Blog

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Are you interested in knowing your young child in a whole new way, understanding what’s really going on in their developing mind? Does your child say or do things that make you stop and wonder, where did that come from? Welcome to The Hidden Language of Children Podcast, where we explore child development and the challenges of being a parent. I’m your host, Dr. Kimberly Bell, clinical director at the Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where we help children learn to understand and manage their feelings so that they can be become the boss of themselves.

I am here with our producer again today, Bob Rosenbaum, for our conversation on a topic that comes up a lot in our work with parents and children.

Hello, Bob, do you wanna tell the people what’s on the agenda for today?

Bob Rosenbaum: Hi, Kim. As always, it’s good to be here with you. So today we are going all in on the third rail of parenting: discipline, punishment, consequences. Now, those three words get used a lot by grownups, but many [00:01:00] people use them interchangeably. So maybe the best place to start this conversation is by defining the difference between them – discipline versus punishment versus consequences.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: OK. Well, let’s start with the simplest of terms, right? In the simplest of terms, consequences is a result that follows naturally from a behavior. Discipline is the act of teaching in order to modulate or change a behavior.

Punishment is a form of behavior modification that is to act out after a child has done something wrong. I define it as something that comes from a place of anger in the parent, and that helps me to delineate the differences and look at how myself or a parent is responding to a child in any given moment.

Bob Rosenbaum: So let’s step back to consequences. You say it’s the [00:02:00] natural result of an action. But not all consequences are the same.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Well, they shouldn’t be all the same. So if consequences is going to be put under the subheading of discipline, right? So in the moment of discipline, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to teach a child that a behavior goes against your family values or violates a social construct that we all agree to. So if you break a toy, for example, of your friend, a consequence may be that you make restitution, which is one of my favorite consequences. So restitution, it’s natural, it flows. You broke something. You need to do chores around the house to earn the money to replace the thing that you broke. You are playing out in the yard and you dig up the neighbor’s flowers. You help replant that garden. Those kinds of things are what I consider to be natural consequences [00:03:00] and fall under the realm of discipline. Whereas being grounded for breaking a toy or being spanked for breaking a toy, those are punishments: “You’ve made me mad. I’m going to act out of that anger and let you know not how to fix a situation, but that you have displeased me and angered me.”

Bob Rosenbaum: OK. Clear enough. I think there’s probably a lot of parents out there who would say, yeah, but what’s the difference? I’m trying to get the child to stop the behavior.

Either way, they know the result is going to be unpleasant, so they’ll stop the behavior.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Well, research actually doesn’t tell us that. Punishment, historically has been found to be the least effective way to change a behavior. Behaviorally speaking, reinforcement is far more powerful.

So instead of just focusing on the negative – like, “Stop doing that; you’ve made me mad”  – you, you have to focus [00:04:00] on “this isn’t how we behave in our family, and this is what I expect of you.” And then reinforce that when that behavior occurs. Right? And that gets us into a whole thing about reinforcement. But punishment is, is historically the least effective at changing behavior. So you end up punishing every single time. And now your child’s behavior hasn’t internalized lesson. They have only learned to be afraid of you. And that keeps their conscience development focused on the outside instead of on the inside.

Bob Rosenbaum: Let’s talk a little bit about that: outside versus inside. The intrinsic motivation. What you’re saying is children should do things, should learn to do things, not because you tell them, but eventually because they want to do the thing that they know is right.

Is that a fair way of putting it?

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yes. Yeah, it is. And so when you have [00:05:00] natural consequences that are uncomfortable – even if those consequences are, “you can’t go to this activity tonight because you didn’t get your work done or you’ve lost my trust,” right? Taking away electronics isn’t necessarily about like, oh, they, they, they don’t want their electronics taken away, so they’re gonna straighten up and fly right.

It’s more about “you have used it inappropriately. Or you’ve behaved inappropriately around it,” meaning you’ve thrown a tantrum when I’ve tried to tell you to put it away at night. The consequences is you have shown me you cannot handle this, so we’re going to remove it and then we’re going to figure out how to get you to a place where you can handle this better. And so that’s a natural consequence. It is still uncomfortable. And that’s I think where people start to think it’s punishment, but it’s not.

And one of the things that we say here, like if a child has been acting up and they’re [00:06:00] not safe on the playground, then they can’t go out for outside time because they haven’t been safe is, “I am so sorry that you left yourself out of this. I hope tomorrow you can be kinder to yourself and behave as the school child we know you are so that you can also participate in outside time.” Does that make sense?

