No punishments, what then? 9 alternatives to punishment

En el post de hoy comparto el artículo que he escrito para la comunidad de crianza de Cataluña criar.cat. Muchas gracias Alba Carreres por la invitación.

You can read the original article in Catalan here. And below I leave you the Spanish translation:

Discover why punishment is not educational and 9 useful tools to avoid it

“You are punished! So you will learn that this is not done”. He punishment it does not solve the reason why a creature performs inappropriate behavior.
So punishments don't work? Yes, it is clear that they work. They work in the moment, as they stop bad behavior at that moment. And why do they work? Well, because through punishment we make the child feel afraid or feel bad about what he has done.

But is this what we intend? Do we want them to feel bad about learning?

Punishment is not educational, it is merely punitive. Its objective is to penalize the child, it does not teach him any type of skill. When we punish, our children end up obeying us for fear of our reaction.

But if I don't punish him… Then what do I do?

In this post I share with you 9 tools that you can use as an alternative to punishment:

1. Anticipate

A prevention tool is to make the rules clear in advance. For example: your son asks you to watch TV for a while. Before putting up the drawings, agree on the time. And to do this we will have to adapt it to its age so that it understands us. Instead of telling him “you have 10 minutes” (at an early age they do not have the notion of time assimilated) better tell them: “We watch 2 episodes and when the second one ends, we turn off the TV”.

2. Give yourself some time

They have sold us the idea that problems must be solved as soon as possible. But it does not have to be like that. From anger and rage It is not possible to reach respectful agreements. If you see that with your words or your actions you can hurt, it is better to distance yourself from the situation until you regain calm: “Right now I am very angry and I need to be alone.” Regain your calm before acting.

If your child is small and cannot stay alone in the room, try to focus on your breathing and remember that he is just a child. A child doing child things. Don't take it as a personal attack.

When you are both more quiet, you can resume the conversation and look for a solution through dialogue and understanding.

3. Focus on the solution

Sometimes we enter a spiral of reproaches, “I already told you” and search for culprits. Children They do not learn from lectures or retaliation. Better let's focus on finding a solution. Involve him in the process, make him feel part. “What could we do to solve it?”. You can brainstorm and select a related, respectful, reasonable and useful solution. It is important that the solution meets these characteristics, otherwise we would be talking about a hidden punishment.

4. Involute

Children, like adults, have the need to belong, feel like we contribute, that we are useful. Ask for help, encourage them to commit and win autonomy. There are many tasks that children can do from a young age. Don't you like vegetables? What if you ask him to accompany you to the supermarket, choose the vegetable he wants for dinner today and help you cook it? Along the way you will do a fun activity and spend time together.

5. Validate their emotion, not their behavior.

All emotions are valid and have their function. Denying them is not the solution. What we must do is show how to manage them, and children learn this over time, as they face pleasant and not so pleasant situations. And above all, they learn it through our example: how do we react when we feel anger, frustration or helplessness?

But validating their emotion does not mean we validate their behavior. “I understand that you are angry with your brother because he broke your toy. And I'm still not going to let you hit him. "This is not how problems are solved."

6. Model, be an example

Show him how to solve problems without resorting to verbal or physical violence. Because this is not learned by magic when you come of age! Do you want your child to have the ability to self control? So you will have to work on it from a young age, teaching by example. It's of little use to tell you “¡te he dicho mil veces que no se chilla!” if we tell him yelling. Children do not learn with master lessons. They need our example.

7. Offers limited options

Can you imagine spending all day receiving orders? “Get dressed, pick up the toys, come here, now eat this, go to sleep now…” We all like to feel that we can choose, that we have control over our lives and can make decisions. There are moments in everyday life when we can let our children choose and make decisions. For example, when dressing: offer him two outfits and let him choose what he wants to wear between those two options.

8. Set clear boundaries

Limits are necessary and give security to children. Many times we tell them what they cannot do, but we do not tell them what we expect them to do. Therefore, when establishing limits, it is important that they are clear, that we formulate them in positive and that we make sure that the they understand. For example: instead of saying “You can't cross the street alone.”, better tell him: “To cross the street you have to shake my hand.”

9. Review your expectations

Often, the problem is not what children do or don't do. The problem is that adults have expectations that are not realistic. We expect children to behave in a way that does not correspond to their age or level of development.

For example: asking a two-year-old child to sit in a restaurant chair for three hours is unrealistic. If I am asking him for something unrealistic for his age, he will have to adapt to me and find an alternative. We are the adults.

I hope these tools have been useful to you and you can put them into practice. As you well know, there are no magic recipes in parenting. But there are tools that help us connect and act consciously, instead of reacting and getting carried away by the desperation of the moment.