Discipline

Posted by Carrie Henderson Weston Mar 21, 2006

Discipline gets a bad reputation in daycare, simply because it is misunderstood, and people confuse it with another term, punishment. Many parents immediately react with fear when they hear that their child has been given a time-out, lost play-time or had to be moved away from his friends. This can be because of bad memories of when the parents were in their children's position, or simply because they fear being thought of as bad parents.

And honestly, after your boss tells you that you need to change something that you have worked hard on, or you have a conflict with a co-worker, and then come to your child's school, expecting to hear about art projects and games of "Duck, Duck, Goose," and are instead confronted with more tension-- you cannot help but be frustrated.

Teachers and parents need to work on viewing discipline as a collaborative effort rather than a competitive one. We are all working together to help your children to grow into the best elementary students, middle school students, teenagers and eventually adults that they can be.

If discipline that is conducted at school is not inconsistent with that of at home, the adults living in both will encounter less testing and trials. If kids know that the rules are rules all the time, they feel much more secure in their daycare center as well.

In my article, The "D" Word, I discuss common discipline worries of parents and of daycare workers in discussing discipline with parents as they pick up their children. I also share a couple extreme instances where there has been a genuine lack of discipline on the parent's part. In this spirit thought I'd tell you the story of probably the most dramatic instance of this in my years of experience. This story is guaranteed to let each of you know that you have strength as a parent and understand the need for rules.

Adam-- one of my three year olds was a child that had issues when his parents came to pick him up. They usually came at "the wrong time," and "the wrong parent" usually came to get him. On the day in question his father had finally gathered his many papers and sweaters and his lunchbox and they left to walk out to their car, while the routines of the day continued on without him. About five minutes later, in walks Adam and his father-- dad with a frustrated look on his face, and Adam's tear streaked. His father explained that he had come with the wrong car (the green one instead of the red) and that Adam had thrown a temper tantrum and refused to get in the car. Finally, his dad had brought him back inside, and was now going to drive the twenty minutes home and back with the "right car," and pick him up then. Adam cheerfully returned to playing with blocks as his father left to do as his son wished. We teachers merely shook our heads in wonder and went back to playing with the kids. Obviously, this is not an isolated incident with this child, and his parents recognized that Adam listened to us in a way that he did not with mom and dad. Its fairly common for kids to behave differently at school and at home, but finally it got to the extent that Adam's parents were threatening to tell Miss Lisa or another teacher what he did in the evenings when he got to daycare the following day and have us put him in time-out. Not the greatest solution. We would love to work in collaboration with each and every family, because we can see where this cooperation has failed-- and more importantly where it has succeeded.