Presentation on how parents/caregivers can effectively discipline their children at home.

1. Effective Discipline at
Home
Justine East-Campbell, M.Sc.
Associate Clinical Psychologist
February 2017

2. Taking Care of Yourself
Taking efforts to revive and refresh one’s mind, body and spirit
It’s hard to take care of someone well when we don’t take care
of our self
Benefits:
• Reduces stress by making you more relaxed reduces
risk of burnout
• You feel good about yourself
• Others will know you value yourself

3. Take a deep breath!
Stress causes short and shallow breathing.
Deep breathing produces longer, slow brain waves kind of like what happens
when you are sleeping RELAXATION
Try this many times, slowly...
• Inhale deeply while counting 1 to 4 Should see chest rise
(expand) and fall
• Exhale while counting backwards 4 to 1

4. Other Techniques
• Manage your time wisely
• Stay connected with others
• Talk to someone you trust
• Laugh!
• Pamper yourself
• Be grateful
• Eat a healthy and balanced diet
• Exercise
• Sleep well

5. The Importance of Knowing
Ways to Manage your Child’s
Behaviour
• Children are products of environment and don’t always know why
they misbehave
• According to psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs, misbehaviour occurs for
one of four reasons:
1. attention 2. revenge 3. power 4. feelings of inadequacy
Managing your child’s behaviour well, helps to:
• Enhance your effectiveness and family/home satisfaction (reduce
burnout).
• Minimize power struggles.
• Build more positive relationships with child.
• Create a better and more organized home environment for all.

6. What is Discipline?
• Discipline is the use of
methods
• to teach children behavior
guidelines.
• This should start as soon as
the
• child starts moving around.

7. Why is Discipline
Important?
Without it, children…
• Lack self control (problem solve, etc.)
• They don’t respect their parents or other authority figures.
• They will not know what is appropriate behaviour (boundaries, limits)
• They will not have social skills that are important for making friends such
as empathy, patience, and knowing how to share.
• They will be more likely to engage in negative behaviours that are harmful
and even potentially dangerous for themselves as well as others.
• They may be headstrong, selfish, and generally unpleasant company.
• They may be unhappy-insecure, lost, and unable to discipline themselves.
(https://www.verywell.com/surprising-reasons-why-we-need-to-discipline-children-620115

8. Who Helps to Discipline?
• Parents
• Family members, such as older siblings; aunts and uncles
• Teachers
• Neighbours
Important Notes:
• There must be mutual understanding and cooperative action
across all disciplinarians (Communication, cooperation,
how and when to discipline)
• The less persons involved in disciplining your child the
easier to monitor

9. Types of Parenting:
• Authoritarian rigid, demanding, not responsive (because I said
so), little emotional connection and affection, verbal insults and
physical punishment creates rebellion, submission/dependence
• Authoritative similar to authoritarian but children more
involved in creating and agreeing to rules, and held accountable if
broken creates self-disciplined child, responsible for own
actions
Baumrind, D. (1991).

10. • Permissive freedom without order, no rules, no consequences
Creates a manipulative personality, aggression, and independence.
• Uninvolved neglectful, low interest in the child, very little
communication, only basic necessities for survival provided
emotional problems, substance use, poor school performance
http://childhoodtraumarecovery.com/2014/01/17/childhood-trauma-the-possible-
effects-of-uninvolved-parents/ ; Baumrind, D. (1991).

11. Basic Principles for
Disciplining Your Child
• Clear and brief rules AND consequences
• Positive Reinforcement (praise)
• Rewards behaviour charts
• Swift consequences
• Frequent consequences consistently
• Powerful consequences
• Expect failures
• Anticipate
• Structure time
schoolmentalhealth.org/PowerPoints/Onlinementalhealth101.ppt

12. • Rules are necessary to protect a child from danger and set examples
of acceptable behavior.
• They help make children feel more safe, confident, and comfortable
knowing how to act in different situations.
Tips:
• Tell the child what he or she should do rather than what they should
not do!
• Keep explanations simple and brief, they have limited vocabulary
and a limited attention span.
• Be prepared to repeat over and over.
• Don’t just say them
Clear and Brief Rules AND
Consequences

13. Praise
• Praising correctly increases compliance
• Types of praise:
• Verbal praise, Encouragement
• Attention
• Affection
• Physical proximity
Tips:
• Do it often
• Be genuine
• Be specific
• No “back-handed compliments” (i.e., “I like the way you are working
quietly, why can’t you do this all the time?”)
• Give praise immediately

14. Rewards
• Reward the good behavior – don’t only notice the
negative behavior.
• Tell why he/she is being rewarded and why the behavior
is good.
• Make sure that the reward really is a reward to him/her.
• Be immediate and direct with discipline and rewards –
hugs and smiles are free!

