How to Discipline with Love During the Pandemic

Being a parent to small children is no easy feat – and learning how to discipline with love can take practice, patience and time!  Since the Coronavirus Outbreak in 2020, it’s no question that while we’ve all had to quarantine for the safety of all, some of us realised being around our immediate family members for an extended period of time may have created some tension.

For one, you may be able to see different behaviours from your children after being around them all day that you didn’t see before.  Additionally, some of their behaviours may be amplified due to the quarantine.

While disciplining your child with love may be far-fetched for some parents at times, it is crucial to be able to do this for your benefit and the benefit of all in your household.  Before we delve into methodologies of disciplining your child with love, let’s look at some of the distinct parenting styles.

Discipline with Love / Parenting Styles

Authoritarian

This parenting style focuses on harsher discipline, obedience and punishment in order to get the desired behaviour from a child.  An authoritarian parent often comes from the space, “My way or the highway.”  Here, a child’s opinion and/or feelings aren’t often considered.  Instead of encouraging a child to make better decisions, an authoritarian parent focuses more on making a child feel guilty for their mistakes in an effort to not have them repeat unwanted behaviour.  While this isn’t necessarily wrong, it does have its ramifications.  One downside to this is it could affect a child’s self-esteem.  This may eventually be expressed in many ways, including aggressiveness or hostility.

Authoritative

This parenting style focuses on creating rapport via a positive relationship while still keeping and enforcing rules.  An authoritative parent places an emphasis on communication with their child.  The child’s feelings and opinions are often taken into consideration.  They explain the rules, why the rules were put into place, and though they still discipline their child, there is an explanation so the child knows why they were disciplined.

Permissive

This parenting style doesn’t enforce the rules originally put into place.  A permissive parent doesn’t dish out consequences for a child’s actions as often as an authoritative or authoritarian.  One thing they may say over and over again is, “Kids will be kids,” as a justification for their child misbehaving or not listening to them.  Parents under this style will set rules, and when their child disobeys, they don’t enforce them or discipline them.

Some downsides of this include struggling academically, behavioural problems (they don’t recognise or follow rules), and social problems can also arise.  They may not respect their peers’ boundaries which could create challenges maintaining their friends later on.

Uninvolved

This parenting style provides little guidance, nurturing, or attention for the child.  An uninvolved parent is exactly that – uninvolved.  There isn’t a lot of time spent with their child, they don’t particularly show much interest in their child’s life and there are very little rules.

This isn’t always the parent’s fault – sometimes they are uneducated on parenting matters, or perhaps they have a lot of things on their mind like bills, work, etc.  Children with uninvolved parents often suffer from low self-esteem, they have little happiness, may exhibit behavioural problems, and may perform poorly in school.

While there isn’t an inherent right or wrong, there are pros and cons to the differing parenting styles.  That being said, let’s delve into the different disciplining styles.

How to Discipline with Love

There are ways you can discipline your child with love:  there are many benefits to this.  For one, you enforce your boundaries and two, you do so without affecting their self-esteem or self-confidence.

One way you can discipline with love is by taking the authoritative approach.  You listen to and consider where your child is coming from but still keep those boundaries in place.  There are many different ways of doing this, but the one way are going to go over is open communication.

Instead of punishing the truth, punish the concealment of truth.  This is easier said than done, and it takes a parent being present to the situation instead of simply reacting to what a child is saying or doing.  In fact, celebrating when your child tells the truth (even if it is something undesired like breaking a glass) can help them feel safe to be honest and open with you in the future.

In fact, one of the things we have in our household is something we call a “power tent.”  When my child comes to me with a piece of information she thinks will upset me, such as getting a lower grade on a test, she comes to me and says, “Mom, I need a power tent.” When I hear that word, I know it is time for me to put down whatever it is I am doing, get present, and listen to her openly without going into emotional reaction.

From here, we can talk about her test grade, what we can do to course-correct for the future, and troubleshoot any challenges she is having in that topic.  This way she feels safe to talk to me about situations that are uncomfortable – this can really come in handy in the future!  Especially when she is facing more tricky situations in primary or secondary school!

In summary, despite your disciplinary style, there are ways you can create a safe environment for you to enforce your rules and boundaries while still being there for your child.  Being an authoritative parent means you set and keep your boundaries while also giving your child the space to express themselves.

About Little Human Scholars Schools in PJ

Little Human Scholars is an all-in-one childcare solution.  It is a preschool, playschool, kindergarten, nursery and full-day daycare centre (with extended hours) located in the heart of PJ.

In fact, the location is one of the things which makes Little Human Scholars so sought after – it is conveniently nestled near Jalan Gasing, University hospital, PJ Old town, PJ New town, Jaya One, Jaya33, and the PJ IT Mall.

The best part is LHS school in PJ has premiere services many other schools in PJ don’t offer such as full-day daycare with extended hours, CCTV access for parents, and a nifty little phone app which provides parents with automatic updates on their child’s development, behaviour and health checks.

With full-time guards always present at each of their locations, access to CCTV (which is in every room except the office, bathroom and kitchen areas), and very strict pick-up and drop-off rules, Little Human Scholars treats every child who walks into its hallways as one of their own children!

This place has it all:  location, safety, health, IGSCE curriculum and play-based learning.  What more could you ask for?  Did I mention they also have transportation services and offer meal plans for students?  It doesn’t get any better than that.

If you are interested in a tour of one of our centres (that’s right, there’s more than one), all you need to do is fill out the form here or call +6017-7303-025 and an LHS administrative staff will get back with you shortly!

Cheers,