Episode 4 - Shifting the Paradigm: Effective Discipline Strategies for a Harmonious Family Environment

Ready to change the dynamics at home with effective discipline strategies? We promise this episode will be a game-changer. We're breaking down the essence of discipline, revealing how it's not about punishment, but rather, a tool to shape behavior and foster connection. Don't miss our hands-on strategies, such as how to redirect a teething one-year-old who can't stop biting. 

As we go further, expect to find invaluable tips to avoid power struggles, creating a harmonious family environment. We've got insights about setting boundaries, involving your kids in chores, and even managing picky eaters. Stick around till the end as we go over listener feedback and reveal exciting Patreon perks. If you're eager to dodge common pitfalls, maintain positive relationships with your children, and foster independent thinking, this is the episode for you. Tune in now for a paradigm shift in your parenting approach!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast focused on healing through intentional conversations about parenting, relationships, religion and more. I am your host, veronica Wynrod, and I'm so happy to have you here listening in on my thoughts today. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hi and welcome back to All Our Little Messes. This is season one, episode four, and last week I was planning on talking to you guys.

Speaker 1: 0:45

This episode about to train up a child the book that was written by Mike and Debbie Pearl and I started putting the episode together and it honestly just became so heavy of an emotional topic for me I started trying to record it several times and just started falling into like this depression, this funk, and I just like couldn't, I couldn't focus and I was just getting depressed even thinking about it and like reading all of these stories and I was going actually I've been going through the book, I've been going through actually three different editions of the book and just like kind of comparing them and seeing how they were different and stuff and just reading testimonials of people who have used the book both positive and negative it was. It was honestly just also depressing to read it. So I decided that I was going to take a break from not not parenting podcast episodes, but just take a break from just like corporal punishment and episodes centered around that and stuff. So I'm still planning on doing an episode on to train up a child here in the next couple weeks or month, but as of right now, I've just kind of put it aside and I but I will definitely be addressing that. So I did make an announcement on my Facebook and my Instagram about this a couple days ago. So if any of you are not following me on Facebook or Instagram, I usually post just any updates that I have about episodes. I'll post them on there a couple days in advance so that you guys would know if there's any changes to like the schedule or anything like that. I also post just like different little inspirational tidbits and like just thoughts I have about life and parenting in general and marriage and whatever kind of hits my brain at the moment. So go ahead and you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram. My handle is all our little messes on both platforms. So yeah, with that being said, let's dive right into what this episode is going to be about.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So today I wanted to talk about how to apply discipline in our children's daily lives. I've had a lot of messages and emails, a lot honestly, and it's been weird Most of them have been from like young mothers, like peers, and basically they, I mean they've all been asking like we all grew up very similarly and so we have a hard time like understanding the differences between discipline and punishment and then just how to apply those disciplines in our children's daily lives and like be proactive about it and to kind of get ahead of the curve. So I thought that would be a really good thing to talk about today, because growing up, like the way a lot of us did, we didn't have a very good idea of what discipline was and how to apply it in like our own lives, and so like I feel like before you even get into this, like a person has to have an understanding of what discipline is, and not just punishment but discipline, and like even like Webster's dictionary has several different definitions of what discipline is understood as, and several of those definitions actually are defined as training and training Correction, not punishment, and so, and that's how I kind of like to think of it, so discipline is, like I said, getting ahead of the curve. You're, you're disciplining and you're I hate to use the word training because it's just so. It reminds me of phrases that books like to train up a child or like dog training books use. But you really are training and molding a person to have certain behaviors and to like get ahead of the curve before it, you know, a behavior becomes a problem. So, and that's what I think discipline really is, it's training and correction. It's not, it's not punishment after a behavior has already occurred, and it's also like consistent redirection and and like also it's connection with your child as you're applying this.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So I mean, for instance, you have a one year old who is teething and bites your leg. Now someone who is models their parenting around punishment, like the first reaction they're going to have and the first inclination they have is to spank the child or to bite the baby back. You know, to show them that. You know biting hurts. We don't bite people, so I'm gonna bite you. So you know what it feels like, kind of thing. And redirection and training and discipline, what? How we would apply that in a situation where the baby bites you is, instead of baby, like abiding the baby back. We would try to understand why the baby is biting, and I mean, if the baby isn't angry and just like walks up and bites you, more than likely either the baby's trying to get your attention or she's teething.

Speaker 1: 6:32

The baby is teething and so and I've actually, I've actually done this myself and it it works like I haven't had a biting problem. Um, since I started doing this I I'm not trying to put myself out there as a perfect parent, trust me, we have we have way too many other problems, you know, in parenting to talk about over here. So, but biting is one that I was successfully able to get ahead of the curve on. So what I, what I did was, um, I like, when the baby bit me, so the first time it happened at the, he bit me on the arm and I I just like went really loudly out no, that hurts, mommy.