15. Behaviour Charts
• Reinforces positive behavior while decreasing negative behavior.
• Placement is important (e.g. refrigerator or on the child’s bedroom door)
• Select only a few of the most problematic behaviors at a time
• Each time your child exhibits a behavior that you like, give him/her a sticker/point/token.
• Agreed upon number of tokens by the end of an agreed upon time period reward.
• Discuss what reward they would like to receive once they have earned a certain number of tokens
beforehand.
• Make sure child has to carry out desired behavior many times before getting a reward.

16. Many Different Types of
Charts
• Easy to create
• Can be hand written/drawn (can be fun to do together)

18. Examples of Rewards
• Playing a game with mom or dad
• Earning TV time, video game/computer/tablet/phone time
• Time to play outside or with friends
• Coming along on an errand or earning a trip to the store
• Family trip
• Favourite food

19. Swift, frequent and
Powerful Consequences
• Be immediate
• Be consistent
• Be powerful but match level of misbehaviour

20. • Expect Failures- Your child is not perfect
• Anticipate
– Antecedents: Preceding factors that make a behaviour more or less
likely to occur (triggers). Learning and anticipating antecedents -
preventative
• Structure time- develop self-discipline
- better equipped to make healthy choices.
• Morning routine- breakfast, comb hair, brush their teeth, and get dressed.
• After-school routine- divide their time between chores, homework, and fun activities.
• Bedtime routine- importance of settling down and getting plenty of rest.

21. Other Techniques
• Don’t pay any attention to mild unwanted behaviours (visual, vocal,
postural) e.g., interrupting conversation, blurts out answers before
question completed, child tantrums.
N.B. Do not ignore undesirable behaviour that could be harmful to self
or others.
• Use "when-then" contingencies. For example, WHEN you
apologize/complete your homework, THEN you will get the toy back/can play
for 10 minutes.
• Ask the school counsellor to work with the student individually or in
a small group to help the child develop anger management and
social relationship skills.

22. • Time outs are one type of consequence
for inappropriate behaviours
– Identify the spot and explain beforehand
– Choose 3 to 5 misbehaviours (e.g., hitting, biting, angry yelling, throwing a tantrum)
– Identify duration and explain that when time-out is over -- which is when the timer or alarm rings –
he/she can get up.
– Establish rules (e.g., if the child gets up during a time-out, an additional number of minutes will be
added)
– Have discussion to improve understanding
• Listen Actively- Demonstrate sincere desire to understand concerns & summarize them.

23. Not Following Instructions
• Repeat instructions, ask if they need instructions to be repeated, and have
him/her tell you what the instructions are before doing
• Keep instructions clear, specific, brief, and break them down (don’t give
too many at once)
• Use pictures and images as well as saying
• Doing homework-Work on planning and organization skills.
- Use checklists
- Make it fun sometimes
- Use homework systems: Use two color-coded folders -
red for incomplete homework assignments, green for completed assignments
(teacher cooperation)

24. • Make cleaning/other activities a part of the daily
routine
• Make organization a team effort e.g., if have
siblings
• Talk about it

25. Defiance
• Prepare oppositional children for changes: If the
schedule changes or a different activity has been
scheduled
• Emphasize the Positive in Your Requests: When
your request has a positive 'spin', it is less likely to
trigger a power struggle and more likely to gain
student compliance.

26. • Remind yourself that you are human and may need a
moment to calm down and redirect your frustration – and that
this is okay. Yelling is not effective.
• Try to establish if there are triggers for your child’s
behaviour. Then, you may be able to prevent or address them.
• Identify skills or attributes that you can reinforce. Give
opportunities for him/her to demonstrate the skills they do
well. Do not focus more on the negative.

27. • Provide a choice when possible: This can help them develop a
sense of autonomy and make them feel like they have some control,
resulting in less defiance.
• Validate child’s emotion by acknowledging it: When you observe
that your child seems angry or upset, label the emotion that seems to
be driving that student’s behaviour.
– 'Emotion labelling' can be a helpful in deescalating confrontations because
it prompts he/she to acknowledge his/her current feeling-state directly
rather than continuing to communicate it indirectly through acting-out
behaviour.

