Parents worry every day about how their children will grow up and what effects their discipline styles may have on them.
The exercise of parental discipline is essentially the parents way of creating or neglecting to create order in the life of their child and the extent to which they succeed or fail in using discipline to lay the basis for the socialization of their child. To a greater or lesser extent parental discipline is a manifestation of a parent’s attitude towards their child.
Research has shown that girls are perhaps slightly more affected by poor parental discipline than boys. A low socio-economic level can promote poor parental discipline as parents are distracted by the daily grind of their lives. Research also brought to light the fact that poor parental discipline can develop attitudes in the child’s personality, which may predispose him to delinquent and even criminal behaviour.
Where there is a lack of co-operation between parents in disciplining their children, no permanent authority can be established as parental influence suffers because the children reject parental authority and lose respect for their parents. In these circumstances children can play one parent off against the other as one parents allows what another may forbid. In these circumstances there can be little positive parental discipline. The trick is to work together and differ in private.
Nonetheless to talk about “poor” parental discipline is not adequate. It is vital to distinguish between the different discipline styles or disciplinary approaches and highlight the effect of these different approaches on the deviant behaviour of juveniles.
INDIFFERENT DISCIPLINE
Indifferent discipline means that the parents’ discipline has little effect on their children’s behaviour. The parents adopt a “don’t care” attitude and simply cannot be bothered to enforce discipline. Their discipline style often typifies their attitude to and way of life. The children are for the most part left to themselves. Indifferent discipline is often revealed in poor parental supervision which correlates strongly with parental criminality and with a low socio-economic level. Frenzel found that the first form of parental neglect of duty towards the child appeared in careless supervision. These parents do little to guide their children and keep them out of harms way. The children do as they please, while parents are unconcerned with who they associate with or what influences they are exposed too. Children perceive permissive discipline as parental weakness and frequently exploit it.
Indifferent discipline is primarily related to delinquency among girls. Frequently the girl lacks nothing materially, however the vital emotional contact between the girl child and her parents is lacking and she does not receive the attention and emotional support she needs. This may result in her seeking support and security from less than ideal peers and even result in promiscuous behaviour as she seeks the desired contact.
Indifferent discipline is largely related to the immaturity of one or both parents. Typical of an emotionally immature person (the grown up child) is his inability to accept his or her responsibilities and do his duty in a conscientious manner. These people are essentially selfish, having never outgrown their childhood. They prefer to defer responsibility to others and as a result, as marriage partners or parents, emotionally immature people often show deficient self-control and self discipline.
Permissive behaviour seems to be more common today than it was in the past. Children often complain that their parents are more restrictive than those of their friends. Children become independent at a younger age and leave home earlier than they once did. The internet has opened up many avenues and children have instant accesses to resources, good and bad, exposing them to many dangerous influences, with disastrous consequences Although the prevailing permissiveness is no excuse for neglectful discipline it certainly makes the exercise of parental discipline more challenging.
INCONSISTENT DISCIPLINE
The most common manifestation of inconsistent discipline is for a parent allow, at any given moment, a behaviour which he/she has always forbidden. Because the discipline exercised shows no continuity or consistency the child has no idea where he stands. Having no stable or consistent behaviour pattern the child develops a sense of insecurity and confusion, which may predispose him to deviant behaviour. A striking feature of inconsistent discipline is the alternation of excessive permissiveness and extreme punishment. Criminological researches believe that this type of discipline is likely to have the worst effects on children, as it cannot cultivate stable self control and consistent behaviour in children and results in confusion of values.
Consistent discipline in a loving environment plays an important part in the transmission of values and to a stable attitude to life and can counteract even the influence of a criminal father.
EXCESSIVE DISCIPLINE
Discipline is considered excessive when punishment is immoderate, extreme or too strict. There are times where discipline is so excessive that the personality of the child is repressed. More sensitive children in a family are prone to feel the effects of excessive discipline more strongly. This can result in them feeling rejected and alone. Skabern├®’s research has shown, that to a great extent, the parents of juvenile delinquents resort to severe physical punishment, indicating their inability to use positive methods of reinforcement to guide their children. He believes this is one of the factors conducive to the high incidence of aggressive behaviour among delinquents.
