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NEWSLETTER  
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Managing the Difficult Child: School Age Children

by Warren P. Silberstein, M.D.
08/04/97

The approach to discipline for the school age child involves a great deal of verbal communication and discussion to teach not only the rules, but the reasons for the rules, and the concepts which we parents hope, and expect our children to apply to multiple different situations, and yet many of the principles involved in managing younger children apply to the school age child. The key principle is still consistency.

One difference between consistency of approach in school age children versus preschoolers is that we can explain apparent inconsistencies to them. However, the older child's ability to deal with rules verbally also means that if we do change approach, we'd better have a good explanation, preferably one on which the course of action was based rather than thought up afterward. Be prepared to hear a lot of "But why?" and "But you said it was okay last time" if you make inconsistent decisions regarding rules without giving considerable thought to the reasons for your actions.

Consistency is so important, I think it's worth repeating what I said last time. 

No matter what approach you feel is the best way for you to raise your child, there are a few
things you should keep in mind. It takes 18 years to become an adult. There is no way to create an instant angel. Your child's body and mind keep changing as he grows and each age has its own challenges. If an approach makes sense to you, stick with it and adapt it to your circumstances. Don't expect instant results. If you keep changing your approach to discipline because you don't think it's working your child never has an opportunity to learn what response to expect from you for problems that arise. A consistent approach to discipline helps a child to learn what's expected of him. This is as important in dealing with older children as toddlers. To quote an article in All About Health - News, "Parents who are inconsistent about disciplining their children are like slot machines. Their children keep gambling that their behavior will result in a payoff." 

The other principle which applies equally to school age children and toddlers is that parents must have reasonable expectations. If you expect from your child what he can't deliver, he is doomed to failure, and a child who can't please his parents has little motivation to keep trying. Our goal as parents is to teach our children our values including the standards of acceptable behavior and then do our best to make it possible for them to live up to our expectations. At this age children are much more capable than toddlers of distinguishing between what are the most important rules and the least important rules, but it can still be difficult for them to remember to dot every i and cross every t. If every infraction of every rule is dealt with as if it is a criminal offense, both you and your child will have a miserable life. You will be frustrated at having to constantly discipline your child. Your child will feel bad about himself because he can never please you. And both of you will not have enough memories of golden moments where you just enjoyed being with each other. Or, you may feel bad about your handling of discipline for minor issues and confuse your child by taking back what you did and trying to assuage your guilt by being over solicitous. This will only confuse a child and may even create a situation where a child is willing to risk punishment if he thinks it might be followed by kisses. It's fine for parents to apologize to children when the parents make a mistake, and to explain what happened, but they should find a style of discipline that won't make this a regular occurrence. 

Parents must decide what their goals are. My choice of priorities would still be that the most important rules are the ones that guarantee yours and your child's safety. The next priority would be those rules that will allow your child to function properly in the outside world and increase his chances of being a successful adult. And sorry, but my last priority would be dealing with the little things that annoy parents that have nothing to do with the other two priorities. But take heart. Most of the things that annoy parents really fall into the second category of learning adequate social skills and self help skills to be successful adults. In each category, there are basic rules which must become ingrained habits before we can expect a child to refine his behavior even further. Don't touch the stove becomes don't touch the stove unless Mommy is supervising, which eventually becomes knowing how to do cooking on the stove safely and clean up the mess afterwards. Don't eat with your hands only becomes appropriate when a child has sufficient skills with utensils and from there gradually develops into the kind of social graces that make a child pleasant company in a fine restaurant. Whatever you expect from your child, you can't hand him the rule book of life and tell him to learn it all at once. The fewer, age appropriate, major rules a child has to follow, the greater his chances of success at learning them. And once he has learned the basic rules, he's ready to further refine his behavior. 

Fortunately, school age children have adequate language abilities to deal with many of the less serious issues that we don't want to turn into rules. While it's obvious to you that you could avoid getting finger paint on your best clothes by changing into your work clothes, ask yourself how often you did just a little potentially messy work without changing only to regret it afterward. Adults make mistakes that have consequences just like children do. Children need to see the consequences of their actions. You should avoid letting your frustration turn these situations into issues of discipline when they should be learning experiences. Even when a child is too young to clean up his own mess, it's never too early to involve him in the process, and talk about the problem. Keep the conversation calm and put it in terms your child can relate to, for example, comparing damage to his clothes or your property, to damage to one of his favorite toys or possessions. Let him understand how you feel by exploring how he would feel. But be sure to let him explore how he would feel. Don't tell him how he should feel. Then, let him take part in the plan for how to avoid future problems. Be inventive. In the above example, maybe the child needs a set of play clothes waiting in easy reach, or a smock in the area where the paints are. Most important, when you speak to a child about the mistakes he's made and how you would like him to do things, help him learn what was wrong about his behavior and what he could do in a similar situation that is good behavior. But never put down the child. 

Chores are often a bone of contention between older children and parents. Many of us have only ourselves to blame. Most young children think everything adults do is fascinating and they want to imitate us, but it is so much easier for us to do the work ourselves that we rarely allow the young children to really participate in our chores. By the time they are old enough to be really helpful, they haven't developed the skills or the habit of participating. Even at an older age children need parental input on chores. Sometimes a task like cleaning a room just seems so enormous that an occasional helpful suggestion as to what to do or how to do it can be tremendously motivating. Shared chores can avoid the loneliness associated with long jobs. When possible, break tasks into manageable chunks and set up teams to do them, often including parent and child together on a team. Once the chores are done don't forget that a chore well done saves you time and effort. Don't take your child's work for granted. It may be his responsibility, but he still depends on you to tell him he is making a valuable contribution to the household by doing it. 

School problems are another area where parents may need to rethink their approach. I wouldn't like to go back to the days when a teacher could hit a child, but when a child complains about school, we should be careful not to immediately respond with our protective instincts. We can't say that we support education if we don't support a teacher's right to control a classroom. While parents always have a responsibility to protect their children, children must enter a classroom believing that when a teacher speaks he is speaking with the parents' authority. Children have a right to believe that their parents are on their side and support them, but when a child misbehaves in school, the child should be worried about how his parents will react, not the teacher. Sending children to school with an attitude that their teacher is in charge will provide them with a better school experience and fewer disciplinary problems for Mom and Dad. 

Fighting is an issue on which I'm likely to offend some men who feel that the best way to avoid fights is for children to know how to defend themselves. It may be a good idea to teach a child the skills and confidence to defend himself since a time may come when a fight is unavoidable, but small children are not capable of making a value judgment about when it is reasonable to fight. We live in an increasingly violent world where a significant part of the violence is carried out by children and teens. I believe that all children should be taught that any kind of violence is unacceptable and that fighting should be a last resort when there is no other means to protect themselves. They must learn to use their minds and not their fists to get what they want. It's a lesson that must be taught early.