Reality Discipline?

guitarragirl · Apr 15, 2008

Does anyone here use reality discipline? Does it work? I would love to start using it, but my husband really wants our kids to jump when he says jump. What kind of consequence would be good for example...the child hitting? I really want to get him on board!

OrangeHope · Apr 15, 2008

Sorry but whats reality discipline?

guitarragirl · Apr 15, 2008

I'm not sure if it's anywhere else, but I'm reading about it in the book "Making Children Mind without Loosing Yours". It's all about teaching kids by letting them experience natural consequences...
I guess an example would be if they won't eat their dinner let them go hungry. It's all about letting consequences happen...let the child touch the hot stove and then they'll know not to touch it again. I'm no expert though.

fuzzymel · Apr 15, 2008

Eek when I was a youth leader we would have gotten into so much trouble if we let them do things like that.

If a young child stepped into the road I would never think 'oh well if he/she gets hit by a car they will know not to walk into the road again'.

Whenever I have seen a child in a potentially dangerous situation I have removed them from it and taken them to their parents. I just could never leave them to discover it themselves.

progressivegal · Apr 15, 2008

"The Discipline Book" by William and Martha Sears touches on this a little bit, giving examples of "natural consequences, They give examples like this:

"Age: 6 Child's Choice: Late for baseball practice Parents guidance: 'You have 15 minutes' consequence: sits out next game for being late"
As far as touching a hot stove though, I think that's taking it too far. As a parent it is first and foremost your job to keep your child safe, and if they are doing something dangerous, it is your job to move them out of harms way. That's a huge reason why kids need parents, to protect them from harm. In that case there IS a natural consequence, which is the child being taken away from the stove.
You can't force a child to eat either, but to make tehm go hungry would be negligent and cruel. Children will rarely starve themselves. If they refuse to eat their dinner, wrap it up and put it in the fridge and then take it out for them when they are hungry. It's important for a child to listen to their body when it comes to food, to eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. It's a parents job to make sure that their child is eating healthy foods.
I think as far as hitting goes the best thing NOT to do is hit (spank) the child back. It sends the opposite message that you're trying to get across (i.e. you can't show that hitting is bad by using more hitting). Probably the best thing to do in that case is to reiterate first and foremost that "we don't hit" and do take a few minutes of "time out". time out isn't necessarily a punishment, but a chance for the child to cool off and calm down. after they're calm, talk about why we don't hit (it isn't nice, it makes people sad, it hurts, etc.)

MyaShane · Apr 15, 2008

guitarragirl said:
I guess an example would be if they won't eat their dinner let them go hungry. It's all about letting consequences happen...let the child touch the hot stove and then they'll know not to touch it again. I'm no expert though.

Then that removes me from my role as a parent from the equation IMO. So, no thanks.

fuzzymel · Apr 15, 2008

I am still shuddering at the very thought of a hand on the stove. Ugh it could do so much damage.

Leanna · Apr 15, 2008

I have never heard of reality discipline or read that.

For dinner it makes sense to me, if they don't want to eat then they can wait until the morning. I, as a parent, set that rule and see it through. They, the child, make the decision whether they want to wait until morning. No fuss, no mess..... I am not the sort to make them sit there until its cold and rotting or shove it down their throat.

Those are my thoughts based on this limited information.

heart of peace · Apr 15, 2008

Hmm...this does remind me a bit of what The Continuum Concept was about [to a degree]. So I think it is fair to say that I do utilize this form of parenting just from what I read in this thread. I'd have to investigate further to say for certain.

I think I understand what fuzzymel is saying and I agree that there are times that a parent cannot allow a child to deal with the natural consequences of their actions if it would lead to severe hurt or possible death! I'm not going to just drive my car without my child in his carseat so that he can experience the feeling of being tossed all around during turns to then agree to go in his carseat in the future. I would say there is a time and a place for this type of parenting and something that would prove beneficial as I believe it is human nature to need to experience something and deal with any bad choices at times. We don't all learn from our elders for if we did, each generation would be more and more improved and obedient and we all know that this isn't the case.

Can you post a link about it in more detail?

BarbBlessed · Apr 15, 2008

I don't remember reading anything about allowing your kids to harm themselves (e.g. hot stove) in the book.....

Using Reality Discipline means…

Being in healthy authority over your children.

Holding your children accountable for their actions

Combining love and limits on a consistent basis.

Dealing with every child as the unique individual he or she is.

Being tough but always fair.

Using action instead of words.

Sticking to your guns and following through with enforcing consequences.

Following the biblical instruction not to exasperate your children and make them angry and resentful, but to bring them up with loving discipline and godly advice (see Eph. 6:4, The Living Bible).

Author: excerpt from Parent Talk by Dr. Kevin Leman and Randy Carlson of Family Life Communications SOURCE

It worked well in our house.
But there were plenty of situations - especially when our daughter was young - that we didn't wait for the natural consequences of her behavior. We gave immediate consequences.

I think the book mentions something like, "I don't have to drive you to soccer practice if you can't treat me respectfully." (Or maybe that was an example on the radio show - it's been a while now.) Anyway, that was a little too loose for our house. We'd assign extra chores or something as soon as the disrespectful behavior happened. She was an only child so we never had a problem with hitting, but for us that would have been another situation where we would have given an immediate consequence.

fuzzymel · Apr 15, 2008

BarbBlessed said:
I don't remember reading anything about allowing your kids to harm themselves (e.g. hot stove) in the book.....