Bob Rosenbaum: I like that example, because what it really points out is the same thing can be a punishment, it can be a consequence. It has a lot to do with how it’s presented.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: It has a lot to do with how it’s presented, the words that are used and the emotional state of the adult engaging with the child. If you are doing something out of anger, you need to take a breath, reel it in, and sort of decide, sometimes with your child even, right? So a lot of times kids who have some bigger troubles may have [00:07:00] pre-agreed-upon consequences, right?

Like the parents sit down maybe with a therapist and they say, well, what are the consequences of this behavior that a kid tends to engage in quite a bit? And what should the consequence be? And then the child chooses the consequence in a time of calm and rationality.

And then there doesn’t have to be a big fight.

There’s not a big surprise. And you can say to the child, well you knew that was going to happen. So if you were kinder to yourself, then these natural consequences wouldn’t have occurred. Or sometimes, look, people aren’t going to want to play with you if you treat them that way. I’m so sorry that that happened to you. But these are lessons that we have to learn. These are natural consequences.

And that is the key to developing that internal sense of control. Why do we want the internal sense of control? Because you cannot always be with your child. As soon as they start school you’re sending them off and they’re away from you. And how do you ensure [00:08:00] that they behave the way that you expect them to behave when you’re not around if the only reason they’re behaving is because they’re afraid of you. You’re not there.

Bob Rosenbaum: So first thing is the parent or the, the adult – might be a teacher, could be a babysitter – has to put themselves in the mindset of we’re not punishing, we’re not punishing. Even though I want to smack the kid.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Mm-hmm.

Bob Rosenbaum: Maybe I shouldn’t have said it that way, but…

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: But that’s the reality of what people think in their heads. Yeah.

Bob Rosenbaum: Yeah. So I’m going to take a deep breath. I’m going to stand back. I’m going to assume the child wasn’t doing this to make me mad, but the child was doing this because of a lack of self-control due to their age, or due to the fact that they’re hungry and not thinking well, or they’ve had a very, very long day and are just not in control of themselves, whatever it might be.

[00:09:00] But kind of starting from the perspective of the child isn’t trying to make me mad. The child is not doing a good job at managing themself, and I’m going to step in and help.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yes. And the child may be trying to make you mad depending on the age, because when children have big feelings, they’re very good at giving them away to other people. And so the job is to not take it right, to say, my gosh, you’re trying to make me angry. OK, what’s going on? And let’s even talk about how you use timeout, quote unquote, in these moments of discipline rather than punishment, right?

Because a lot of times it’s go to your room, which is kind of another way of saying, get away from me. I can’t stand you right now. But if you can think about it as, these feelings have gotten too big. We need to separate. You need to go sit over there. I’m going to go over here and then we’re going to come back and we’re gonna figure this out. [00:10:00] That is a way different way of saying timeout than go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.

That’s, that’s not going to get you the result that you want over time.

Bob Rosenbaum: So let’s, let’s then move to discipline because there’s still a distinction there, or maybe there’s not.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Well, I think consequences are a way to teach discipline. You know, if you think about what does the word discipline mean? It means some measure of self-control, doesn’t it? Like if we say, oh, “I’m very disciplined in this,” what we mean is that we have control over ourselves. So when we are engaging in discipline, think of it as teaching rather than a punishment, right? Like that’s like, I like to get rid of that word. Discipline is “you need to learn something here and it’s my job to teach you.” And whether it is through natural consequences or taking a time out to learn emotional regulation, right. Or with little [00:11:00] littles who don’t know yet, it’s what we call a teachable moment, right?

We don’t bite. In our family, we don’t hit. This is not school boy behavior. This is not school girl behavior. That’s part of the discipline; and also part of the discipline is describing the behavior that you do expect to see and then recognizing it with them. Now, I’m not a huge fan of reinforcement schedules, you know what I mean? Like every time you see a behavior, go, good job. And like, here’s an M&M. I don’t care for that because that’s still external. It still relies on you. But what we want in discipline is to teach children that when you do the correct thing, when you share, when you are kind, when you clean up after yourself, you develop an inside good feeling – which is pride. Right? You are proud of yourself. So that [00:12:00] engaging in emotional regulation makes you feel good about yourself. And so it’s important for parents to say, I’m proud of you, because that’s the start. Like nice job, good work, but also adding in this internal thing of it must feel great. It must feel great that you were able to manage that. I bet it feels so good inside and you are helping a child label that good feeling. Now, where does the good feeling come from? My gosh, we could, we could break that down into itty bitty, bitty bits, but the bottom line is that that first comes from, “if my mom or dad is proud of me, that creates a good feeling in me.” And then as they begin to say, ” you must be proud of yourself,” I share that feeling with them and then I learn to name it in myself so that I feel it as an echo even when they’re not around. Does that make sense?