Speaker 1: 7:21

And then, like I kind of stopped and he, he, he got this like really shocked look on his face, because I I said no and I was loud and I was like, oh, that hurts, and I was like trying to to kind of shock him a little bit, you know, and he started to whimper a little bit and then I was like okay, so do you, do you want to bite something and, um, he wanted, he needed to bite. He wanted to bite and so I had like a bunch of like teether toys and like things like that that I had had from my last baby, and so I went and got the teether toy and I handed to him and I told him that we bite this, we don't bite people, we don't bite mama, we bite this. And it took a couple times. I think it took like three times that I can remember where he would like go to bite. And then he would stop and he would look at me and then, like he would try to test it again and I'd like he would try to bite again and I'd be like, no, do we need to bite? And then I'd, you know, get him the teether. And so he only tried it like three times before he would actually come out. He would actually come up to me and ask me and he would just say bite. And it was actually was funny because it was like one of his first words that he ever said was he would ask me bite. And so, um, that was kind of his thing, where that was how he told me that he needed, he wanted to bite, and so I would go get him a teether toy out of the toy box and so like that to me was like a very good example of of discipline and, you know, training and showing a child the correct way to do things, because you know it is.

Speaker 1: 9:01

It is a baby's natural inclination when they're when they're teething and when they're young to bite. It's just a stage of development they go through and so If you punish them for biting you, they're just gonna bite other things or they're going to do it when they're fighting with their siblings. I mean, they're still gonna bite, they're just gonna hide it. So like, if they're gonna do it, you need to show them the proper way to do that. So that's just kind of an example to kind of like help understand what discipline and redirection and connection is. Because, like, we were also able to connect because I helped him. I wasn't the big scary person that punished him, I didn't cause him any pain or anything like that. I was his mother who helped him understand, and that's also really important in moments of discipline. It's like you have to be there to help your child understand and to help your child co-regulate through the situations as well, like another part of applying discipline in our children's daily lives is having discipline ourselves.

Speaker 1: 10:14

Like modeling good habits for our children to follow, and like it's a joke when we say this, but like a big thing I've noticed is the whole attitude of do as I say, not as I do. And so we would punish, like we punish our kids for the same behaviors that we allow ourselves to have every single day. So you know, we've throw, we punish our kids for a fit of anger and we spank them for it. And then you know, ten minutes later or even during the parenting scenario itself, where you're spanking the kids for having a fit of anger, you're showing anger as you're punishing them for anger. And so, like a huge part of actually applying discipline is modeling those habits that you want your kids to follow, like the habits you want your kids to have. And so learning emotional regulation like if you don't want your kids to be angry all the time, then don't be angry yourself Like learn in a lot of cases we have to. We do need to learn those skills ourselves because we were never taught them. So, like work, do the work to learn emotional regulation and how to control your emotions but that is like a huge part of learning and understanding discipline is modeling, not for your kids.

Speaker 1: 11:40

And so, and also like modeling empathy and like understanding for other kids, like we're always wanting, we're always wanting our children to, you know, understand that they've hurt someone and we want them to apologize when they do something wrong. And so, like a lot of parents will try to force that apology out of their children. Like, oh, you did something wrong and you have to say you're sorry. No-transcript. When our kids are young, they don't really understand why. Like they don't even really have the cognitive ability to understand that they did something wrong, and so they don't understand why they need to say they're sorry. They don't even understand what the words mean. And so, like we have to model that for them.

Speaker 1: 12:35

If we do commit a wrong against our spouse or against our own children, like we have to model that empathy and that contrition to them. So when we harm them or harm others, like they need to see us apologizing. And like a lot of parents will view apologizing to your children as like weakness and somehow your children are going to lose respect. But in reality, like if they see you modeling humility and empathy and emotional regulation and all those things, they're actually going to gain respect for you and they're going to start to model those things that they see you do, because children are sponges, children are mirrors. They take in and they mirror everything around them. So, like so many of those little annoying mannerisms that we see in our children are honestly just annoying mannerisms that we ourselves have and we just don't like to see them because it reminds us of ourselves. And so if we want, if we want our kids to stop yelling, if we want our kids to just stop, you know, breaking out in fits of anger and things like that, like we have to start modeling that ourselves. We have to stop yelling, we have to stop being angry, we need to learn how to have more empathy and we need to learn emotional regulation and in turn, they're going to see that and it's going to become a daily part of their lives and they're going to start following those examples. And then there's also discipline in their lived daily lives, like their structural, their day-to-day structure, and so something I found really helps a lot with maintaining discipline and maintaining a happy attitude is actually setting a schedule and like involving them in like age appropriate, of course, age appropriate chores.

