Over at I Think Therefore I Blog, Kate has a post on classroom behavior management that got me thinking about my homeschool discipline strategies.
The way I try to approach discipline is by first examining why the child is misbehaving. Is it defiance or rebellion? Is it childish forgetfulness? Or is it a developmental inability to comply?
Obviously, with developmental inability to comply, there is no punishment. That would just be cruel.
Unfortunately, for schooled children, especially in kindergarten, there are situations when children are asked to do something they are unable to do and are subsequently punished for not doing it.
One example is sitting still.
One of the hardest things for me to adjust to when I started homeschooling was the fact that the boys will never sit still for any length of time on a regular basis.
They can, and they do, when we are out, but when we are home, I do not make them.
So, if we are doing a lesson where I am reading something out loud, and they start fidgeting or moving about, instead of reprimanding them, I simply ask them a question to see if they were paying attention. If they are, then they are okay.
Another example, sometimes Little E interrupts. No interrupting is one of our standards. Previously, when he started to interrupt, I would shush him and make him wait. When it was his turn he would get upset and cry.
I learned that when he has to wait to talk, he forgets what he wanted to say and becomes frustrated.
He has a developmental inability to wait his turn to talk.
To accommodate this, we have taught him the proper way to get our attention politely and we remind him to think about what he wants to say while we finish talking, so he doesn’t forget. We make him wait (to learn that skill), but we give him his turn very soon, so he does not have to wait longer than he can at his level of development.
If an older child interrupts, this is usually out of childish forgetfulness. They are not trying to be rude, they are just not thinking about manners.
In their case, we will make them wait their turn. They will also get a reminder about the importance of respecting others by not interrupting.
In the case of childishness, it is also unnecessary and cruel to punish. A reminder of right behavior (aka, a little lecture) and a “do over” usually will suffice.
It is only in the case of blatant disobedience, rebellion or challenge to authority that we use punishments. (Or in the case of hurting someone physically.)
This behavior will usually result in loss of privileges and sometimes, time alone in their bedroom. (That is grammatically correct - they all share one bedroom and use the other bedroom as a play room.)
Most misbehaviors of children are caused by childishness and can be corrected over time with lots of training them to do it again the right way. (Unless the child is lacking attention and acting out to get some, but that is a different matter entirely.)
One final note on how we handle misbehavior. I do a combined grade 4/5 for Big E and The D. If one of them is intentionally disrupting the lessons because he doesn’t feel like doing school work, that child is sent to the bedroom and he has to make the work up at 3:00, which is when they either go play with friends or watch TV.
This does not happen very often!
