Having workable disciplinary insights and integrating them appropriately is important for yielding results. Having realised the deficit in our disciplinary procedures, we seek to identify strategies that bring about results. One of the most important insights in maintaining discipline among children is communication. Through communication, different parties are able to share and understand their feelings and hence solving issues before they become major setbacks to their growth. In as much as it sounds easy to simply state communication procedures, most parents and caregivers may not understand how and when to communicate to their children (Frick, 2004). Children go through different phases of life that require tolerance on the part of the parents. For instance, it has become normal for parents to deny certain demands to their children, deeming them inappropriate, without first understanding why they placed such demands in the first place.
Integrating the insight of communication hence requires skill and not just exercising the mature responsibility of a parent (Rotmans & Van Asselt, 1996). Parents need to take time to understand the different stages of a child’s growth and know that children will not always appreciate a ‘no’. Children also have questions that need answers and if they are simply denied and not given an explanation, they tend to exploit other alternatives with the hope that they will obtain answers. In integrating communication into enhancing discipline among children, parents need to treat them, as they would have wished to be treated if they were in their position (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2008). When a parent understands the fact that they deserve the right to know and understand why things have to work out in a particular way, they will learn to extend them to their children. Exceptions can only be allowed in scenarios where the parents do not have an answer to a concern, which is rare.
In their efforts to integrate discipline among children and evading detailed answers, most parents resort to lying to their children. Underestimating the ability of children to understand and even believe in the lies has been the biggest weakness of parents over many generations. Most of them get themselves in a bigger problem especially when the children believe in their lies and go ahead to implement them. It is even worse for children who later on discover that they were being lied to by their parents (Carey, 2009). Such children loose trust and confidence in their parents and resort to other avenues for their answers. A parent may appear relieved that their strategies work and that their children no longer come to them with weird questions, not realising that they resolved to other means of finding answers.
Communication strategies should be adjusted at every stage of life, especially as children interact with a wider society. The worst thing that should happen to a parent at a younger age of their child is for them to lose trust in their answers and instead look for alternative sources (Desrochers, 2004). Parents should never underrate their children in terms of understanding issues. The fact is that, as long as a child, at whatever age has requested something, they have partial information about it and trust their parents to give them the appropriate details. Once a good channel of communication has been obtained between a parent and child at all levels of development, it will become easy for them to identify and correct other issues that are likely to arise.
Reference list
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. (2008). Facts for families: Children and divorce [Fact sheet]. Retrieved from http://www.aacap.org/page.ww?section=Facts for Families&name=Children and Divorce
Carey, M. (2009). Latin American environmental history: Current trends, interdisciplinary insights, and future directions. Environmental History, 14(2), 221–252.
Chapter 5, "Explaining the Importance of Integration" (pp. 123–125, 131–133)
Chapter 12, "Integrating Insights and Producing an Interdisciplinary Understanding" (pp. 295–310)
Desrochers, J. E. (2004). Divorce: A parents' guide for supporting children. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists. Retrieved from http://www.nasponline.org/resources/parenting/divorce_ho.aspx
How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praisehttp://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Taking an interdisciplinary approach to identifying comprehensive solutions [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Frick, P. J. (2004). Integrating research on temperament and childhood psychopathology: Its pitfalls and promise. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 33(1), 2-7.
Rotmans, J., & Van Asselt, M. (1996). Integrated assessment: a growing child on its way to maturity. Climatic Change, 34(3-4), 327-336.
