HEALTHY DISCIPLINE
CARL IVEY, MD
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Campbell River BC, Canada
In 1986, a Gallup poll showed that issues related to child discipline were the number one concerns of adults nation-wide in the United States. In 1994, a follow-up poll revealed that issues related to teen and adult violence and crime were uppermost in the minds of most Americans. Ironically, a survey done in 1988 showed almost half (42%) of U.S. pediatricians still believed in spanking kids. It is important to also recognize the widespread problem of various forms of verbal abuse such as harsh criticism and shaming. An article entitled "Wounding With Words", which appeared in the magazine U.S. News & World Report August 28, 2000, points out how prevalent and destructive this type of parental behavior is. I have personally interviewed more than a few adults who,in recalling their childhood parental tongue-lashings, genuinely felt that they would have experienced less pain if they had simply been hit.
Copyright © 2006, Carl Ivey, MD, All Rights Reserved.
Just as there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria, there is healthy discipline and unhealthy discipline. Spanking and all punishment constitute unhealthy forms of discipline. Since the majority of parents were using unhealthy discipline in the form of spankings and almost half of pediatricians were advising parents to spank their kids during the period of 1986 to 1994, it was inevitable and just a matter of time before the crisis revolving around child/teen discipline issues would be replaced by the crisis involving teen and adult violence and crime. The fact is that unhealthy discipline, with or without spanking, causes emotional damage and therefore increases the risk that children and teens, and later as adults, will resort to violence and crime. I have never seen a violent adult or criminal who did not have a childhood history of some form of unhealthy discipline. On the other hand, children and teens who grow up without consistent limits and are given whatever they want and allowed to do whatever they want, are being abused and neglected even though this type of abuse is not as dramatic or obvious as the child who is threatened, spanked and beaten.
Healthy parenting requires the consistent application of healthy discipline. Healthy discipline involves no punishment, spankings or threat of punishment. Until we understand what healthy discipline is, we cannot use it. And until we begin to use it routinely in the rearing of our kids, we will not be able to achieve optimally healthy and effective parenting. In the meantime, with few exceptions, parents will continue to create, more or less, the very behaviors in their children, which they (the parents) are attempting to eliminate. The principles of healthy discipline are surprisingly simple and I refer to them as the two "L's":
1. Love - unconditional, the more the better, "no strings attached."2. Limits - Consistent, age-appropriate, without punishment or threat of punishment.After learning the principles of healthy discipline parents will know:
1. How to appropriately assert their parental authority and power. It is the disempowered adult and parent who are at high risk to mistreat, abuse & neglect their own or somebody else's children. 2. The fundamental difference between healthy discipline and punishment.3. Why punishment or the threat of punishment harms the child, the parent, & the parent/child relationship.4. How to take stress, uncertainty and fear out of child-rearing and replace them with confidence, peace of mind and joy.5. How to empower their kids by becoming an empowered parent. 6. The basic, how-to mechanics of how to apply the above "love and limits" principles in their busy, and often hectic, everyday lives and in the process create a more positive and fulfilling parenting experience for themselves and their children.
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250-923-7701