Bob Rosenbaum: It makes perfect sense and it, and it [00:13:00] calls to mind that we had a preschool teacher who retired not long ago, and one of her favorite things to say to children was, you gave yourself a good feeling.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. For some reason what came to mind is a child sitting on the floor working on a puzzle. And this is part of the “doing for, doing with, standing by to admire” mantra that exists at Hanna Perkins. A child is sitting and attempting a puzzle by themselves for the first time. They get that last piece in. The young child doesn’t sort of reach around and pat themselves on the back. The first thing they do is look up to locate an observer. Right? A grownup observer. And it’s like, I’m having this good feeling; is this valid? And they’re looking up and they see the parent and the parent is like, thumbs up. Right on. Or the teacher, you gave yourself a good feeling and they’re like, that’s what this is. Got it. Yep. That was, that did feel good. And now the completion of the puzzle [00:14:00] becomes the reward, right? That becomes the inside good feeling and the good feeling becomes the reward.

Bob Rosenbaum: So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the concept of restitution. That’s, that’s a discipline. That’s consequences.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: I think that’s a method of discipline, if I was going to start to categorize things. I think it’s a technique if you will. Is the ability to make things right. So replacing something you broke. It repairs the feeling of, I’m a breaker of things, I’m a destroyer of things and other people have to come in and clean up after me. I have had kids who have had big, big troubles in my office who have put maybe a hole in the wall or a dent in the wall, and I have brought in spackle, and we have together – doing with – spackled that wall. That’s restitution. And it transmutes. It [00:15:00] repairs that broken bad feeling with a new feeling of, I can be a creator, I can be a fixer, I can be the good part of all of this, right?

I can be the part that makes me feel better about myself. And sometimes that looks like cleaning up the mess you made. That’s restitution of a sort, right?

Taking responsibility.

Bob Rosenbaum: Probably the most common form of restitution is a simple apology.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. And then we have to, but we have to get into forced apology and genuine apology. Right? Like it’s more of a question of how would you like to make this right. And if the child can say, I should apologize, then you’re like, yes, we’re on it. When we, when we have done something that hurts somebody else’s feelings, that’s when we apologize, right?

We make a mess, we clean up the mess. If you have hurt somebody, then you apologize for that.

Bob Rosenbaum: You point the finger and you say, “you say you’re sorry,” [00:16:00] that’s not necessarily restitution. That’s more like punishment because you’re making them do something that they haven’t thought through. They’re not ready to do it, it’s not their idea.

Whereas if they wanna make something better, and maybe they don’t know how to make an apology, maybe they’re that young, or maybe it’s, they just have trouble absorbing that lesson over and over.

So you help explain to them how it can make a child feel, how it can make the other person feel better, and how easy it is to make an apology when you didn’t really mean to hurt that person.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. You know what’s really hard about parenting? You know what the best way is to teach a child what an apology feels like and looks like?

Bob Rosenbaum: I know what you’re going to say.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: I know you do, is to be able to apologize yourself to the child or to your partner or to your, to the grandparents. If they see you engaging in that kind of emotional, intelligent behavior, [00:17:00] is the single best way because otherwise, you know what you get.

You know those moments where you look at a kid and they go, sorry. You know what I mean? Like that’s a kid who knows what it’s supposed to feel like and does not feel it at the time. Right.

Yeah. You always have to look, especially something as subtle as an, I’m sorry. ’cause that’s a complex emotion that needs to be modeled.

Bob Rosenbaum: Yeah. Yeah. OK. So we’ve talked about, we’ve kind of talked all the way around this. Let’s just go right back to the beginning. So, punishment, we don’t encourage any kind of punishment and we don’t really see a reason for punishment when you’re raising children.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Correct. Yes.

Bob Rosenbaum: Discipline. That’s helping them understand the structure that makes things right and to live within it. To stay within it. And we can help them do that. And when they make a mistake and step outside of those boundaries, we can remind them what [00:18:00] the boundaries and remind them how to make it right and how to stay in those boundaries the next time.

