Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky A. Bailey
Aha, another terrific book on positive discipline. I thought, that if you read one good book, you’d be as good as it gets. Apparently not: I still often feel the urge for a good old fashioned yelling, stomping my feet and loosing my patience. I try to avoid all of the above. Yelling feels good… but often comes with a nasty friend: guilt. That one is eating her prey raw… My kids long since forgotten and I am still torturing myself… But why, why, why do parents get to feel so frustrated and annoyed when we love our kids more then the life itself? We are ready for every possible sacrifice for them… and just as ready to strangle them with our own hands at some point. I guess, most important question is – what do we do about it.
Strangling is obviously a solution, but besides the fact, that it is outlawed in most civilized countries :), I don’t think any parent seriously considers that one. Pulling your own hair isn’t exactly productive either.
I found “Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline” by Becky A. Bailey unique only on one thing: this books points out that you cannot expect self control from your children, neither you can teach it, if you don’t posses it yourself! The book is for helping you to improve your self-control as well as teaching your kids how to do it. “No grabbing!” – yells a furious mother as she pulls the toy from her kid’s hands. Another one of those “do as I say, not as I do” approach, isn’t it? “No hitting!” – firmly declares grandma, as she slaps her grandson on a hand. Did you mean, no hitting unless you are bigger and stronger? Or “no hitting” applies only for a kid, while Daddy can come and give a really good spanking?
You can be the best pilot in the world, but that doesn’t mean you know how to fix a washing machine. You don’t expect to build a house, if you don’t have the right tools or skills either. So, as parents we need both of those: skills and tools. We need skills to model the behavior that we expect from our children (may be you don’t jump on a bed, but if you toss the toys into the toy chest, don’t be surprised when your son tosses them into his sister’s head), and we need tools to resolve upcoming conflicts in a positive and constructive manner.
I’ve heard before, that everyone owns his emotions: nobody can make you mad, they can just trigger it. Then – it is your choice, how to react: smashing, screaming monster or patient and composed adult who can find a constructive solution to the problem. Yet, how do you avoid the smashing, screaming monsters blowing up in our heads?
I absolutely loved the the book is divided into two parts: the first part explains how to model the self-control, how to retain it, how to adopt a life philosophy that will make YOU happy. The second one is about using pretty much the same principles for teaching our kids self-discipline and living in this world in a way, that is both fun for them and acceptable for others.
How about good old Time-Out? Forget the yelling, if the kid misbehaves, just send him to his own room! Yeah, let him think about what he did wrong!
I personally do not consider a Time Out an efficient strategy. I love this explanation why (Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, P. 52):
“You hit your brother, no go to your room.” It’s as if you went to work and your boss said: “You filled out this form incorrectly. Now go to your office lounge and sit and think about what you did wrong.” THe next day at work you might face that same form. Fill it out wrong, and back you would go to the lunge. But how can you possibly learn to fill it out correctly unless someone teaches you?”
When reasoning, a more recent discipline strategy, is used from a base of fear, it actually becomes interrogation, with an intent to instill guilt in the child. It is not a true attempt to problem solving. The parent generally focuses on why the child did something wrong: “Why did you hit your brother? You know hitting hurts. It’s wrong. Your brother won’t play with you if you hit. Is that what you want?”
It’s as if you kept filling out that form incorrectly at company A until you were fired, so you took a new job with company B. At a new job, you filled out a similar form incorrectly and your new boss said: “Why did you fill it out this way? Don’t you know this will cut down on your productivity? If this form is handled wrong, our customers don’t get served. They will stop using us and you will lose your job. Is that what you want?” Imagine returning to your desk and again finding the form in front of you. You still wouldn’t know how to fill it out correctly. Your colleagues wouldn’t help. They would assume that since you are an adult, you should know by now. You would feel a rising panic, mixed with anger at your boss and colleagues, and a nagging sense that may be you were just too stupid for the job.
The office example is obviously facetious, but the point is serious. You need to develop discipline skills that will help you teach your children how to behave properly.”
I often find excellent explanations on how wrong are all those abusive strategies. However, in the end I still feel powerless: what do I do instead?
“Easy to Love Difficult to Discipline” offers seven steps how to maintain your positive view, how to control your own behavior, how to be a happier yourself.
Withot self-control, you will approach your child with the unconscious goal of manipulation. An empowered parent modeling self-control handles situations much differently then an out-of-control parent seeking to make his or her child behave.”
(“Easy to Love, Difficult to Behave”, p. 54)
Then there is an even bigger portion of the book devoted to how to use same seven specific skills in managing your daily situations with the kids. The book includes plenty of examples, real life situations, sample conversations, plenty of different scenarios where you get to try your kids shoes and get a different perspective on what’s going on. I loved the exercises. I wouldn’t agree with every possible step, but I was surprised how much I’ve learned… So, two thumbs up! I don’t know about your kids, but with mine – no good parenting skill will go wasted! My kids make sure that I am challenged more then enough on daily basis and get quite some bits of practice!
Ok, I go back to reading…
Strangling is obviously a solution, but besides the fact, that it is outlawed in most civilized countries :), I don’t think any parent seriously considers that one. Pulling your own hair isn’t exactly productive either.
I found “Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline” by Becky A. Bailey unique only on one thing: this books points out that you cannot expect self control from your children, neither you can teach it, if you don’t posses it yourself! The book is for helping you to improve your self-control as well as teaching your kids how to do it. “No grabbing!” – yells a furious mother as she pulls the toy from her kid’s hands. Another one of those “do as I say, not as I do” approach, isn’t it? “No hitting!” – firmly declares grandma, as she slaps her grandson on a hand. Did you mean, no hitting unless you are bigger and stronger? Or “no hitting” applies only for a kid, while Daddy can come and give a really good spanking?
You can be the best pilot in the world, but that doesn’t mean you know how to fix a washing machine. You don’t expect to build a house, if you don’t have the right tools or skills either. So, as parents we need both of those: skills and tools. We need skills to model the behavior that we expect from our children (may be you don’t jump on a bed, but if you toss the toys into the toy chest, don’t be surprised when your son tosses them into his sister’s head), and we need tools to resolve upcoming conflicts in a positive and constructive manner.
I’ve heard before, that everyone owns his emotions: nobody can make you mad, they can just trigger it. Then – it is your choice, how to react: smashing, screaming monster or patient and composed adult who can find a constructive solution to the problem. Yet, how do you avoid the smashing, screaming monsters blowing up in our heads?
I absolutely loved the the book is divided into two parts: the first part explains how to model the self-control, how to retain it, how to adopt a life philosophy that will make YOU happy. The second one is about using pretty much the same principles for teaching our kids self-discipline and living in this world in a way, that is both fun for them and acceptable for others.
How about good old Time-Out? Forget the yelling, if the kid misbehaves, just send him to his own room! Yeah, let him think about what he did wrong!
I personally do not consider a Time Out an efficient strategy. I love this explanation why (Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, P. 52):