28. Doing Homework with Your
Child
• Give breaks
• Have work done in a quiet area
– Away from windows and high traffic areas, e.g., near
walkways, doorways
• Make homework fun by creating games, e.g., how
much homework can you complete in X time,
reward for trying, reward for correct answers

29. What Else Can You Do:
Effective Practice Strategies
• Always have your child monitored- Early exposure
• Modeling- Do what they see
• Show genuine interest in their hobbies and interests; play with them
• Don’t be afraid to show that you care
• Encourage child to approach you
• Don’t give your child negative labels
• Take the time to problem solve with students
• Be involved in their education

30. “Could someone help me
with these, I am late for
class.”

31. Important Notes
• Oppositional behaviour is often normal part of development (two/three year olds
and young teens).
• All children are oppositional sometimes, e.g., when tired, hungry, stressed or upset.
They may argue, talk back, disobey, and defy parents, teachers, and other adults.
Also, the average person has bad habits, or problem behaviours, but if you think
your child’s behaviour is much worse or more severe, you should seek help.
Ways to tell if your child’s behaviour may be more severe:
• He is difficult to manage, especially compared to your other children
• He/she becomes verbally or physically aggressive
• Other persons begin complaining of your child’s behaviour e.g., school, church,
neighbours
• Great reluctance to do home/schoolwork
• The misbehaviour is consistent or keeps getting worse over time

32. What to Do if You Think Your
Child’s Behaviour is Severe
REFER as needed: School guidance counsellor
Church counsellor
Psychologist
Caribbean Tots to Teens: 120 Old Hope Road (on the compound of Sts. Peter
and Paul Church), Kingston 6 ; 876.978.8535 (LIME) 876.564.0613 (Digicel)
Family Life Ministries: 1 Cecelio Avenue, Kingston 10; 926-8101; 929-
4360; 920-1034; www.familylifeministriesjamaica.com
Child Guidance Clinic: Comprehensive Health Centre; 55 Slipe Pen Road;
922-2095
AND University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona; 927-2492/927-1620

33. What Discipline is About What Discipline is Not About
• Teaching Punishment
• Setting Boundaries Expressing Anger
• Correcting Controlling
• Showing Respect
• Consistency
• Cooperation

34. Don’t Forget….
Set limits!
So they know what is expected.
Be Consistent!
Discipline the same way every time that behavior occurs.
Be Fair!
It may vary from one child to another.
Be Firm!
Stick to your rules. NO NEGOTIATION.

35. References
• Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56-95)
• Facts for Families: Children With Oppositional Defiant Disorder (2013). In American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Retrieved from
http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Children_With_Oppositional_Defiant_Disorder_72
.aspx
• Haley, Melinda (2007). Why Do Children Misbehave. Retrieved January 3, 2017 from http://www.twu.edu/downloads/counseling/E-
18_Why_Do_Children_Misbehave.pdf
• Hosier, D. (2014). Childhood trauma: The possible effects of uninvolved parents. In Childhood Trauma Recovery. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
• Lee, k. (2016). Surprising Reasons Why We Need to Discipline Children. In verywell. Retrieved February 13, 2017, from
https://www.verywell.com/surprising-reasons-why-we-need-to-discipline-children-620115
• Pincus, D. (2013). Yelling at Your Kids? Why It Doesn’t Work. In Empowering Parents. Retrieved from
https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/yelling-at-your-kids-why-it-doesnt-work/#
• School-Wide Strategies for Managing.Defiance and Noncompliance (n.d.). In Intervention Central. Retrieved January 31, 2017, from
http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/challenging-students/school-wide-strategies-managing-defiance-non-complianc
• Secrets of the Organized Student (n.d.). In Additude: Strategies and Support for ADHD and LD. Retrieved from
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/8958.html
• University of Maryland School of Medicine (n.d.) Mental Health 101 for Non-Mental Health Providers. Retrieved on June 2015 from
www.schoolmentalhealth.org/PowerPoints/Onlinementalhealth101.ppt

36. “If we don’t shape our kids,
they will be shaped by outside forces
that don’t care what shape our kids are in.”
-Dr. Louise Hart