Speaker 1: 14:36

So I have a four-year-old who has started learning like most of the time it's absolutely disastrous, but he has been slowly getting better. I started trying to teach him how to fold towels 100% of the time after he has gone to bed, because I haven't fold them at night. 100% of the time after he has gone to bed I will refold them because it looks terrible, it looks like Obama's gone off and I am nitpicky about my towels like nobody else on this planet. So I do refold them, of course, but he is still learning life skills. He is learning how to contribute to the family. He's learning that he is important. He's an important member and his help is needed.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Another thing he started doing I had him start doing he's actually really good at this is making his bed and putting away his own laundry. He actually started putting away his own laundry and what really helped there is we actually established a no-fold system in our house. So we just have buckets like little cube dresser buckets that they sell on Amazon, and we have a no-fold system so we could just grab the laundry basket and just start tossing clothes into baskets. So like jeans, shirts, sweatpants, things like that. Like shirts shirts, obviously and like church slacks and things nicer clothes obviously get hung up or folded, but we've kind of changed how we do things so that we can include the kids in our day-to-day disciplines, because it really does help cut down. Like I said, we get ahead of the curve. It really stops problems before they even happen.

Speaker 1: 16:33

And that's like a huge part of maintaining discipline is also getting ahead of any potential power struggles, and those will happen because toddlers are stubborn, toddlers are willful, they're discovering their independence, they're discovering that oh, I have opinions, oh I want things, oh I think I know better, and so, like a huge part of discipline is actually getting ahead of any of those power struggles before they even happen. And so, like this is going to throw some people out there a little off, but like giving your child choices and like day-to-day things is huge when it comes to getting ahead of and avoiding power struggles. Just simple things like you tell your child to go get dressed, and like telling a four-year-old to go get dressed is for most four-year-olds I've ever seen is like this huge thing. It's like this huge chore. They are overwhelmed and they walk into their bedroom and they're just, you know, they get distracted, they're overwhelmed and it just never happens or it turns into this long, long drawn out thing where you're yelling and they're crying because you just want them to put clothes on. But there's, like, so many choices in their closet and they don't know how to choose. And so I have started grabbing two shirts, two pairs of pants, asking him you know, which one do you want to wear? And so he gets to choose. But he's still maintaining that discipline of listening to mom when mom tells him to get dressed. So I'm getting ahead of the power struggle and we're both happy because he's dressed. But he still got to choose what he wore that day, of sorts. I mean, in his mind he chose so well. I mean, yeah, in his mind he chose and that's what matters, I guess, to him.

Speaker 1: 18:41

So, just like little things like that, giving the kid little choices, like you know, when you're making dinner, ask your child what they want for dinner. But don't just ask them. You know, hey, what do you want for dinner? Because a four-year-old, a five-year-old, is automatically going to come back with the response I don't know. Like they're not going to tell you.

Speaker 1: 19:04

And so, if you like, if you have a picky eater and they do exist, and you're not a parent that forces their child to eat what's on the table, like every bite kind of thing, and you want to avoid the power struggle of a picky eater, ask them, give them two choices of what we could have for a meal, and that way you get ahead of a power struggle potentially. I mean it's not always going to work, but you could potentially get ahead of any power struggle when it actually comes time to eat the meal, because it'll be have, it'll have spent something that they chose. And also, having your child get involved in the cooking of that meal, which also goes back to implementing age-appropriate chores, like having your child involved in the day-to-day disciplines of family life, is also going to help cut down on those tantrums and those power struggles, because they're going to feel like they're an integral part of the family and it's something they accomplished and something they're proud of and they want to be involved in. So, yeah, like, involve your kids and it cuts down on like so many problems if we do that. And also like I mean like if staying ahead of the power struggle doesn't work and it's not always going to work 100% of the time, I mean I, at least in my home, I would say it probably only works 65 to 75% of the time. So there's still a big chunk there where you know they put their foot down or they try to put their foot down, and when that happens, you as a parent have to have a boundary set in place of, like a certain standard of behavior in your home. So you know, if they throw a tantrum about eating a meal that they chose and helped cook then and they don't want to eat it and they've decided they're going to be picky that night, you have to have a boundary set in place. You have to maintain that standard of behavior in your home. So and in my home, we don't force our kids to eat for many reasons that we can get into in a later podcast episode.

