Ten-year-old Shannon and her brother Nicholas, age six, are fighting again. Do you tell them they can't watch television tonight, offer them $1.00 each to stop or put them on separate ends of the couch and tell them they can get up when they give each other permission?

Hayes, age three, rides his tricycle into the street. Do you scold him, spank him, or remove the tricycle and watch him more closely?

Discipline—before we can do it, we need to understand what it is. Most of us have been taught that discipline is merely changing or improving our children's behavior. This view of discipline is short-sighted because it deals only with current behavior—the behavior of the moment—and allows the same misbehavior to reoccur again and again. It misses the less obvi­ous but critical long-term effects of discipline.

What we often overlook is that the root word of discipline means to teach. We must recognize that the way we discipline our children affects not only their current behavior but also their future behavior. In addition to teaching life skills such as problem solving, anger management, personal responsibility, and respectful language, effective discipline teaches life lessons and guiding life principles—principles that our children will use for the rest of their lives when making decisions and choosing their behavior.

Every disciplinary action we take is grounded in a principle that, whether we are aware of it or not, will be learned and later used by our chil­dren. This is why it is important that we use dis­ciplinary techniques that not only will effectively alter behavior but also will teach principles that will be helpful to our children as they mature into adolescence and adulthood. The goal for all discipline, after all, is to lead to self-discipline.

Improving Your Child's Behavior While Teaching Valuable Life Principles

Using disciplinary techniques that effectively improve behavior and teach helpful life princi­ples will allow you to maintain your own integrity by practicing principles in which you strongly believe, such as respect and honesty. Here are some common areas requiring discipline and specific techniques you can use to address them:

Spills, Messes, Broken Toys, and Hurt Feelings

Did you know that how you respond when your two-year-old spills juice actually will deter­mine his or her behavior in the years to come? Guiding your child to make remedy and amends when he is young helps teach lifelong responsibility and consideration for others. Let's consider the spilled juice example.

First of all, remember that when your young child makes a mess; such as spilling juice, you should not take it personally. Most likely, the mess is either an accident or the result of innocent play, rather than an attempt to irritate you. Not getting angry at misbehavior helps us to handle ourselves more respectfully.

Since a young toddler is unable to clean up a spill without help, you can send your child to get a cloth or sponge for cleanup. By age three, you can teach your child to wet the doth and then wring it out; by age four, to wipe up the spill; and by age five, to rinse and wring the cloth again and clean the area a second time. Yes your child has learned how to clean up a liquid mess; but even more importantly, he or she has learned that when you make a mess—or break things, or "undo" things—it is your responsibility to put things back the way they were.

Here are two important things to remember about lessons: your child will continue to give you opportunities to teach a particular lesson until he or she learns it, and your child will learn the lesson, but at his or her own speed. You cannot know how many lessons your child will require; you can know, however, that if you persistently teach a lesson, your child will even­tually learn the concept. You will know your child has learned this particular lesson when he or she initiates action to make amends in a par­ticular situation.

Let's say that several years after the spilled juice incident your child goes to a friend's house, plays with a toy, and accidentally breaks it. Then, without any intervention from a grown-up, your child expresses a desire to replace the broken item—perhaps offering to take money out of his or her own piggy bank to buy a new toy. No need for discipline. Actually, that is not quite true. Discipline most certainly has taken place. It's called self-discipline, and you began teaching it when your child was two-years-old and spilled juice. Not a bad investment!

Remedy and amends is also good tech­nique to use when your child says or does mean things to another child or physically hurts another child. As the children play together, have your child make amends by playing what the other child wants to play. The lesson here is that when you make someone feel bad, your job is to help that person feel better.

Picking up Toys, Clothes, Etc.

Two-Year-Olds: Habit and Routine

Preschool teachers know how to get two-year-olds to clean up: they sing a song and model the desired behavior. Parents often ask me, "What song?" Any song will do as long as it's always the same song. The technique is called habit and routine. Habit either will be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you wait to take action until after you've lost your patience and yelled at your child, your habit will teach your child not to do anything until you are angry and yelling. But if you take action after you speak the first time, you teach your child to listen when you talk. The choice is up to you.

Three-Year-Olds: Outsmart Them

One of the most helpful strategies to use with preschoolers is to outsmart them and make things fun. Have your three-year-old try to clean up before a timer goes off. Or use forced choice: "Do you want to pick up the blocks or the books?" Pretend you are a crane and swing your child around to grab books and toys to put away.

