Persevere Toward Consistency

The key elements of discipline for strong parents can be summarized by the three C's―calm, consistency, and consequences. Having heard these parents' opinions on keeping calm, let's turn our attention to consistency.

Listen to any childrearing specialist talk about discipline, and within a sentence or two, you'll probably hear the word consistency. Experts can't say enough about the importance of a parent's willingness to follow through with discipline consequences. These expert parents agree fully. To Brad from California, the main ingredient in any discipline is, "Consistency. If something is bad, it is always bad. If it is no big deal, then act that way."

For Eetha, mother of three, consistency means, "We did not make promises we didn't keep. If the children did something they were forbidden to do, they knew they would be punished."

Connie from Ohio also believed that consistency and consequences, while not always easy to implement, were the backbone of discipline. "It's so important to set standards, to teach children to accept responsibility, and to teach them that if they choose to act wrongly, they must be willing to accept the consequences. I would also like to emphasize the importance of consistency in parenting. Sometimes it's very difficult to be consistent or to follow-through. Frequently, the easiest path is inconsistency and lack of follow through, but these deprive the child of the opportunity to learn important lessons."

Joanna, whose four sons all are currently in their twenties, was pressured into consistency as a young mother, not just by her boys, but by her need for sanity. "With the boys close together in age, especially when they were between the ages of two and four, it was a war, and I was going to win! I wanted the boys to know that I meant what I said, and I would not keep saying over and over, 'If you don't stop, I'll . . .' Once that was established, life was much easier, on them and on me."

No parent is one-hundred-percent consistent. Even the best are not close. Parents are not computers. We get tired, we forget, sometimes we surrender. Excellent parents accept that they cannot achieve perfect consistency, so they don't demand it of themselves. Complete consistency is an ideal to reach for; what's practical is to consistently strive to be consistent.

A word often paired with consistency was perseverance. At times, parents have no option other than to persevere and discipline as long as necessary to change or redirect a behavior. If Oral has to visit the chair one hundred times for spitting, eventually, even if weeks from now, he will conclude: "I spit; I sit." Perseverance means doing whatever it takes to make discipline stick, especially in the face of intense resistance. None of these parents, for instance, upon first sending their children to a chair or their rooms to settle down, met with, "Oh goodness, Mother, I didn't realize I'd upset you. Please, tell me how long you'd like my discipline to last, and I'll double it." Initially at least, many had to take extra measures to enforce their discipline. Some children had to be physically escorted to their time-out. Some had to be carried there. Some had to hear, "If you leave your room, you cannot play outside for the rest of the day." And a few spitfires had to be incarcerated temporarily.

"When Stewart was younger, he would get hysterically angry at times, and I could not do anything with him, so he went to his room. But he wouldn't stay there. So, what I did was hold the door. I was on the outside crying, and he was on the inside screaming. I would say, 'When you let go of the door and back up, I will let go of the handle out here. I am not locking it, but you are not coming out until you settle down.'"

Stewart taught his mother early in her motherhood that she'd better persevere while he's four feet three and 61 pounds, because someday he'll be five ten and 168 pounds, and much too strong for her to hold the door shut.

Other parents added resolve to their discipline with a one-time expenditure of effort designed to head off repeated future clashes. "Our twin boys would never stay in bed for their afternoon nap. They shared a bedroom with us and would climb out of their cribs, take the sheets and blankets off our bed, and pile them on the floor. They thought it was great sport to empty the dresser drawers. Finally, my husband made a top for their beds out of chicken wire, and they were forced to stay in bed. We thought that was better than scolding or spanking. This way, mom had more peace and quiet, and the boys got their afternoon nap." To good disciplinarians, consistency means more than initial follow-through. It means the willingness to put forth whatever energy is needed to ensure that fair discipline is carried out regardless of how much a youngster resists it.

Several parents emphasized that consistency is not rigidity. It is not stubbornly clinging to some overkill consequence blurted out in a discipline frenzy. "I have had it up to my eyeballs with you, young man. This is the third time today I've stumbled over your tennis shoes. You're grounded one month for each trip." Occasionally, as wise parents know, discipline needs to be logically reassessed, either to make it better suit the misdeed, or if a lesson has been learned.

Bob from Cleveland says, "There are times when I've gone back and modified my discipline. Sometimes I was confident the kids got my main message, or I saw that what I originally had imposed on them may have been too much, so I changed it."

In other words, getting back to the tennis shoes, instead of sticking to the three-month grounding―remember you'll have to live with Jordan underfoot for the duration―a one-dollar fine per incident might be levied. This is not backtracking on discipline. It's a genuine attempt to rectify an overreaction, and the firmest of disciplinarians are open to doing so. The basic discipline sticks; the particulars are adjusted.

Back to the Family Pages 202-204
Copyright © 1990 by In The Company of Kids
Villard Books New York 1990