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The Discipline Quiz: True or False
by
Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman
Do you have a well thought-out discipline system in place in your
family? Most parents don’t. Often parents simply discipline the way they
themselves were disciplined. Some choose to do just the opposite and
pick a discipline style that is contrary to how they were raised.
The discipline techniques that parents use today are often filled with
myths, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations. In this short
true/false quiz we intend to challenge you to examine your understanding
of discipline and the beliefs upon which you base your discipline
decisions. Hopefully, this activity will help you strengthen your own
personal parenting style.
Mark each of the statements below true or false. The answers will appear
at the end of the quiz.
1. Discipline has to be immediate or the effect
will be lost and the child will simply repeat the behavior.
2. When you implement a discipline strategy, the
child needs to know that you are angry.
3. When you discipline it is important to point
out the pattern of a child’s behavior.
4. Consequences need to be severe to be
effective.
5. Children learn more quickly from punishment
than they do from consequences.
6. Parents need to be in control of their
children, and discipline strategies are the way to stay in control.
7. Children have to know they were wrong for
discipline to be effective.
8. Discipline strategies are effective only if
they get the child to comply.
9. Physical punishment teaches children
important lessons.
Answers:
False
Discipline can be effective whether it is immediate or delayed. How you
discipline is more important that when you do it. You might want to take
fifteen or twenty minutes to think through how you want to respond to a
particular behavior. It could be important to wait until later to
discuss options with your partner. Helping children see the cause and
effect relationship that exists between the choices they make and the
consequences that result from those choices is more important than
whether the consequences occur immediately or the next day.
False
Anger is not helpful in a discipline situation. When you discipline in
anger, the child’s attention focuses on your strong emotion. He looks
outward to the person applying the discipline rather than inward to his
own internal reaction to the results of the choice he made.
False
How many times a behavior occurred in the past is unimportant. The focus
in any effective discipline system is the present behavior. The past is
over. The present moment is the only place where learning can take
place. Focus only on the now.
False
It’s not the severity of a consequence that has impact. It’s the
certainty. The certainty that specific, logical consequences follow
certain actions allows children to trust the discipline process. Your
consistency in implementing consequences is the glue that holds a
discipline strategy together. When the consequence occurs consistently,
children can count on it and plan accordingly.
True and False
While it’s true that punishment may get a quicker response in a specific
instance, it’s the consistent implementation of consequences that
produces long-term behavior change in children. With punishment, the
child is more likely to focus on you, your behavior, or your anger than
on himself and the results of the choices he made. Learning rarely
results from punishment because children are too busy acting out
resentment, resistance, and reluctance. They’re more likely to spend
their time thinking of revenge fantasies and how not to get caught next
time than about the cause and effect relationship between their behavior
and the consequences that followed.
False
Effective discipline calls for parents to structure consequences in a
way that puts the child in control and allows him to feel responsible
for the outcomes that result from his actions. Effective consequences
are not used to control, manipulate, demonstrate power, or get even.
Attempting to use consequences for control crosses the line and becomes
punishment.
When children perceive that they’re in control of whether or not they
experience consequences or outcomes, they are empowered. They learn to
see themselves as the cause of what happens to them. They realize that
they personally create the results that show up in their lives by the
choices they make. For discipline to be effective, it’s necessary for
children to feel they have power and control.
False
Making children wrong for their behavior is counterproductive to raising
responsible children. An effective discipline system does not make
children right or wrong for their behavior. It simply holds them
accountable for it. Blaming and faultfinding don’t help children learn
how to make different choices and behave differently in the future.
Fixing the problem is more important than fixing blame. Join with your
children in the search for solutions and model for them that you value
solving problems more than you do assigning blame and handing out
punishments.
False
A child’s compliance or noncompliance has nothing to do with the
effectiveness of a discipline system. When discipline strategies demand
compliance, as when the parent keeps increasing the severity of the
punishment until the child complies, children learn that adults have
power and they don’t.
When we choose to use consequences, the aim isn’t to make the child
comply. The goal is to present choices, allow her to choose, and give
her room to learn from the results of that choice. With the consequence
system, children learn a lesson from either positive or negative
outcomes.
True
It teaches your children that might makes right. It teaches them that
bullying behavior is appropriate. It teaches them that you are an
unskilled parent who has only limited tools in your parenting tool box.
It teaches them that when they get bigger they can hit other people. It
teaches them that violence is a good way to solve problems.
How did you do on the discipline quiz? It doesn’t matter whether all
your answers agreed with ours or if you had each item marked differently
than we did. What matters is if this quiz helped you examine your
beliefs about discipline. Did you approach it with an open mind? Did you
consider each item to see if there was meaning there for you? If so, you
passed the test.
About the authors:
Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of
The Only Three
Discipline Strategies You Will Ever Need: Essential Tools for Busy
Parents and
The
10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose. They are two of
the world's foremost authorities on raising responsible, caring,
confident children. They publish a free monthly e-zine for parents. To
sign up for it or obtain more information about how their forthcoming
internet radio show can help you transform your parenting style, visit
their website today:
www.personalpowerpress.com.
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