Sunday, July 7, 2013

Disciplining Someone Else's Children

This foster parenting thing comes with its challenges and eye openers.  As I mentioned before, I feel very green with these little guys.  I think a lot of it can be credited to the fact they have come into our home with habits that our children didn’t have at their ages, and we have to discipline differently than we did with our children.  I didn’t realize that certain behaviors could be developed or so engrained by such a young age.  I realize a lot of it has to do with culture and parenting or the lack of parenting, but I am still shocked at times.

Jay and I are firm believers of stern, consistent, and loving discipline.  We were active parents from the moment each of our children were born.  If one of our children misbehaved, they were warned, but if they tested a boundary they got spanked/smacked on the bottom.  Let me stress – NOT whipped or beat, just smacked on a padded bottom and a stern “NO”.   After they were disciplined, we would discuss why they got in trouble and we assured them we loved them and it was important for them to listen because we were only trying to keep them safe. 

These little guys have come into our home set in their ways, and our only option of discipline is redirection, time-out, or logical consequences.  Which are the biggest jokes. Some days, one little guy will end up in time-out to only have to stay in time-out because of his behavior while in time-out.  Then we talk about why he was put in time-out and he apologizes (with coaching) to only end up right back in time-out for the same behavior because really, having to sit for a few minutes isn’t that big of a deal.  We are even trying the sticker reward chart to encourage positive choices; however, Jay nor I believe in bribing kids to behave.  Has anyone thought about the fact we have a generation known as the “Me Me Me Generation” and they’re coined to have a narcissistic personality.  Hmmm. I wonder why?!

It is very frustrating because it feels like we have spent more time the last two weeks using an ineffective method of discipline than we ever had to spank our kids.  I understand and don’t agree with corpor0al punishment, but seriously when did spanking – I don’t approve of whipping/beating – become considered corporal punishment?  All I have to say is, look at the problems teachers have in the classroom because schools are no longer allowed to ‘paddle’ or discipline.  When I went to school, the nuns smacked your hands with a ruler, if you got sent to the principal’s office you were more than likely getting paddled, oh, and the teachers could hug their students. I don’t ever remember having the issues in the classroom that teachers deal with today on a daily basis.

I also understand why spanking is not an option – who knows if these kids were hit/beat/whipped, but I truly believe these methods of “use your words”, time-out, and logical consequences are very difficult for a toddler and a just turned 4 year old to grasp, especially when redirection or discipline was never used in their early informative years. 

Zack has asked why the boys continue to do things over and over even after they’ve been told numerous times not to.  He doesn’t understand why they seem to challenge us (our authority) as much as they do.  So, I explained to him that in training we were told that most of these kids come from environments where they have no structure, no discipline, no productive supervision, and no consequences to their actions.  They basically are the boss of their house.  Then they come into our home that has structure, consequences, discipline, and adult supervision and they meet it with resistance.  I explained to Zack that all infants/toddlers, including him and his sisters, test boundaries, but the main difference was we guided them to make better or good choices and they never developed any of the bad habits these little ones have. 


Okay. Seriously, the time with these boys has not been all horrible, but just frustrating because it feels like our efforts fall on deaf ears.  But on a side note, we have seen small strides.  The older boy is realizing he has to ask permission to leave the table and to ask politely while saying “please” and “thank you”.  We understand it will take time for them to adjust to our home, our rules, and our limitations.  We’ll just continue to be firm, consistent, and loving and hope they come around sooner than later.