same. Discipline refers to teaching. True discipline solves problems in children by making them more competent and skilled and by enhancing self control. Punishment, on the other hand, typically is mean-spirited, teaches nothing, and is often a desperate attempt by a parent to put a stop to a behavior that he or she finds to be annoying. The behavior in question may or may not be inappropriate. One way to distinguish between discipline and punishment is to consider the nature of consequences used by parents in enforcing their rules and expectations. Children make mistakes and parents make mistakes. However, when parents make mistakes they are not spanked, yelled at, or deprived of privileges or their belongings. If you use consequences with your children that would not happen to you, you are using punishment and not discipline. If the same consequences happen to your children that happen to you when you make the same mistake or engage in the same behavior, you are being a true disciplinarian. Once again, the line between the two is blurred and hazy and at times is difficult to decipher. Subscribe for Online Parent Coaching and Consultation and I will teach you how to truly and correctly discipline your children.
Use natural and logical consequences for behavior. On the face of it, this sounds pretty good. However, many writers encouraging use of natural and logical consequences seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. I’ll give a few examples after I explain the different kinds of consequences. Natural consequences are consequences “naturally delivered” by a child’s environment; without human intervention. If a child is careless, he may fall and injure himself. If he is careless with his belongings, they will be lost. Leave a bicycle out in the rain and it will get stolen, rusty, etc. Call another child bad names and get punched in the nose. Logical consequences refer to consequences that involve human intervention…parents or teachers or others deliver the consequences. Identifying appropriate consequences are a problem for many authors. In two otherwise excellent books that I encourage all parents to read, Family Therapist Hal Runkel (Screamfree Parenting) concludes that the kinds of consequences parents employ with their children are not important…as long as the consequences are applied consistently. Alfie Kohn (Unconditional Parenting) does not seem to address consequences for behavior at all. He rightly discourages the use of ineffective rewards and punishments but does not suggest alternative strategies for parents to use.
I think consequences do matter. However, consequences are not generic. The consequences you experience, the consequences I experience, and the consequences your children will experience for the rest of their lives will vary and depend on the nature of their offenses or the choices they make. It is a parent’s responsibility to clarify these choices and consequences now so their children will be prepared for adulthood when it arrives. Subscribe to Online Parent Coaching and Counseling and I will teach you how to establish appropriate expectations and consequences (i.e., rules) for your children.

Establishing appropriate consequences and rules is a tricky business. To complicate matters further, consider a distinction between consequences that punish and consequences that teach. Although it is true that a bicycle left in the rain may be stolen or become rusty, this is not an appropriate consequence even though it may be a natural consequence. This is a consequence that punishes. In fact, it will punish both parent and child. Consider an alternative. Instead of leaving your child’s bicycle in the rain to be stolen or to get rusty, put it away. What better way to teach your child where their bicycle belongs? Also, consider two possible consequences. “Honey, I put your bicycle away yesterday. That should be your job and you need to learn to take care of your belongings. Because I took my time to do your job, I’ll ask you to help me this weekend with one of my jobs to repay me”. Or, something that naturally happens to me when I misplace my belongings is that I must do without them. Once again, rather than allowing the bicycle to rust or disappear, put it away and wait until the next time your child wants to go for a ride. “Dad, my bicycle as a chain on it. Can I ride it”? “Of course, you just can’t ride it today. You left it in the rain last week and I had to put it away. If you put your belongings away when you are finished with them, they will be available to you the next time you need them. I’m sorry you did that to yourself”.

