Discipline at our home

My husband and I don’t believe in corporal punishment. When I was still pregnant, we have agreed that we won’t hit or spank our child to displine. I never had experienced spanking from my Dad. I did though from my Mama, as she was the main disciplinarian in our family. But after every bout of spanking, I was more resentful of her and not really sorry of what I have done wrong. So I was resolved not to spank or hit my child when I become a mother.

I’m not a master of discipline nor do I claim to be, so this shouldn’t be taken as a rule. And this post is not to critize parents who use corporal punishment to discipline their kids. That’s their choice. And mine is to discipline differently.

When the little boy was younger, it was easy to discipline him. He couldn’t do much and didn’t speak back. Now that he’s 3, quite active and can speak his mind, disciplining becomes difficult. I don’t want to bring up a spoiled brat into the world, even when it’s so easy to do that specially when he’s our only child.

Before we go out or go somewhere, we talk to him and agree that he should listen to Mommy and Daddy. He needs to know that we are ensuring this to make sure that he doesn’t hurt himself or others. When he insists on buying something he wants when we are out, and that toy is not part of our plan, and start to go into a tantrum, we don’t feed on his tantrum. He ignore him and move on to a different part of the store. There’s a chance that he still will throw a tantrum, but more often than not, he will follow us and in a few minutes forget about the toy. Children do have sort attention span :)

This one time we were doing the grocery, and he was running around without looking, he was hit by a cart. We discipline him at home. When he was younger, his only form of discipline is a time out where he is kept inside a room. One minute for every age of the child. Now that’s he’s older, he has two options. The time out and facing the wall. Every after a punishment though, it is important that it is explained to him why he was punished. It is also important that the parent who saw the problem should be the one to do the disciplining, so the child doesn’t get confused.

We still have a long way to go. And we’re taking it a day at a time. We are focused on the goal to bring up a responsible, happy child and not loose our sense along the way :)