Cruel discipline also has adverse effects and causes rebellion which induces an aggressive attitude in children. Many parents mistakenly view cruelty as firmness and turn to physical violence as an acceptable method of discipline. Excessive discipline is often coupled with extreme or excessive emotion and is related to an increased probability of deviant behaviour in juveniles. It has been established that excessive disciplinary methods employed by mothers has extremely detrimental effects. In households where the mother, is a single mother, with the accompanying stresses of her occupational and domestic duties and there is no father figure present, she is often excessively strict with her children and out of frustration may use brutal physical punishment for transgressions of her rules. Stressed parents are less likely to reason with their children about poor behaviour or to praise their good behaviour.
Excessive discipline, especially when it comes in the form of severe corporal punishment, can humiliate the child or juvenile to the point where he becomes hostile towards his parents. The parental and family bond is thus seriously damaged. Additionally this type of discipline can so undermine a child’s personality development that he may end up with no will of his own, become easily influenced and will struggle with finding a self chosen direction in life. He may never develop a feeling of independence and will have seriously compromised self confidence, causing problems with his interactions with others, including his friends and with integration into his community at large.
INDULGENT DISCIPLINE
Next we examine indulgent discipline in which children are spoilt. These children are given everything their hearts desire, but, above all they always get their own way. These children often abuse their parents indulgence, becoming more and more demanding and increasingly rejecting any form of parental discipline. In the end they grow up virtually devoid of discipline. The wilder they become, the milder the discipline becomes.
Redlich, a criminological researcher, found in her study of delinquent girls that spoiling had a significant criminogenic significance. She refers specifically to girls who always get what they want, where people time and again defer to them and who are given no responsibilities within the families in which they are raised. These girl’s parents explain away poor school results and other unacceptable behaviour. The girls know they can obtain anything they want, including pocket money from their parents and as a result they lack goals and direction in life. When they leave school they often continue to exploit their parents often resorting to violence and threats to satisfy their needs and desires. They do the same with other others expecting instant gratification from everyone they encounter.
Spoiling is often strikingly obvious is wealthy families. These children’s desires are often met even before they even utter them. This can result in the child developing a sense of boredom and aimlessness in his/her life and in his/her relations with others. These children frequently feel their lives are empty and cannot satisfy them.
Spoilt children grow up selfish with an inadequate sense of responsibility. This impedes their socialization and integration into the community where society expects them to assume specific responsibilities and where they have to accept the rights of others, and where they cannot always get their own way, a concept which they totally fail to grasp.
OVER-PROTECTIVE DISIPLINE
Lastly there is a type of discipline which amounts to over-protective discipline. Discipline is such that this child, even when he/she is grown up, always remains the baby to his parents, especially to his/her mother. This is known as infantilizing discipline in which mothering, among other things continues throughout the child’s life. This approach to discipline is common in only children as well as in the lastborn child especially if there is a large gap in ages between siblings. This approach to discipline can retard the juveniles personality development by depriving him/her of the full opportunity and the necessary freedom to become independent and to live his own life. This may result in the child being so unsure of himself and so lacking in confidence that his socialization is impaired. Additionally the juvenile’s integration into structured society is handicapped by a lack of independence required of him. This is most commonly found in boys who’s mothers have been guilty of infantilizing discipline. These boys often rebel and become indifferent to their parents.
They frequently rebel aggressively in order to counteract being seen by society as “sissy’s” or “mommy’s boy’s”. This unfortunately does not increase their chances of successful integration into society in general. Girls similarly rebel because the over-protection conflicts with the maturing of the girl, at the very time when she is going forward into a life of her own. She will naturally rebel against being held back while she watches her peers being allowed the freedom to grow.
However you approach discipline in your family it is important that you consider the consequences of your approach on your children. If you are concerned, don’t be afraid to seek the necessary counseling form a professional. Don’t ever see this step as a failure but as an opportunity to grow as a parent, providing your child with the opportunity to fulfill his full potential in life.
Should your child be exhibiting behaviors consistent with juvenile delinquency or criminality we can assist. To this end Attorney Tshepiso Lediretse and I have established a consulting firm – Expert Profiling contactable on Tel: 390 9957. Additionally you follow me on Twitter on @LauriePieters
