The 10 keys to using punishment well

More and more parents tell me that punishment doesn't work for them, that no matter how much they constantly punish their child, the child won't obey. In fact, the more punishments the child gets, the worse they behave. There are even children who have accumulated punishments and who know that when one ends, they still have another one left to serve.

But I'm going to tell you a secret: punishment generates anger, rage and aggressiveness in children. When you feel this, it is hard to feel any desire to behave well. As everyone knows, authority imposed by force has never worked. The very history of mankind has told us so: neither dictatorships nor genocides have managed to subjugate the human being; in the face of aggression what we feel is rebelliousness. Obedience by force is numbered. Well, this is what happens with our children: if they have more punishments than they can carry out, if they spend half their days hearing shouting and threats, the desire to behave well and obey disappears.

By this I don't mean that we should let children do whatever they want without imposing any punishment. Children need to have limits set for them because that is our role as parents: to teach them the rules and make sure they follow them. But to achieve this we cannot constantly use punishment; we can use a more positive way, we can use positive reinforcement.

When they do things well, we should tell them so, when they reach some achievement we should be happy and share it with the whole family. If we want to teach them how to behave we should act as role models. If they behave well they should know that we are proud of them. There are children who only get attention from their parents when they misbehave, and that is where the mistake lies. We cannot address our children only to scold or punish them; we should address our children for more positive things, to praise them, to encourage them to be more autonomous, to motivate them so that they want to do it better and better. If your child doesn't want to do homework, instead of punishing them if they don't do it, try sitting down next to them to watch how they write, to tell them how much they have improved, how nice their handwriting is. You will surely get them to do it without any need for shouting and punishments. When we reinforce them for something they do well, we are telling them: "this is the correct behavior", when we punish them for something they do wrong, we tell them: "this is wrong, this is not the correct behavior", but we don't tell them what that behavior should be, we don't teach them how they have to do it.

There are two major differences between positive reinforcement and punishment:

- Positive reinforcement teaches you which behavior is the correct one. Punishment does not teach you that

- Positive reinforcement makes you feel good, it motivates you, it makes you want to do things well. Punishment makes you feel anger and resentment and it distances you from the behavior itself, it focuses attention on the punishment and stops paying attention to the punished behavior. A child can be punished for something they don't even remember what it is. Faced with this, the question I ask you is: What is the use of a punishment for a behavior that the child doesn't even remember???

If we want to use punishment to set limits for our children, we must know how to use it correctly:

The 10 keys:

- Punishment must be appropriate to the age of our child. Before the age of two, it is not advisable to use any punishment. From the age of two, we can use two types of punishment: the withdrawal of something positive for the child (taking away a toy) or time-out (the thinking chair). From that age on we can already use the rest. (In the next article I will describe the types of punishments)

- Punishment must be contingent, that is, immediate; it must be given right after the behavior.

- Punishment must be explained clearly. With small children (up to 3-4 years) it must be explained in no more than 10 seconds, no more than 10 words.

- Punishment must be educational. It must teach something; leaving them without watching TV is a very commonly used punishment, but it really doesn't teach anything. An educational punishment would be something that is related to the behavior to be punished, such as for example if they throw something on the floor, that they pick it up, if they break something that they fix it, if they have shouted that they speak in a low voice for an hour, if they have disobeyed that for an hour they do everything the person they disobeyed says, etc… They are not always possible, but whenever we can we should use them.

- It must be proportional to the behavior carried out. If our child has disobeyed an order, we cannot punish them with a month without going to the park, that would be excessive. A small behavior should have a small punishment, a serious misdeed should have a big punishment.

- We must always carry out the punishment and therefore we must set punishments that are easy to carry out. I always give the same example: we went away for the weekend, we had just arrived and my eldest son misbehaved, my husband said: "if you do it again we'll go home" and I, who was unpacking the suitcases, froze, I thought: if he does it again he ruins the weekend for all of us. Thank goodness he didn't do it!!!.

- Punishment must be natural. A material punishment distances us from the real consequences of a behavior. It is better to use punishments that have to do with not doing things they like, rather than punishments that have to do with not buying them something. And if in addition we can apply punishments that resemble the natural consequences of the behavior, so much the better. For example: if you don't get dressed we can't go to the park because you can't go out into the street without getting dressed. If you don't eat your first and second course, you won't be able to choose the dessert.

- Never set a punishment while angry. When we set punishments, we are usually angry, frustrated and let down by what our child has done. With those emotions, it is very easy for the punishment we choose to be disproportionate and not very educational. Therefore, we should count to 10 before setting the punishment.

- We must always warn before setting a punishment. We must give our children the opportunity to behave well. When we warn, we give them a choice, we teach them how they should do it to avoid the punishment. It is not enough to warn once, we should warn three times before punishing. But our child must be very clear that on the third time the punishment will come. It is not about using it as a threat, it is about giving them the opportunity to do it well.

- Punishments must be short. The duration of the punishment should not be so long that punishments accumulate. With small children no more than two days. With older ones, a maximum of seven days, and those long punishments should be reserved for truly serious behaviors.

The best punishment is the punishment that has been avoided. An abusive use of punishment will produce the opposite effect to the one expected. That is why we must think very carefully before using it, we must think about whether the behavior carried out is really important enough to deserve a punishment and we must think about the best possible punishment. The problem with punishment is when we use it angry, full of rage, and we seek to harm the child in some way, "that way they learn", but that way they don't learn, that way they fill with anger and become demotivated. Use punishment with your head, give your child the opportunity to make amends before receiving it and even negotiate the type of punishment with them, ask them which one they think would be the most appropriate, give them even the option to reduce it but never fail to carry it out.