One of the most serious challenges confronting parents is providing appropriate discipline. New parents who must face this responsibility are bound to feel daunted by the attention that older out-of-control children attract.
Yet today's stressed parents often have a difficult time saying "no," or setting firm limits in the time they have with their children. Some mothers who work outside the home say: "I just can't go home at night and be a disciplinarian. I've been away from my kids all day, and I feel like I have to make it up to them."
But discipline is the second most critical job of parenting. Love comes first, but discipline follows close behind. A child who isn't disciplined doesn't feel loved.
Discipline means teaching, not punishment. The first lesson is self-control: "I must stop you every time you do this, until you can stop yourself."
The long-term goal is to transfer the responsibility for boundaries and limits to the child. Though self-control takes a long time to learn, opportunities for mastering the necessary steps begin earlier than many might think.
Setting Boundaries
Even a newborn is looking for these boundaries and learning how to maintain control of herself. Getting overloaded or out of control is too draining, using up energy for learning about her new environment.
Nature has built in the earliest controls, which the newborn uses freely and effectively -- sleeping to shut out stimuli, crying to discharge an overloaded nervous system, and self-soothing (thumb or pacifier, body positioning, reducing motor activity) so she can look, listen and learn.
From the beginning, a newborn makes her own efforts to balance her needs with the demands of her environment. She will learn to get herself to sleep to refuel or to protect against loud sounds and bright lights.
She will learn to cry out to make her needs known, and cry differently depending on what these are. She will learn to gaze intently into her caregivers' eyes, letting them know how important they are and learning as much as she can about them. She is already learning self-discipline.
Some babies quickly learn to soothe themselves with a thumb in the mouth or by fingering a blanket, while others may need to be held or spoken to softly or rocked. Each learns to combine her own soothing strategies with those that a parent offers. This can be a foundation for later learning about managing impulses and feelings.
Parents of newborns soon learn not to react immediately to each whimper with a big effort to comfort the child. It's wise to watch briefly to see how your baby handles distress. Often you can then settle back, having witnessed your baby's resourcefulness in soothing herself. Other times, you may know within seconds that the baby will need to be picked up, held and crooned to softly.
When your baby has responded to your soothing, you may then need to watch again. Is the child ready to sustain her new mood on her own? Or will she fall apart again as soon as she is set back down? This time you could try not to pick her up. You could say, softly: "You can do it. You can settle yourself." If the baby quiets, tell her, "You're doing a fine job." Often the baby will brighten.
By stepping back briefly, you are offering your baby a chance to try out her own internal controls. If you provide all the soothing, there is no learning. If you provide none, the baby will not learn to calm herself, or come to a focused, alert state.
By 7 or 8 months, babies have begun to soothe themselves when distressed, to settle themselves to sleep when fatigued or overwhelmed. They will continue to struggle. But babies who are never allowed to soothe themselves or settle on their own -- for example, infants who sleep only when put to the breast -- will come to depend on being soothed and settled by others.
A major role for parents is to interpret their baby's behavior as language, as her way of saying, "I can work on controlling myself on my own" or "Now I need your help."
Parent and child learn by making mistakes. Sometimes, it can be a challenge to know when to step in, and when to step back. Eventually, it will all be up to her. Learning to discipline and self-discipline is a lifelong achievement -- but you and your child can get an early start.
Adapted from "Discipline -- The Brazelton Way." Reprinted by arrangement with Perseus Publishing. All rights reserved. Distributed by New York Times Special Feature. Copyright 2005 T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.