That makes more sense to be honest (its quite like how I was raised).

The hot stove thing really threw me. To me thats just dangerous and I would be shocked if any parent would knowing let their child near a hot stove.

heart of peace · Apr 15, 2008

Ok, this doesn't sound like what I thought it was from what Barb posted. The actions instead of words part was the only thing that reminds me of CC.

I actually only relate to 2 or 3 of those bullet points.

DestinationHome · Apr 15, 2008

The thing with natural consequences is that the child has to be old enough to connect the dots and get that having made another choice would have produced a more favorable outcome. I see a lot of value in natural consequences for an older child (tween/teen). For infants, toddlers and pre-rational kiddos, we actively protect the kids from consequences (like hot stoves!) and choose other tools (redirection primarily).

lucypevensie · Apr 15, 2008

It's a simple concept. I use reality discipline all the time. The book is by Kevin Leman, and he does not condone allowing your child to run into the road and get hit by a car to learn a lesson in reality. Nor would he condone letting a child touch a hot stove to get across the lesson that stoves are hot. (See last paragraph for how reality discipline might deal with these scenarios)

One idea behind reality discipline is to allow the child to learn WHY he has to behave a certain way. For example, this is one way I've applied reality discipline: My dd didn't want to get up for school in the morning. I could nag and yell and force and bribe and reward, and they all would eventually get her out of bed. But would she get the point? I do not make her get up at 7 in the morning just for the heck of it - there's a reason, and someone will pay the price if she doesn't choose the right thing. Reality discipline would allow the natural consequnce to happen if the she chooses to ignore my urging to get out of bed. She chose to burrow under the blankets instead of listen to me call. Therefore I would let the reality of life happen - you don't get up on time, you end up late for your appointment and all the inconveniences that go with that. She will have to stop at the office for a tardy slip, have to walk into class late, might miss something fun. There was no nagging, no yelling or lecturing, no privileges taken away, but the lesson was learned. (She really did learn to get up on time after being late to school just 2 times!)

As far as hot stoves and cars you would not want to let reality to teach the lesson! So instead you would have to enforce a different safer consequence: Since I cannot trust you to stay out of the street you must hold my hand at all times until I am confident that I can trust you to not run into the street. Since you cannot be in the kitchen without touching the stove you will need to sit in your highchair while I cook until I am confindent that you will not touch the stove. And either of these example would be grounds for a quick reaction and raised voice since it is not exactly the right time to calmy explain yourself.

guitarragirl · Apr 16, 2008

well, the book didn't say to do those things.
A friend of mine suggested the hot stove one, and said she could never do that, and I'm trying to remember what the book said about missing dinner...It's been a long time since I read it, and I'm trying to read it again, but not that far into it yet...

guitarragirl · Apr 16, 2008

Thanks, there are some things about reality discipline that I didn't understand, so mentioning safe alternatives helps. It's really hard knowing what the right thing to do as a parent is.

K9_Trainer · Apr 16, 2008

On some things, sure. Like what Lucy mentioned about her dd choosing not to get up and go to school. I'm sure there's others that I would find acceptable that I can't think of off hand.

But I won't let a kid starve because they didn't eat dinner....That's kind of cruel IMO. If you don't like something, you don't like it, you shouldn't have to eat it. It's not like you, as an adult, eat things you don't like....If you don't like it, you don't eat it and it seems kind of hypocritical to make your children eat something they have tried and truly don't like. It's not *that* much trouble to make sure there is at least one thing on the plate that each person in the family would eat.

lucypevensie · Apr 16, 2008

K9_Trainer said:
On some things, sure. Like what Lucy mentioned about her dd choosing not to get up and go to school. I'm sure there's others that I would find acceptable that I can't think of off hand.

But I won't let a kid starve because they didn't eat dinner....That's kind of cruel IMO. If you don't like something, you don't like it, you shouldn't have to eat it. It's not like you, as an adult, eat things you don't like....If you don't like it, you don't eat it and it seems kind of hypocritical to make your children eat something they have tried and truly don't like. It's not *that* much trouble to make sure there is at least one thing on the plate that each person in the family would eat.

There is room for common sense with reality discipline. This would dictate that you DO take care to serve food items that you know your child likes in order to encourage healthy eating. By all reasonable means do your best to serve yummy food. But what if you have a picky family like ours is (we are ALL picky eaters uggghh!)? What I do is cook a reasonable meal and any/all of us can choose to eat it or not. Those who don't will be hungrier than those who do. That's real life.

The thing is, so many times kids just don't eat. We've all seen it - the child is too excited to eat, is too interested in playing than eating, suddenly gets "picky" about something we know they've always liked. At least I know my kids have done this - heck, I do this! At times like this we can choose to argue, force, smother the food in something unhealthy - or we can calmly put the plate away for later when we're hungry enough.

Robinsegg · Apr 16, 2008

We use this to a certain degree. I'll give you some examples:
1. If a child lies, that child is no longer trustworthy and must *earn* our trust again over time. The kids *hate* me checking up on every little thing because they lied.
2. If we will miss an appointment (fun one) when they don't move fast enough to complete whatever tasks were pre-set, I give them the information that it will happen. They either move fast enough, or we miss the appointment.
3. If a child runs away from me (street, parking lot, etc.), I can no longer trust that child to stay with me, and I must hold his/her hand while we walk in/around such places.

Does that help?
Rachel

guitarragirl · Apr 19, 2008

I think that makes sense...thanks

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