Tag: discipline

  • Dancing in the Rain

    Walking through a curio shop, I saw a frame proclaiming that life is not about avoiding the storm, but rather about learning to dance in the rain. That sounds profound, and childishly innocent. But as life wears on, we grow to realise that it’s even more important to choose carefully which storms we dance in.

    It seems there’s a time for everything, and I guess in our youth, the rebellion we embrace drives us to live in protest of convention and oppression. However, when lacking in informed wisdom, oppression appears in many forms, including discipline and respect. Under such circumstances, the oppressors are those who leave us to wander without this informed wisdom while believing that our discovery of the world on our own terms yields wholesome adults. More importantly, it pacifies the ego of those adults that believe that they’re being kind and gentle because being the adult is too onerous for a fickle ego.

    Consider the above in a broader context and suddenly we have some answers regarding the hoardes of wayward teens that lack in self respect and discipline while struggling to figure out why life treats them harshly. In fact, the number of adults that suffer from debilitating depression and other mental hangups are on the increase as well. (Pile on the hate, I’m used to it).

    I look around me and see an ever increasing range of health support systems than ever before. The more we progress with medical sciences the less we progress with humanity. It’s no coincidence that by design, the medical sciences are also accompanied by a philosophy that focuses on the individual and not the society. We diagnose the symptoms of an individual and we prescribe treatments that are almost entirely individualistic in nature. It’s a self-serving cycle that is extremely lucrative, and therefore unlikely to be broken anytime soon. Albeit a simplistic overview, it provides us with a point of departure that leads down the path towards the erosion of individual accountability, as well as social cohesion.

    The cycle goes something like this. Our health is rarely associated with what we don’t get from those around us. However, what we don’t get is proportional to what we don’t give. But when we grow up not knowing what to give, we also grow up not knowing what to get. The result is a symptomatic response to life, not dissimilar to modern medical sciences, which drives us to demand instant gratification before wholesome balance, leaving us physically spent, emotionally bankrupt, and socially isolated despite having friends lists that stretch to utopia and beyond.

    And it all starts with the adult that refuses to be. The one that lives vicariously through their children. Who seeks to avenge the oppression of their childhood by swearing not to enslave another with the rigour of discipline or the burden of self respect, because in the absence of the two, we can do as we please, live without limits, and grow old ungracefully, with a healthy dose of bitterness and ingratitude not knowing why the empty spaces remained empty, and the home lacked homeliness. That’s not a rant, it’s a reality that most are loathe to acknowledge, because of the indictment it holds against us.

    Some storms are more important than others. It’s usually not the ones we choose for ourselves, but the ones we choose for others that impacts our lives the most. Wholesomeness is lost when we lose sight of the whole and replace it with a focus on the self. Homes are broken, kindred spirits are abused, and worse still, spiritual grounding is discarded. No wonder we constantly seek fulfilment through retail therapy more than we do from silence.

    [Yes, this is my projection of reality on the world. At least I have one to project]

  • Spare The Rod…No!

    I’ve tried taking the ‘new age’ approach to raising a child, and the major flaw in the approach is the assumption that the child is a willing and co-operative participant. The result of the child not being that way inclined, and the adult persisting in the same approach will inevitably result in an adult with a dented ego and a nearly non-existent self-esteem.

    I am a product of my upbringing (as I’m so often reminded by a dear friend). And the way I turned out, from a discipline and behaviour perspective, I believe is admirable, if the constant acknowledgements from family and strangers alike are anything to go by. I haven’t succumbed to the temptation of drugs, alcoholism, promiscuity, delinquency or violent behaviour, to mention a few vices, and I pray that I never will. My point is that a large part of this discipline that I have is directly related to the strict measures that were taken in my upbringing.

    If I didn’t respond in a respectable manner to an adult, or didn’t comply with a reasonable request from an adult, or if I back-chatted or told lies, I got the belt against my butt quicker than I could say ‘Eina!’. So it’s this same upbringing that prompts me to consider why it is that suddenly ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is encouraged, only so that the same adults can hold their heads in their hands crying about their wayward teenagers later in life? Why is it that suddenly all the measures taken to raise us into responsible human beings are being rubbished by liberalists who focus on research and studies in abstract but have yet to raise their own kids in a very hostile world?

    The bed wetting continues with my daughter, although her overall demeanour has improved considerably. The conundrum that I face right now is simply this: If kids are allowed to simply outgrow their bad habits, what lesson is that really teaching them? Are we then saying that it’s acceptable for them to do what they want when they’re ready to do it, or is it our responsibility to teach them that compliance is not always an option that they have a choice in, but that at times they must comply even if it’s not something they like doing? I’d much rather establish more controls up front and then teach them how to let go later, than to struggle with an overly indulgent teenager who thinks that conformance to certain moral standings is repressive and that dabbling in controlled substances is a freedom of expression.