This raises another important point. We are rarely punished as adults. Rather, we punish ourselves because we know what is expected of us, what our choices or options are, and what the consequences will be. We want our children to learn to exercise self control and exercising self-control often involves weighing two possible choices and their associated consequences. “I don’t feel like putting my bicycle away because it’s raining. However, if I don’t, I may not be able to ride it for a day or I’ll have to do a job for dad, etc. I guess I’ll take a minute and put it away”. Another example that commonly and inappropriately is given is difficulty in school. Authors suggest that the consequence of not taking school seriously is failure. Once again, this is a consequence that punishes rather than a consequence that teaches. Children having problems in school are punished with failing grades, detention, retention, inability to participate in school events and activities, etc. When adults have difficulty “on-the-job” they are helped to succeed by their employers. Or, an employee struggling with an excessive workload may spend evenings or weekends “on-the-job”. Spending more time on task if school is difficult is a more appropriate consequence than failing. Spending more time leads to success. Failing in school can lead to failure in life.
Discipline must be immediate. Here is another myth or bit of myth-information that leads to significant conflict between children and their parents. It is not true that discipline must be immediate in order for children to make the connection between what they did and a consequence that is truly disciplinary. The child asking to ride his bicycle days after leaving it in the rain would not have any difficulty making the connection. School children having to study on weekends because of wasting time in school would understand that consequence just fine; even if it was delivered days later. You do not have to be caught in the lobby of the bank, robbing it, in order to go to jail. I understand there is a seven year statute of limitations on bank robbery. Rob a bank, get caught five or six years later, and you too will make the connection just fine. Appropriate discipline requires waiting for a teachable moment when your child is approaching you. If you are going after your child to spank, yell, or engage in some other hastily devised and inappropriate punishment, your child will not be listening to the message you are attempting to teach.
Rules and expectations. Rules and expectations are mentioned here as an example of myth-information because authors of parenting books and those giving parenting advice invariably mention the importance of rules and expectations. Almost always, it is emphasized that rules and expectations must be age appropriate with respect to the child in question. However, parents are never helped in developing appropriate rules and expectations and the validity of parental expectations is never questioned. That is, children frequently and naturally resist inappropriate expectations and bad rules; when they do they are considered to be oppositional, defiant, or behavior problems. Parents are seldom encouraged to ask whether or not their rules and expectations make sense. As an example, most struggles with children in most families occur between mealtime and bedtime. Parents fight with their children because they expect them to finish their dinner and to be in bed by 8:00 PM. Perhaps children should not be forced to eat everything on their plates and it might be appropriate for them to read a book or relax listening to music if they can’t sleep at 8:00 PM. It would not be the end of the world if a child ate less and went to bed at 8:30 PM or 9:00 PM. interestingly, parents don’t have to clean their plates and parents and other adults don’t have rigid and specific bedtimes. If parents changed their expectations to “have a good diet” and “get enough rest’, conflict in many families could be significantly reduced. Subscribe for Online Parent Coaching and Consultation and I will teach you how to set appropriate rules and expectations for your children that can be easily enforced to everyone’s advantage.

Pseudo-info

Parents are bombarded with parenting advice from many sources. Pediatricians and nurses give advice, as do Nanny 911 and Super Nanny. John Tesh and Delilah give advice on their syndicated radio programs and rarely does a day go by without some sort of parenting tip on Oprah or the Today Show. Search parenting and discipline online and you will find hundreds of thousands of listings. Search parenting tips on Youtube and you will find parenting tips from mothers, grandmothers, accountants, veterinarians and a variety of other well intended but misinformed contributors.

Psychology is a fascinating discipline and being a psychologist is a wonderful and rewarding profession. There is, however, one major drawback. This is particularly true of psychological science as applied to parenting and child rearing practices. The drawback is that everyone is a psychologist! That is, at some level, everyone shares my psychological database even though I went to school to be a psychologist for 10 years, taught psychology for 10 years, and have been in private practice as a psychologist for many more years.

When parents come into my office or contact me online to ask questions about their children, I know I am at the end of a long line of neighbors, friends, relatives, coworkers, and other professionals with whom they have shared their concerns and from whom they have sought advice. I find it interesting that they would not ask the same people for advice about keeping their pets healthy, fixing their lawn mower or automobile, or why they have that terrible stabbing pain in their side. Instead, they would find a veterinarian, a good mechanic, or a competent physician. Additionally, if they did ask friends, relatives, and others about cats, mechanical devices, or aches and pains, the responses they would probably hear would be something like “Why are you asking me?

However, when parents ask questions about children, they always get an answer. If you have concerns about your child, ask the next 20 people you meet what you should do and they will give you an answer… of sorts. However, the answers you get will be deceiving. When parents have problems, what they need is information that will enable them to understand and solve problems or concerns having to do with their children. However, the answers they typically receive from others, including professionals, are not informative. Instead, they take the form of what I call pseudo-info.

