STYLE

Well, I was reading the docs post on Second Life and it reminded me of something I dealt with this week on vacation. My 4 year old can be too rough with my 8 month old. I stopped midweek and thought about what I was doing wrong. Should I model the appropriate behavior? Should I have them brought together and ask him to do certain appropriate things? Should I be a hard disciplinarian and just smack him anytime he did something rough to her? I realized it is similar to teaching style, or better yet selecting the most appropriate "tool" to get him to learn. Maybe it is a combination of the above, maybe not. I think being a parent can be good practice for being a teacher, but I digress from where my thoughts were going.

Then I thought of the adoption training me and my wife are going through to adopt three girls. They mentioned Discipline vs Punishment. They said Punishment was meant to stop a behavior and Discipline was meant to meet the need of the child while stopping the behavior. I thought they were real close, but had to add something. I think Punishment is more about satisfying the Punisher. They are angry/embarrassed and want something done. Where Discipline is all about what is best for the kid. You want them to learn and grow into a good person.

I feel education is sometimes like that. We have tests and standards we need to meet. So we "punish" the kids and force them to learn the test. Instead we should "discipline" them and do what is best for them. We want them to learn and they want to learn. We should quit being scared of tests and standards. We need to stand up for the youth and do what is best for them.