Miki Dedijer

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Shoes, treasures and the true meaning of discipline

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Your child isn’t listening to you. You can’t make her do as you tell her. And that can be wildly frustrating.

There’s a choice here–do you enforce or do you yield? Enforcing is more of the same–power over, authoritarian parenting, hierarchies, right and wrong. But yielding, isn’t that giving up? Not if you take a long perspective and remember that you’re nurturing a relationship.

The root of discipline is to teach, and a disciple is your joyful follower. Let go of the demands on yourself to get things right, and on your child to do things a certain way. Open up for some levity. Look for the playful way to do this.

My boys throw their shoes off in the hallway. I fall over them in the dark. I grumble. And I’ve told them a hundred and one times to put them to the side .

Now I just hide them. Yup, if the shoes are in the way, I create a treasure hunt. Hang one shoe on the coat rack. Tuck them under the stairs. Now every time they’re heading out, and their shoes were in the wrong spot, they have to search for them.

We have a good laugh about that together. And that’s the challenge sorted. Now I can truly discipline them–and ask myself how I wish to teach them everything I want them to learn about life.

Short-term playfulness. Long-term discipline.

Validation is a fertilizer

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Timely validation helps our child master herself.

When we notice that she can now safely handle a knife, we help her integrate this new skill. When we decide our child can now cross the street on his own, he gets to practice his increased capacity for autonomy.

Validation is a timely fertilization of emergent growth in our child. It supports her natural unfolding. She gets to know herself as a more capable person.

When applied too soon, it forces growth which our child isn’t yet ready for. Our child might respond with anxiety.

When applied too late or not at all, the ability may become stunted or hidden.

Validation asks that we see our child such as she is today, beyond our expectations. It asks that we are a loving and supportive witness to her growth.

Just by observing, and sharing what we see, we’re helping our child blossom.

Too much support for the sapling topples the tree

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A newly planted sapling needs stakes to support it against strong winds.

If you leave the stakes in too long, though, the tree suffers. It grows taller, but its roots don’t spread. When the stakes are removed, the tree is thin and weak, and breaks or falls in the first storm.

Too many stakes prevent the tree’s natural growth.

Offer your child just the right amount of support, so she can grow strong roots of her own.

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