    The liberals have gotten our world into the sad state that it’s in. The extremists are pushing us further down the same ridiculous path. There is a desperate need for moderation in the way we raise our children. But in the absence of any principled leadership to guide new parents in this process, it’s difficult to see an end to this destructive cycle. Adults need to stop looking for affirmation from their children about their child-rearing skills and instead look to the living examples of others that have raised respectable and responsible members of society. That way, chances are that they won’t back down from disciplining their children just because they’re afraid their kids won’t love them.

    In my experience I’ve always found one consistent truth with kids. They need boundaries and rules. And when things go bad for them, they polarise towards those adults or role models that established healthy boundaries with them and not towards the ones that were liberal and chose to spoil them at every turn. The balance we need to strike is to create opportunities for them to express themselves creatively and actively, but always cognisant of the fact that there are boundaries beyond which their behaviour encroaches on the rights and feelings of others. It’s this sense of responsibility that will hold them in good stead throughout their lives.

  • Never Mock A Reward Chart

    In my efforts to be the best mom I could be, I lost sight of the simple truths of parenting. Kids don’t care about sophisticated approaches, or logical explanations, nor do they give a damn about listening to long drawn out explanations about why they’re not getting what they want because of something they did a week ago. For them it’s simple…instant gratification.

    After struggling for some time now, with much therapy sessions and co-opting critically influential family figures in my efforts to get my daughter to break the nasty habit of bed wetting, I finally decided to try out the one simple option that I had been skeptical about for months. A reward chart. On the one hand, I initially dismissed the idea because I thought it lacked any bite given that she didn’t seem to care what my perception was of her. However, I think that the process we followed with her had merit at every step of the way, even if it did not directly impact the final outcome.

    The trauma therapy was needed to establish a baseline of her state of mind after losing her mother. It created a safe environment for her to feel comfortable to break the ice and start expressing the thoughts and emotions that were haunting/taunting her little soul. And it provided me with important insight into her world so that I didn’t go off assuming that her non-compliance was simply stubbornness or disrespect for authority. I chose to stop the therapy when the therapist confirmed that there were no remaining issues related to emotional trauma, but rather behavioural issues that she needed to outgrow.

    That’s when the hard work started. Not only was it difficult to look beyond my own ego when dealing with her, but it was almost impossible to restrain the disciplinarian in me when it needed to be restrained the most. To eliminate the possibilities of what may have been causing the bed wetting, we had her examined by a GP as well, who found that she did indeed have an infection which could exacerbate any bladder control problems. So all of these interventions contributed to the overall roadmap towards weaning her off this distasteful habit.

    At the start of writing this post, she had completed three full days without incident. However, I just heard that she once again had an ‘accident’ while playing. Her simple explanation is that she didn’t want to go to the toilet when the need arose, and I’m not sure if this is a good sign that she’s at least not lying about her reasons, or is it the start of another bout of stubbornness. What goes on in her head is still such a mystery in so many ways, and where I find myself easily interpreting the behaviour and underlying motivation for actions in kids and adults alike, I’m struggling with her. Are the remnants of anger that I still feel towards her mother preventing me from seeing her as an individual? Or am I still looking at her through muddied spectacles pre-empting every negative action or behavioural pattern as being a sign of her potential to grow up like the troubled character that her mother was? Either way, I need to get beyond this.

    I cannot afford to give her mother any further power over me from beyond the grave, nor can I afford to lose patience or give up in trying to establish a meaningful level of interaction between my daughter and I. But all this is definitely easier said than done. Is it my fear of failure that’s preventing me from accepting accountability in resolving this mess, or is it frustration at never having been able to get through to her mother that’s preventing me from wanting to extend myself that far with my daughter?

    I know it’s not fair on her, and I know it’s not right to expect a 5 year old to be fully accountable for all their actions since they’re still developing their abilities of reason, logic and the understanding of choices and the related cause and effect. But the stubborn adult in me believes that if I explained it gently and simply to her at least 10 times already, I have a reasonable expectation of her to understand and comply! Am I being stubborn or unreasonable, or am I correct in persisting in this way so that she realises that she needs to take this more seriously? Of course, that assumes that she realises what the fuss is all about anyway.

    I guess this excerpt from http://www.bedwettingfaq.com/ sums it up quite well:

    There are some experts who have pointed out that bed wetting could be a “vicious” cycle. If stress causes the child to wet the sheets, this could also cause serious stress to the parents. Stressed out parents could distress children more and even make the situation worse. There are studies showing that punishing and shaming children because of bed wetting could actually, increase nighttime accidents. This would eventually lead to more punishment and shaming. This could cause serious problems with the child’s confidence and self-esteem.