Speaker 1: 21:33

But one thing we do is like you don't have to eat everything that's on your plate. That's fine, but If you don't, that does mean that we're not gonna have any snacks later on, and so, because we are after dinner, they usually have a snack before they go to bed, because dinner is like around 5, 5, 30 and they go to bed at 7, between 7 and 8. So there's that time gap there where you know they could get hungry, and so we always usually have a snack of like a piece of fruit or something like that. And so when we make dinner, like I don't want them to get into the habit of wasting food, but at the same time I'm not gonna force feed you, I'm not gonna force you to eat your food. If you say you're full, that's fine, you know your body. But you're not allowed to like leave your plate of food and then 10 minutes later want a snack, like that's not how it works. So, like that our boundary is they have to finish their dinner before we get, we break out the snacks and break out more food. And so we have, we just have like certain boundaries such as that that we, we maintain in order to like maintain discipline in the house.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Otherwise, you know, you are gonna set yourself up for major, major, proud struggles in the future, and that's not something that's easy for any parent to go through. So, yeah, that's, that's a big, that's a big one for us. And then also I mean, like when you do have, when you do have those those, you know, those power struggles and those bad days, like don't, don't be afraid of those bad days and don't be afraid of failure. And like something I never really thought of when my kids were really really young like you know one, I say really really young. They're still really really young, but when they were younger, one thing like that never occurred to me was that, like I, I allow myself to have bad days, I allow my husband to have bad days, like I allow myself grace to fail.

Speaker 1: 23:52

But when my kids have a bad day, when they're just when they're, you know, they're just grouchy and they just are full of the I can'ts and I don't want tos and they're just, they're just grouchy and sad all day long. Like it still just irritates me and infuriates me and it's like and it was like, I think, a year ago I kind of stopped to think I was like why is it that I will allow myself to be grouchy and cranky and just have a really off day and treat the entire world around me like garbage? But I won't allow my toddler who has way less emotional regulation than I do and is, you know, still in diapers in a lot of cases and has barely lived a fraction of his life how come I can't allow him the grace to have a bad day? Why? What is it about me that I need to fix so that I can have enough respect and grace to allow my toddler to have a bad day. And that's not saying that you know the toddler is going to be allowed to be mean and yell at everybody or anything like that. But you can't allow him to be sad. You can't allow him to just be cranky. It doesn't actually hurt anything If he's not hurting anybody and he's not yelling and screaming at people. Then just allow him to be sad. Being sad is not a bad thing. It's just an emotion, and it's an emotion we all have to. He'll have to work through and in order for him to learn how to work through that emotion, he's going to have to experience that emotion.

Speaker 1: 25:33

So, like, don't be afraid of bad days on either one of your parts. Like, don't be afraid of failing at maintaining the discipline in your home, because it's going to happen. Like we're all imperfect, we have no idea what we're doing. We're all starting out and struggling, and so it's going to happen. We're going to fail. We're not going to always go get ahead of the power struggles. We're not going to always consistently redirect perfectly the first time. It's not always going to be 100%, and so, like we have to allow ourselves grace to fail. We're going to have to allow ourselves and our children to have bad days and to like recognize that this was a screw up day. We didn't do so good today. That's fine. Let's take notes on how we can be better tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 26:26

And that's actually something like like I've kind of implemented into like how my children apologize or how we acknowledge that we made a mistake is something like when I'm talking to my kids about something that they did like a mess up is when I'm like redirecting or correcting something, I try to end it with let's try better next time or let's do this the first time next time. So I try to acknowledge that you know we made a mistake, but that's okay, we learned from it and we're going to do better next time. We're going to remember this and we're going to do better next time and so and that's like that's so important for us to remember do was like it's okay to fail, like that's part of that's part of life. That's part of life and that's that's how we learned. So it's okay to learn and then do better next time, because that's that's that's how we're going to improve, like discipline in our house. That's how we just that's how we get better is just repetition, just repeating the same thing over and over and over until it just becomes second nature to us.

Speaker 1: 27:39

I hope you enjoyed this episode on applying discipline in our children's daily lives. I keep an eye I just wanted to say to keep an eye on my Facebook and Instagram. I will have a couple of announcements over the next couple of weeks regarding some guests that I'm very excited about coming on with some pretty exciting topics regarding marriage and motherhood, and we're even going to be throwing in some religious or spiritual topics as well. So I'm very excited about that. So, yeah, just keep an eye on my Facebook and Instagram stories for any announcements on that, and I will see you guys next week.

Speaker 1: 28:31

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of All Our Little Messes. Please let us know how much you enjoyed it below and add any questions you have about this episode. Also, don't forget to follow us on Patreon for amazing exclusive perks, including early access to podcast episodes and bonus episodes every month. We've also recently added a support group for all of our paid patrons. You can check us out on Facebook and Instagram for daily updates and insights that mirror podcast topics. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.