And then there’s consequences, the natural outcome of of an action and having to accept the fact that you created that outcome because of what you did.

And where the consequences are not a natural result – like if you don’t clean your room, you can’t have dessert – that’s not a consequence.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: That’s a punishment. Because there’s no connection. Right?

Bob Rosenbaum: Excellent. Kim. Good conversation and I think this is a good moment to take a quick promotional break. If you’re looking for more parenting insights, we’ve got a book that might be of interest. It’s called Timeless Advice for Parents of Young Children, and it’s written by a group of Hanna Perkins Early Childhood Development experts.

It’s the ultimate guide to understanding your child’s behavior. From tantrums to [00:19:00] preschool jitters to discipline that really works, it unlocks the mysteries of your child’s mind and helps you be the nurturing, loving parent that we all wanna be.

It’s easy reading. The chapters are short, and they’re organized by common situations, so it really gets into everyday life of a family and a parent.

It is available at Amazon. It makes a great gift, and it’s a little bit less than 20 bucks. You can find a link to it on the resources page at our website, HiddenLanguageofChildren.org, and every purchase makes a small contribution to nonprofit Hanna Perkins Center. If you have bigger issues with discipline or any other part of parenting and need more personalized help, our mental health clinic is here for you.

The Hadden Clinic for Children and Families at Hanna Perkins has therapists who specialize in working with kids. They can provide everything from coaching and consultation to psychotherapy to help your family through ordinary and [00:20:00] extraordinary circumstances that you may need to address.

Our therapists are licensed in Ohio and many other states, and we can help you make a referral if you live in an area that we aren’t able to serve. If you want help, call the Hadden Clinic at (216) 991-4472 or just visit the Hanna Perkins website at hannaperkins.org for contact information and help getting started.

So Kim, we had a, let’s rephrase that segment scheduled for today, but you mentioned something earlier that I think we just ought to fill in the blanks on. We’ve talked a little bit about it before. Hanna Perkins has this three part saying: Do for do with standby to admire. Would you like to tell parents exactly what it is we’re talking about when we say that?

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Sure people will hear that throughout our episodes. It is one of our central beliefs here at Hanna Perkins, [00:21:00] which is that all development, whether it’s tying your shoes, managing your emotions, driving a car, anything throughout life, that requires you to learn something, you and your mentor-slash-parent go through these phases.

So at first, somebody’s doing it for you. Tying your shoes, doing it with you hand over hand, helping you tie your shoes. And the third piece, which most people forget about is the standing by to admire. That’s when you are standing there while they tie their shoes and saying, nice job. Good… look at you did that all by yourself.

You don’t jump in to solve a problem right away. Let’s say conflict with a peer. If you see them having an argument, you don’t jump in right away. You want to step back and observe. Can they do it by themselves? How much help do they need? Do they need me to do this for them? Separate. Do they need me to do this with them? Let’s sit down and talk together about how we can resolve [00:22:00] this conflict between friends.

Bob Rosenbaum: Yeah, so it’s kind of stages of development and stages of learning a skill. You can, you can see it at the micro level – tying your shoes, riding a bike – and at the macro level, it’s just kind of a way to look at your parenting as your child goes from infancy all the way up to adolescent and young adult.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. And I’ll tell you, if you look at it that way, one of the things you’re going to feel is less of a sense of loss. When your child becomes more independent and more of a sense of progress and celebration when they don’t need you as much to manage themselves or a thing.

Bob Rosenbaum: When, when you see your child tying their own shoes and managing their own motions, you’ve given yourself a good feeling.

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yes, we would say that.

Bob Rosenbaum: Alright, Kim, do you wanna take it out today?

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Sure. If you have questions about parenting or child development, we are happy to answer them. You can send questions by email to [00:23:00] HiddenLanguageofChildren@gmail.com. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this conversation and found something to take away from it. The Hidden Language of Children Podcast is a production of the nonprofit Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development in beautiful Shaker Heights, Ohio. Our producer is Bob Rosenbaum and Dan Ratner is our consulting producer. If you like this podcast, please subscribe to hear future episodes and share it with your family and friends. We welcome your comments and questions. Again, you can email us at HiddenLanguageofChildren@gmail.com. For more links and information about our approach to healthy child development, you can visit our website at HiddenLanguageofChildren.org. I am Dr. Kimberly Bell, and we will see you next time.