Pseudo-info refers to answers that are reassuring but not informative. They are answers others use to calm a parent’s anxieties but contribute nothing to understanding problems in children or to solving concerns about children. Here are some examples of commonly encountered pseudo-info:

He/she will grow out of it. Pediatricians notoriously give pseudo-info of this kind when parents have concerns about nonmedical aspects of child development. What the physicians are really saying is “I don’t know what to tell you”. They don’t admit it, however. They know children grow out of their clothes and they grow out of their shoes. With time, flu, mono, and chicken pox will pass. It naturally follows, of course, that children will also grow out of temper tantrums, wetting their beds, sucking their thumbs, fighting with their siblings, and failing in school. A local pediatrician was interviewed for a story in the Kalamazoo Gazette, our local newspaper. He commented that he frequently gives behavioral advice because parents ask him questions related to behavior. However, he also acknowledged that he knows nothing about it but feels compelled to respond nonetheless. Thinking your child will grow out of a problem is reassuring but it gives you no direction as a parent and you are put in the very weak position of waiting days, months, and years for that to happen. Parents should be proactive and should be provided with treatment plans to help their children overcome any difficulties or behavioral challenges they face.
It’s just a stage he/she is going through. This is a variation of the above and also places parents in a very weak and passive position when concerned about some aspect of their child’s behavioral or social development. I don’t think children go through stages. Or, even if they do, it is not a healthy or helpful assumption to make about children. I think going through a stage suggests a competent individual who for some reason has become less competent. In adults, we sometimes talk about nervous breakdowns or mental breakdowns. This suggests a competent adult has encountered a problem and consequently has become less competent. When that adult seeks help, he or she will “get better” if appropriate treatment or therapy is received. However, adults in such situations don’t really “get better”. Rather, when they improve, they go back to doing things the way they did before the problem emerged. Children aren’t like this. Children are not competent and skilled individuals “going through stages”. Children are incomplete organisms in the process of developing habits. And, with time, habits grow stronger and stronger. So, if you are concerned about any aspect of your child’s behavior or development, deal with it now. For example, I have met with many parents who waited for their children to grow out of temper tantrums rather than dealing effectively with them when the children were two years old or three years old. Their reward for being passive and understanding, waiting for their “terrible twos” child to pass through that stage, was an oppositional and uncontrollable teenager still having tantrums. I have also worked with children still sucking their thumbs or wetting their beds well into their teen years.
All kids/teens do that. I remember a shopping trip when my three children were all under five years of age. A woman approached; admiring the children, she said “Cute kids…wait until they are 15!” The children were condemned as soon- to-be unruly and defiant teens and I was condemned to several years of misery and oppositional behavior as their parent. That did not happen. Truth be told, only a small proportion of children are troublesome and only about 20% of teenagers become unruly, defiant, or oppositional. Interestingly, about the same percentage of children are believed to have undiagnosed and untreated learning differences! Perhaps children who cannot be successful in school substitute power for competence? At any rate, you are in a minority as a parent if your teen is acting out. Additionally, I would derive scant satisfaction from the belief that all teens yell and swear and defy their parents if I happened to be living with one!
Be consistent. How many times have you heard this one? Are you being consistent? Exactly what is it that concerned parents are to do “consistently”? Some parents consistently yell and others consistently spank. Does behavior and self control in children improve when parents “consistently” deprive children of prized possessions or privileges? How about consistently forcing children to sit on naughty chairs? Being consistent is not enough…parents must consistently do the right things.
Present a unified front…parents on the same page. One of the common complaints I hear from parents is that one parent will not back or support the other in his or her discipline. For example, the mother of a five-year-old recently told me her husband became very upset with her because he was "disciplining" their son in a manner with which she could not agree; he became irate when she would not support what he was doing. Lack of consistency is a problem in all two-parent families. In fact, single parents sometimes have an advantage in disciplining children because no one else is present to contradict or second guess decisions about discipline. Assuming use of appropriate parenting practices, single parents are often very effective disciplinarians.
Related to this issue of consistency was a point made by psychologist Albert Ellis years ago during his Presidential Address to the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Ellis noted a major problem with the human race is that we all believe we are rational; we think what we are doing or thinking at any given time is correct. We all tend to think that our way is the right way; we are right and the other party is wrong. This is certainly true when it comes to discipline. Parents believe they are doing the right things in disciplining their children and, consequently, expect the other parent to “back them up. “ Dr. Ellis went on state that we, as humans, would be much better off if we realized we are irrational beings. So, parents spanking their children are behaving irrationally in relation to discipline but believe they are doing the right thing and expect their spouses to back them up. Or, when children are placed on naughty chairs, made to stand in corners, or sent to bed early or without their dinner, parents believe they are doing the right thing. However, they are not and they should not expect their spouses to agree with them.

