Tuesday, August 17, 2010

When Parents Disagree About Discipline

One of the parenting truisms so often tossed about is "discipline begins in the home." I believe this to be true. Parents, after all, are a child's first - and primary - disciplinarians. Many of us say "no" to our children so often that the word starts to lose meaning. But what if parents don't agree with each other on how to discipline their child? Can two conflicting disciplinary philosophies manage to live under the same roof?

My wife and I had conversations about parental discipline even before we conceived, talking about stories we'd found online or in magazines and comparing notes from our own childhoods. You'd think that with such a long head start, two intelligent people with well-developed communication skills and three graduate degrees between them would have a solid discipline plan in place by the time their daughter was born.

Nope.

We actually agreed on most things: what behaviors we wanted to reinforce, what behaviors we wanted to see die a quick death, what values we wanted to instill, and how we'd always present a united front if the little one tried to play one of us against the other. My wife and I would back each other to the hilt, no doubt, no questions asked. In fact, there was only one sticking point: spanking.

One of us was spanked as a child. The other was not. Consequently, one of us believes that spanking is an appropriate means of discipline. The other does not. We went round and round on this issue for months, before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after our daughter was born, each of us certain that the other side was wrong and neither of us giving ground.

Finally, after seemingly endless conversation - which, I'm happy to say, was always civil - and after getting a better sense of our daughter's personality, we settled on a compromise. Our daughter was not to be spanked unless and until her behavior became so unmanageable that we were out of disciplinary ideas, at which point, we'd revisit the issue and consider it as a last resort, depending on the circumstances.

With luck, it will never be an issue again. I hate arguing with my wife and I know she hates arguing with me. Moreover, I'm a special education teacher who, in theory at least, has a repertoire of behavior management strategies that should last me well into old age. I've successfully worked with kids on more medications than I can count and never once have I raised a hand to a child.

But... it's one thing to discipline someone else's child. Disciplining your own is another thing entirely. And any teacher, any parent, will tell you that what works for one child may backfire horribly with another. So even if our discipline strategy works on our first child, it may be useless with the second. At which point, we'll get to enjoy the whole spanking debate all over again.

So what does all this have to do with idiot-proofing your child?

Kids need a predictable home environment to feel secure enough to explore the world around them on the terms you want. They need to be able to say to themselves, "If I do A, mom will have Reaction B." Our jobs, as parents, is, yes, to make sure Reaction B goes with Act A but to also ensure that we have Reactions C, D, and E - all of them appropriate to Act A - on the back burner in case Junior decides to take Act A to the next level. If there is one shared trait every child has, it's the need to push their boundaries.

What Junior doesn't need is mom having Reaction B and dad having Reaction Q, with any chance of effective discipline lost in the conflict. Junior needs to know that mom and dad will have similar reactions to Act A because, when mom and dad turn around and promise something he likes in exchange for a particular behavior (good grades, housecleaning, etc.) he'll know that they will keep their word. And thus is security reinforced.

By providing a stable disciplinary environment, parents provide a child with a stable home. Kids, even adolescents, need predictability in their lives if they're to grow into intelligent, purposeful, and responsible adults. Such adults can come from a chaotic environment as well but even then, there is usually an element of stability somewhere in their lives: school, a trusted relative, an extracurricular activity, something upon which they can consistently rely.

Disagreeing with your spouse about discipline is fine, so long as the child doesn't learn to use that disagreement to manipulate one of you against the other. By working out a compromise and presenting a united front, you can provide stability for your children while you're still hammering out the particulars. And that united front, even if it's an illusion, offers the temporary stability you'll need to work out a more permanent solution.

Even if that solution is to simply wait and see what happens next.