Late Childhood (Ages 4–8)
Once your child has acquired the power to understand speech and to speak, you can provide an enormous amount of instructional discipline through verbal description and explanation. There are all kinds of how-to skills to master that teach a host of responsible behaviors — from dressing, to basic hygiene, to memorizing home address and phone number, to doing household chores, to following directions of many kinds.
In addition, during this time, you begin teaching two important foundations for later discipline — cooperation and responsibility. You teach the building blocks of cooperation by training the child in listening and attending, giving to get, keeping agreements, and being of service to the family. You teach the basis of responsibility by helping your child learn the relationship between choice and consequence, connecting a decision he makes with the outcome that follows.
For example, when she makes choices that you approve of, she gets a positive response from you. Likewise, if she makes a choice you do not approve of, she learns that she will receive a correction from you. “You can influence my reactions with your actions,” is the lesson you now start to teach.
You also get to work on helping your child learn to become a two-step thinker. Step one is the child's acting on what he or she wants based on impulse. Step two is delaying impulse long enough to apply judgment, to determine if it is really wise to act to satisfy that want. The two-step sequence you want your child to learn is to question his or her motivation: “Am I willing to wait long enough to think about what I want to do to make sure it is wise?”
ALERT!
A timeout can be a useful intervention. It removes the errant child from the problem situation, gives him time to think about his choice and the resulting consequence, and obliges him to talk out what he should do differently the next time before the timeout is over.
At this age, earning and counting systems can be powerful disciplinary tools with children. Earning systems give the child a way to earn specific rewards based on specific positive accomplishments. “Since you did all your chores on time this week, you have earned taking a friend out to eat this weekend.”
Counting systems put the child on notice with a warning that if her unwanted behavior continues for the full count of three, for example, then she will suffer a specific unwelcome consequence. The child is given a chance to change her behavior before you enforce the consequence.