  • The Struggle Continues

    After much deliberation, doubt and a healthy dose of humble pie, I finally compiled a reward chart for my daughter. This is the last straw. So far, she has responded positively to it and actually engaged me on the subject in genuinely trying to understand how it works, what it means, what happens next, and even started owning up to lies she had said the day before because she wanted me to place a big fat red X in those blocks instead of the gold stars that I got for her good behaviour. So far, so good.

    If I wasn’t stubborn and stopped being the disciplinarian for a second, but instead stepped back and looked at the situation like a concerned parent first, I would’ve saved myself a lot of frustration and anger. But this is how life’s lessons are learnt. Let’s hope she learns the lesson that I so desperately want her to learn so that I can start considering sending her off for the weekend so that I can finally have some ‘me’ time and take a break from this single-mom routine!

    I often think of the story that every parent experiences where they go out and buy the most elaborately fascinating toy for their child that cost a pretty packet, only to discover the child discarding the toy and playing with the box it came in instead. We often over-complicate the needs of our children, more because we feel as if we’re inadequate if we do something that seems mediocre, as opposed to splashing out and believing that we’re selfless and committed parents in doing so. But we forget that the sophistication of options that appeal to us is often, if not most of the time, lost on our kids. It’s when we persist without noticing this that we instill the values of bling in them.

    I guess it’s a natural tendency in most parents to want their children to live the childhood that they never had. However, we forget too easily that it’s that same childhood of ours that made us into the adults that we are, and if we’re not comfortable with how we turned out, splashing out on our children is not about to change that. Retail therapy never sorts out the root cause of our demons ever. So instead of hiding behind our children, we need to have the courage to accept our shortcomings and take positive steps towards becoming the adults that we wish our children to be.

    Like the old saying goes, our kids were made for a different time from ours, so we shouldn’t expect them to behave as we did. Can someone please remind me of this often!?

  • The Power Struggle

    Is it always discipline or does it eventually become a power struggle? Or maybe it’s just a force of habit on my part in how I deal with it that can’t be broken because of my upbringing? Trying to get my daughter to break the bad habit of wetting the bed is proving to be quite a challenge and I often wonder if it’s her trying to establish her ‘authority’ in the home by stubbornly refusing to conform to the rules that I lay down, or is it really something more innocent than that? The inconsistency of her behaviour, and the numerous visits to doctors and child pyschologists have pretty much confirmed that it’s not a medical related cause, nor one due to trauma or stress as a result of losing her mother at such an early age.

    So I’ve tried every approach I can think of. She stops the liquids at least an hour before bed time, she goes to toilet twice before bed, I wake her in the early hours of the morning to go again, and yet she still cannot seem to break the habit. I’ve tried talking to her, reasoning it out with her (she’s five by the way), screaming at her, giving her a smack on her butt occasionally, rewarding her for other good behaviours so that punishment or reprimanding her isn’t all she gets from me, and even soliciting the influence of her older sister, her grand mother, and others in the family, yet the filthy habit continues. She now gets to spend an hour or two staring at the corner of the wall in her room each time she wakes up with a wet nappy. Yes, I’ve even gone as far as getting her pull up nappies as part of her training.

    According to Louise Hay, author of ‘You Can Heal Your Life’, bed wetting by children is supposed to suggest a fear of a parent, usually the father. And this is where it gets complicated. If I’m to believe this, I would first question if she wet her bed before coming to stay with me four months ago, and the answer is ‘Yes’. So I doubt that’s the reason now. The complicated part is do I soften up, overlook her stubbornness in manner, as well as the bed wetting, and try to foster a greater bond with her, or do I continue to be firm so that she doesn’t get mixed signals about what is or is not acceptable behaviour? This is where my upbringing dictates that I don’t reward bad behaviour at any cost. So what do I do?

    I guess the ray of hope in all this is that standing in the corner is the only punishment that seems to have solicited some remorse from her for her actions. Initially even that didn’t phase her at all. She would sit quite nonchalantly as if to say, ‘ok, so what’s next?’. So maybe we’re finally breaking through that defensive exterior where she may believe that she has to protect herself at all costs, and by displaying her resolve not to comply, that makes her feel like she’s important or significant in some way. However, the consistency of attention and affection that she receives now is what must drive that sense of security, so it has to replace her thoughts that standing her ground is all she has going for her.

    I’m past the point of screaming and shouting, or coming up with creative ways to encourage her behaviour to be different. The last ditched attempt is now to put up a reward chart which I have tried as well. But my disappointment in seeing the behaviour continue unabated got me to ignore the chart after a few days. So here’s a final attempt with hopefully a little more resolve and some added creativity. If this doesn’t work, I’m out of ideas…