Entry #2, February 8th

No timeouts, reward charts or taking their toys away. So how do we get our kids to behave?

JOELENE HUBER

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 1:09PM EST

Last updated Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 1:14PM EST

Overview: 

This article by Joelene Huber talks about different people's methods of punishment and discipline towards their children. Many people are giving their kids timeouts these days but this method is apparently a very poor solution. Huber interviews Vanessa Lapointe who wrote a book on ow to handle your misbehaved child and she explains how spanking is a thing of the past. Lapointe describes how you must use methods that will help you connect with you child and give them a sense of knowing how they feel. Lapointe states that punishments have evolved over time and that physical punishments are not the solution to "teach them a lesson" , letting them reflect and speaking to them calmly will help the issue. Lapointe also stated that when kids are growing up, it is the frontal cortex of their brain that allows them to learn and choose whats right from wrong. To let the children learn soothingly but also have consequences will mature their brain and being firm but kind and the am time will make the child know that the relationship is the core foundation, and that is what you care about in the approach. S we can see that one side of parenting values to teach their kids a lesson by making them lose privileges or by spanking them (harsher version) , but the other side,that  the Scientists have helped Ms. Lapointe learn is that thoughtfuly you can teach them a lesson.

Image shows mother trying to disciplin child with "timeout" method.

http://5keysparenting.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mother-child-discipline-small.jpg

Opinion:

This article has spoken about a subject that I am able to relate to. Since I was once a young child, I remember my parents punishing me in different manors, some more old fashioned than others. I have noticed that the way to talk to our kids that Lapointe talks about is very interesting to me due to scientific research over numerous years it must work. However, this does not mean I completely agree with these approaches towards punishing your child by reflecting alongside one another. In my opinion, for some cases children will not want to cooperate with the action of telling them you know how they feel because kids are quite ignorant. I believe that you must teach your children in a more abrupt way that they will remember, (this does not mean spanking by any means). Certain ways such as making the child lose a privilege such as watching TV or using their gaming device for two weeks appeals much more to me because this is something that they are quite attached to. I do take into consideration the points of Lapointe but I just cannot see such a mature action to a young child being consistently effective. From my own point of view which is quite bias, I feel that the losing privilege punishment worked on me and this could be why I feel this is more effective when handling children, besides, I couldn't last a day without TV when I was a kid so I would always be scared to do something wrong. I know the object is not necessarily to scare the child into not doing something because this could hold them back from opportunities in the future, but sometime I feel that this is the most effective and consistent approach to handling a child when they are misbehaved. From a civic point of view, many people around the world treat their children differently when they are misbehaved, unfortunately some are more brutal ways than others and as time goes on and we advance into the future and as one's civility evolves, punishing children will become less and less harsh as now a days kids are committing crimes everyday. My final judgement and response to this article would be that kids must always been treated sternly and learn their lessons when needed to prepare them for the future. I see some ways people use to be more unnecessary than others (spanking/violence) but in the end their must always be a barrier for each child set up firmly by their parents.