Four-Year-Olds: Use a Rule

Use a simple rule: If you play, you pick up. Any self-respecting four-year-old will complain, "But I want to." Don't get angry. Simply pause, and then say, "It is your responsibility to pick up after playing. When you play, you pick up."

Five and Older: Disciplinary Consequences

Explain this concept: After you pick up, then you may go on with your life. "Go on with your life" means anything your child may want to do, such as go to practice, play with friends, play alone, talk on the phone, eat a snack, and so forth. This teaches doing first things first.

Eleven and Older: Close the Door

By the preteen years, a child's room should become his or her own. With the possible exception of cleaning days when a child needs to pick up his or her room so that it can be cleaned (if this is not his or her chore), simply allow the room to be kept however your child chooses. You want your preteen to feel that his or her room is a haven. This concession will allow the child a safe form of rebellion that may help her from turning to more dangerous rebellious activities like experimentation with drugs or alcohol.

All Ages

If you are resentful about things you feel you no longer should have to do for your child, such as picking up toys, listen to your heart. Stop doing those things. Lose the resentment. Resentment can be our friend; it tells us when we are acting foolishly.

Tantrums

How many times has your two- or three-year­ old yelled, "I hate you," or thrown herself on the ground when she didn't get what she wanted? There are two steps to help your child through this strong expression of emotion.

The first step is to help her calm down by holding or rocking her if she will allow this. If not, stay near her but allow her space and time to bring herself back to calmness. Ignoring her, traditionally suggested, often leads to escalated behavior, which may include hurting things, others or self.

After you have helped your child return to peacefulness immediately following a tantrum, it is time for step two. This involves your child back to the situation that started the tantrum and doing discipline or problem solv­ing. For example, if your child refused to pick up toys, you would return her to the toys that still need to be picked up. The worst thing we can do is pick up the toys for her. This teaches a child that tantrums work, that they get you what you want. This is not a lesson we want to teach.

Again, the two steps in dealing with temper tantrums to remember are:

• Help the child calm down. Rock, hold, hum, give time and space.
• Return to the issue and discipline or problem solve.

An Ounce of Prevention

Teach your child that every member of the family has the same job description:

It is your job to along with other family members. You may disagree with someone, but you must do it in an agreeable manner. (Note: You will have to model getting-along skills and teach problem-solving skills, anger management, and respectful lan­guage. You cannot expect your children to intuitively know how to do these things.) Be respectful.

It is your job to help others in the family feel valued and appreciated. Be nice.

It is your job to contribute to the mainte­nance and progress of the family. Be helpful.

Reaching for and Getting Long-Term Results

Years ago, as a mother of young children, I thought that my two-year-old would need lots of discipline. I was right. I also thought that my five-year-old should require less discipline, being three years older. After all, those three years should have netted something positive.

If we use disciplinary techniques that teach lessons and principles, our children will require less and less discipline as age. For one thing, they will be acquiring more and more skills. Even more important, they will be learning more and more life lessons and will be grounding themselves in helpful principles, not flawed ones.

Know those you are teaching your child, for those principles will return to help or haunt in the years ahead.

When to Seek Additional Help

• Seek help if it becomes difficult for you to think of anything you like about your child, even when he or she is asleep.
• Seek help if your child is behaving in a way that is radically different from his or her peer group. Have tolerance for minor vari­ances from the norm.
• Seek help if your child changes behavior patterns or temperament suddenly or dra­matically and the change continues.
• Seek help if your child becomes violent, withdrawn, destructive, or abusive. (You can find excellent resources at your local library offering discipline techniques for handling minor verbal and physical aggression and sibling rivalry.)
• Seek help if you are abusive or have diffi­culty controlling angry reactions.
• Seek help if you feel lost or inadequate as a parent. Talk to other parents you respect, your child's teacher, and/or a pastor or family counselor.
• Read parenting books and seek advice from competent and experienced parenting advi­sors.

The Faith Perspective

As for parents, don’t provoke your children to anger, but raise them with discipline and instruction about the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4, CEB)

A disciple is one who follows after another who is wise and more skilled. Take your chil­dren by the hand and lead them in the ways of God. Show them rather than tell them what is good, right, and pleasing in God's sight.