Positively Focused

I wanted to be a parent very, very badly for years.
I always knew that part of the challenge in parenting was to teach your children how to make their own good decisions, and that this involves discipline.

I never imagined that 90% of my parenting job would revolve around discipline.

Charlie is quirky.  Charlie also fixates.  And he tends to fixate more on negative behaviors than anything else.

When it comes to discipline, I feel as though I have tried everything.

I'm serious.

I've done so much reading, talking and asking about discipline.

I don't have any more questions to ask.

And I have not just heard the suggestions,

I've actually tried each of them.

Well, the reasonable ones.

I once had a nanny who said, 

"Why don't you just put him in the garage?"

Um... yeah.

(At the time it was tempting though, I'll admit.  I won't let you in on the details of his offenses that week or how they'd impacted my other children and my relationship with my husband.  Trust me, you're better off in the dark on this one.)

My mind likes to categorize things.

To me, discipline tactics seem to primarily focus on one of two things.

Tactic #1

Take something away from the child that they care about, so that they don't want to lose it again.  The hope is that they will not repeat the negative behavior in an effort to keep what they care for.  This can be time, it can be a privilege, it can be a thing, it can be an activity, it can be money, it can be replacing free time with something hard, boring or monotonous - and/or it can be that they have to work or do the "natural consequence" for the behavior they chose.

Here's the problem with this tactic for Charlie.  He doesn't attach to things.  He was severely neglected during the first year of his life and that has resulted in a dysfunction of his attachment cycle.  

He loves Legos, almost as much as he loves Star Wars.  We gave him a huge Star Wars Lego kit for Christmas and then he spent hours building it with his Dad.  It is most definitely his very favorite possession today.  

So what happens if I take away his prized Star Wars legos tomorrow?  He'll tell me that it's okay, he doesn't like them anyway.  And he won't be saying it to be rude or spiteful.  He'll mean it.

(But in school a couple of days later, he'll probably write in his Days Off Journal about how his mean, mean parents took away every single toy he ever owned and gave them to his brother.)

That's another problem with tactic 1... Charlie's a worst-case thinker.  If I tell him he's in time out, the world will fall apart in his mind.  He will start throwing himself down on the ground, kicking and screaming.  He'll dig a hole in the floor or bite a hole into his shirt and we'll begin an endless cycle that takes us all the way to bed time, and often also into the next day.  If we're really on a roll, this one time out can carry us through an entire week of H-E- double hockey sticks.  

That's not just discipline for him.  That's punishment for me, Andy, the other kids and sometimes people outside of our family, too.

No thank you.  

Tactic #2 

Scare, intimidate or bore the child in hopes that you "bully" them out of doing the behavior again.  Yes, I'm talking spanking.  Humiliation.  Belittling.

Biggest problem of this tactic:
If I am trying to teach my son not to be a bully - why would I bully him myself? 

Second big problem... Charlie is extremely sensitive to touch.  When he is in crisis, I can touch him on the shoulder to try to calm him down, and he will shrink away from me as he screams murder.

I am not against spanking.  And I certainly remember corporal punishment and some humiliating consequences that were used during childhood in my own, and others', family.

For Charlie, tactic 2 is pretty unacceptable.  It's that fixating piece in Charlie.  Or maybe it's the ADHD piece, or the opposition coming out.  Sometimes I have to physically move Charlie because he literally becomes a stone statue and will not budge.  I have gently pulled on his arm, I've gently pushed him from behind, and sometimes I have had to carry him.  In his mind, he usually believes that I have physically harmed him.  I think it is often because he is sensorily gone and registers the tactile feedback wrong.  I'll see him later in the day, the next day, sometimes months later, rubbing the part of his arm I touched until it is red.  Sometimes he'll pinch himself or hit himself where others have touched him.  He's rubbed off his skin, many times.  If this is the reaction to normal touch, can you imagine what the reaction could be in another situation?

Tactic 2 does not help us.

It most definitely makes things worse.

Um, worse doesn't sound good to me.  

I'll take better, please.

I sure wish someone could show me that magic "better" card for me to play.

What about the other things?

You're thinking - "Wait, that's not everything... there are other things too!"  I actually think pretty much everything fits into these two categories.

We use the Love and Logic framework, even though it is not very effective with Charlie, it is the best we have found.  I've done time ins.  I've done bear hugs through tantrums.  I've done isolation through tantrums.  I've removed items.  I've removed him.  I've taken more things away then I can count.  Natural consequences are so over-discussed in my house.  I've used the "I understand you want this, but I'm concerned about this, so this can't happen" framework.  I've bucketed my concerns in three categories and determined how I will deal with each category - including the one that doesn't matter.  We've charged him for behaviors, supplies, new clothes when his are ruined.  We've tried to help him think of things that he wants and built programs, both elaborate and small, for him to achieve his goal.

I have built a life around discipline.  It's like a full time job.  And I feel, all the time, like I have made very little - if any - progress.

Where does that leave us?

The point of discipline for Charlie is pretty simple.  First, it is to ensure his safety.  Second, it is to ensure the safety of those around him.  Third, it is to help develop his rational thinking and decision skills so that he can learn and improve.

Sometimes I imagine future Charlie and wonder about this future boy.  Will his reasoning power still be akin to a toddler's?  Or will future 16-year-old Charlie be an almost-man that I can trust behind the wheel of a car?  Will future 30-year-old Charlie be an upstanding, contributing member to society that makes good choices and is respected by his peers?  

Oh, I do hope so.

Lately, I have stumbled upon another way.  It's a spin-off of Tactic #1.  I'm taking away some time, some freedom, and I'm making him obey me in order to move forward.  But the overall focus on my new tactic is positive.

Tactic 1B
Take time away and help the child make a plan to improve behavior the next time the problem is faced.  Have them recap your discussion by making a plan.  Have them chose where to display the plan, if appropriate.

Here's an example.

Charlie had a period of time where he was policing his peers very strongly.
To him, the world is full of blacks and whites - almost no gray.
He would become upset anytime he saw any other child not doing exactly what they had been told.

(Let's not talk about how he was usually not doing as they were told either.  In his mind, somehow that does not apply.) 

What was he choosing to do in these instances?  Hit the offender.  

Yes.

Everyone reading this should know that there are at least 10 other choices you could make.

But that was all Charlie could think to chose in the situation.

So, after three such incidents in one week, after the same discussion in which we talk through what some of these choices could be, after multiple apology letters and lines to write, I gave him a new assignment...  Write down five things that you could do instead of hitting.

People with whom I have shared this approach almost always ask, "But how does he respond?  Can he do it?"  Yes, he can.  In both of his schools, there has been a focus on how to handle small problems.  This has loaded a small arsenal of appropriate responses in his mind.  He simply needs to chose the most appropriate and write them down.  Sometimes he gets stumped, but this is never something that he is required to do fully on his own.  He knows that he can come to me and discuss the problem.  He also knows that I will make him work in that discussion, we'll talk through the rationalizations and I will make him be the one to arrive at the answers.  (Thank heaven for that education and influencing experience I got through my previous career!)  

Charlie actually really likes this exercise.  I like it too, because it seems positive rather than negative.  It used to be that all I would see during times of consequence were glares, glares and more glares.  After these exercises I see...

Does it work?  That remains to be seen.  He still struggles very much in the heat of the moment.  But I have to believe in something, and I chose to believe in Charlie and in the power of repetition.  We may write about the same problem 5 times, 10 times, 50 times or more.  At some point, I believe he will be able to work this out in the moment.  

And then I'll know, definitively, that he is growing.

And then, just maybe, my life can be just 80% centered around discipline.

(Dare I hope for less?)