Often, parents say they are "too different" and will never be able to agree on discipline. However, consider this: Although parents may disagree and behave inconsistently with respect to discipline, most parents agree about many other decisions made about children. Mothers and fathers agree, for example, that children should go to bed early enough to get a good night's rest. We want them to work hard in school, share our religious beliefs, and have milk rather than Kool-Aid or soda with their dinner. Parents agree that immunizations should be current, and that yearly physicals and dental check-ups every six months or so are good ideas. Why then do we disagree about discipline? Mother may want to ignore misbehavior while father wants to scold. Father may favor spanking while Mother leans in the direction of time-outs. Mother tries to reason, while Father looks for some privilege to take away.

I think we agree in most areas other than discipline because we have a common model to guide our decision-making. We try to provide healthy diets and give our children milk to drink because we know about sampling the various food groups and the importance of calcium to strong bones and healthy teeth. Our religious convictions have been instilled in us over a lifetime and parents often marry within their religion. We value education as a key to personal development and vocational success and we all want our children to be more successful and better educated than we are. However, we do not have a common or shared model for disciplining our children! What happens, then, is that we fall back on our personal beliefs and non-systematically derived models of child rearing and discipline when problems occur and the personal models held by parents often do not agree. Consult with me online and learn how to apply my Theory of Noncombative Child Management and Discipline. Your subscription will include my parenting manual, guaranteed to put you and your spouse on the same page; backing each other in matters of discipline.
Catch ‘em being good. You can find a nicely framed image of this mantra at your local Hallmark Card Shop or Teacher Supply Center. I don’t think catching children being good is as much of a problem as knowing exactly what to do when they are not! Additionally, parents are busy and stressed. We generally do not catch our children when they are good. When they are behaving, we fix a meal, do a load of laundry, schedule an appointment, or pay a bill.
Boys will be boys. This is another form of reassurance parents often hear. Why not “girls will be girls”? Parents are given this pseudo-info when sons are being aggressive, messy, disrespectful, and when they are struggling in school. How many times have you heard boys have problems in school because they develop more slowly than girls? It’s not true but believing it is reassuring to parents concerned about their sons’ problems in the classroom. It seems obvious that “boys will be boys” (and girls will be girls, and men will be men, and women will be women) but I don’t know how this contributes to better parenting and more effectively solving children’s problems.
Diagnosing the problem. This variety of pseudo-info is particularly insidious and carries with it a high probability of damage or harm to children and families. Here is what I think happens. Children do things and what they do is often inappropriate, difficult to understand, or annoying. Not because they are bad or emotionally disturbed but because they are immature and unskilled. Children challenged in areas of weakness will often act out...the reason for most behavior problems in school. Here’s where the fun begins. Because parents, teachers, and others do not know how to deal with misbehaving children, they typically settle for the next best thing. They make a diagnosis. All of a sudden, the behavior problems don’t seem to be problems any longer because we think we understand them or their causes. The child is still acting out but there is something comforting to the erroneous belief that we understand why he is behaving inappropriately. Here are some common “diagnoses”:
Child #1 is failing in school. He spends much of his time sitting and looking around the room; not paying attention to the teacher or doing his work. We don’t know how to help him succeed so conclude instead that he has Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He has ADHD. How do you know? Well, he is looking around the room and not paying attention. Well, why isn’t he paying attention? It’s because he has ADHD.

Child #2 won’t listen to his parents, yelling at them and defying their requests. He won’t do what his parents tell him. The parents seek out a “counselor”. Counselor: Well, what brings you here? How can I help? Parents: Our child disobeys and won’t listen to us. Counselor: Sounds like Oppositional Defiant Disorder of Childhood (ODD). Parents: How do you know? Counselor: Well, he is oppositional and defiant. Parents: Why is he oppositional and defiant? Counselor: Well, it’s because he has ODD.

Child #3 is wetting the bed at age 7 years. Pediatrician: Well, how can I help? What brings you here today? Parents: Our 7 year old is still wetting the bed. Pediatrician: Well, he is only 7 and probably is not ready. Parents: How do you know he is not ready? Pediatrician: Well, he is still wetting the bed. Parents: Why is he wetting the bed? Pediatrician: Because he is not ready.

Child #4 is mistreating his younger sister. Grandma: Mikey must hate his sister. Parents: Why do you say that? Grandma: Look at how he treats her. Parents: Why does he treat her so badly? Grandma: Because he hates her.

You see, we infer a cause from the behavior and then turn the inference on the behavior to explain it…pseudo-info that explains nothing and give parents no direction whatever in improving school performance, ending defiance and opposition, curing bedwetting or teaching children to get along!

The list could go on, but I am certain you get the picture. Rather than settling for myth-information and pseudo-info, contact me for guaranteed and effective answers and treatment plans to help with your concerns about your children.