Teaching Self-Discipline

[Maquenzie]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and have concluded that some of the more important skills I'd like to teach my children are not academic. One, in particular, is self-discipline, because once they have that they will be able to accomplish anything. 

Anyone have specific plans for teaching self-disipline?

What are non-academic skills you are trying to impart?

[andreasro]

I like the thread.

Haven't thought it through though. Self-discipline was one of my main concerns years ago. I wanted to know how to control myself. There were times when I over-used control and self-control. Then, with experience, I took it easier and have been learning about it ever since. Daoist practices helped me a lot. But I wouldn't teach techniques to a child, just the attitude - mine and my husband's, till he is or feels ready for more and asks for it, for another type of teaching. That's what I'm trying to do and this is what we decided to do: teaching while being, teaching by doing while he's watching, while he's around us.

The way I see it now is that if I want to impart something non-academic than I should look into what and how I do, speak, act and react. We know that children feel even what we don't express by words - our emotions inside, for instance. I've been using both the good and the bad feelings, either with or without knowing it and I've watched his reactions to them.
My son imitates me. He's like my mirror. So if I repeat some actions he learns and does them too. Like being polite - saying "Thank you"-, or "Good morning" after waking up, for instance.

So I use that while being with him: being a model for him to learn from, to learn the things I believe are worth learning and having inside. This means working on my self-control, changing myself to become a model (I'll always be working on that :P ). And I also try not to forget that he has his own nature, one that will be uncovered in time, just like I have mine (which needed more self-control to achieve better results in life).

Just as an addition: There is one thing that I'm not sure of and have a lot of questions about: how early? How early can we teach them self-discipline? How early do we influence our children? Before birth? How much do I, as a mother, during pregnancy, influence the baby's attitude after birth? I tried to control myself as much as I could, not to be frightened or stressed etc. while being pregnant, though I had gone through many very stressful situations for quite a while. And our boy grew up fine, sociable, happy, open-hearted etc. Is/was there any connection?

Andrea

[TracyR4]

Andrea brings up a good point. I believe very much that children learn by seeing. If they see their parents as self disciplined people they will follow. There really isn't anything you can do with a curriculum or academically to teach them self control.  Show them self control by doing it yourself. Your child will model their behavoir after yours. Even if they don't they see you doing it.

I think its either something you figure out and do as a human being or you don't. I know some people who come from self disciplined families and are not at all self disciplined themselves.  I almost wonder if it has to do with more personality than what you learn.

[TmS]

Modelling good behaviour is always a good starting point for teaching children. Our son has taught himself to say please and thank you in the correct situations purely by having the behaviour modelled to him. We have never told him to say it or corrected him when he didn't say it. It is a beautiful thing to watch a two year old express genuine gratitude and because he genuinely feels it, understands and wants to express it.

The thing about self control is that it is an internal function so while we can model the behaviour children watching aren't actually getting all the information they need to draw the right conclusions. So yes model it but also describe it - "mummy would love to eat all that chocolate at once but that would be greedy so I'll just have one piece" is well within their grasp especially if it is expressed repeatedly over time.

However this wont be enough as in order to execute self control or discipline you first have to have self awareness. Something that grows throughout life and let's face it even as adults we have moments where we don't understand our own reactions to things while we're in the moment because we perhaps don't know ourselves as well as we might think or our thoughts are clouded by heightened emotions.

Helping your child understand their emotions and their impacts on people and the consequences of their actions is the first step to making them self aware once they are self aware they can exhibit self control.

My son already has remarkable self control not just for a two year old but generally, having said that he's two so any time he's highly emotional or tired or hungry that self control dissipates. But these moments are getting fewer and farther between as he starts to understand a wider range of emotions and what causes them and how he reacts to them.

The thing about most parents (as a teacher I've seen it over and over) is that they have all these expectations one common one is "I expect my child to be respectful to adults"   a noble wish and something we all want our children to have. The problem is that most of the time we force the behaviours onto them much like we force them to say please and thank you and the problem with this is that it is often behaviour done to please the caregiver or avoid punishment and does not help the child to understand the whys or get to know his own feelings or make his own decisions or learn from his own mistakes.

While letting your child make mistakes for himself can be difficult (not to mention embarrassing when it comes to social behaviours) at least you are giving your child the opportunity to know why he is behaving a certain way. For instance "when you told grandad to go away today that hurt his feelings. You were upset with grandad and should ask grandad to stop when he is annoying you" (can you tell this is a common one in our house?) Obviously as they get older you can describe more and more and they can understand more and more. It develops empathy and self awareness and responsibility for the consequences of their own actions.

We have a no reaction policy in our house. So our reactions our always very controlled and measured and we always explain what we are feeling and why. It is difficult to allow your child to embarrass you and themselves, or to fail at things but they learn so much more from the situation when they are allowed to discover it for themselves with just a guiding dialogue and not just a bunch of rules and regulations about how to act.

While it was hard at first to let him learn from his own life with just our guidance it is getting easier not to interfere and he is thriving and makes us proud more often than not and it is sweeter because we proud of decisions he makes for himself not proud of him for doing what we have told him he should do.

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