My gifted preschool aged child is unusually difficult to discipline.  What has worked for those of you "been-there-done-that" parents?

My daughter is now much easier to discipline than when she was younger. But I remember the most frustrating thing about her for a long time was that I would carry her to time out and she would just giggle and smile while I carried her, and then would sit happily for the duration, not phased at all. We used Mommy Timeout for a long time, and that seemed to have more impact on her. (Mommy goes into a room and closes the door, leaving her alone.) Now that she's older she is devastated by a timeout. I think it was a phase that she went through, but timeout works great now.

With our bright kids, I do think discipline is more of a challenge. I know some people thought I was crazy for using timeouts as early as I did, but I knew she NEEDED some kind of discipline. Some other stuff I use: 1. First, of course, always set clear consistent guidelines about what is and isn't acceptable. 2. Set my based on what I know she personally can handle and understand.  3. 123. She has till I count to 3 to comply, and if she doesn't, timeout. 4. Redirection rarely works for her. She's too intent on what she's doing, and not fooled into changing activities. 5. We worked really hard on teaching her consequences, and she picked it up faster than we expected. When she was really young, we said things like, "If you take shoes off, then NOOOO bye bye to the park." We said it repeatedly, and would start to walk away and do something else if she started to take off her shoes. She caught on really fast. Now we use that all the time.
Posted by Melody_mom, 9-18-2000
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We've gradually become more and more committed to a non-punitive discipline strategy. Partly because it produces a less conflict-ridden home, partly because I believe it is more respectful of the children's point of view and partly because, like you, we discovered that punishment never worked terribly well. My kids were always perfectly content to accept punishment as the price to be paid for misbehaviour, and in fact it seemed to increase their determination to misbehave, in order to prove that the controlling strategy their parents were attempting to exert held no sway over them. One solution would have been to drastically escalate the punishments to try to "break their wills", but that didn't feel right. I knew from my experience with my eldest that her will was made of iron, so breaking it would not be a pretty (or an especially permanent) thing. And besides, if I decided to not sweat a little problem, the kids tended to become more reasonable and better behaved about things, rather than the opposite. The more control I attempted to exert, the more misbehaviour I got, and the opposite was quite clearly true as well.

So despite dire warnings from people about the importance of teaching respect and showing kids they're not in control, that parents are "boss", I followed my instincts and resorted to empathy, understanding, preventive strategies, and co-operative problem-solving. Where necessary (if a behaviour was seriously dangerous or directly harming others) I would intervene to enforce my standards, but I would not generally follow that up with a contrived negative consequence designed to punish.

I attempt to guide my kids to grow in their capacity for empathy, so that they will choose to behave "acceptably" through a desire to live happily with themselves and respect the feelings of others. That empathy grows more naturally, at least in my family, in an environment where my husband and I are non-authoritarian in our approaches.

We don't sweat the little stuff. And most of it's little stuff. If the little one is climbing on the dining room table, I don't say "no, get down!" I think, hmm, it's a strong table, I'll just move the flowers off and remind her to stay away from the edge; when she's a little older the thrill will wear off if I don't make it a big deal. If my three-year-old is sitting on the living room floor cutting out construction paper shapes with scissors, I don't say "no, not on the floor, it'll make a big mess." I realize he's comfortably involved in what he's doing, and in the long run having him happily occupied for an hour is going to *increase* the productivity of my day. Cleanup will only take 3 or 4 minutes.

If my kids are consistently doing things that upset me or worry me or require my intervention, then I try to "manipulate the environment, not the child". When my youngest was ten months old and always emptying the bookshelves, rather constantly admonishing her not to, we just packed all the less-used books in boxes, emptying the bottom two shelves except for a bin of board books. When my then-almost-five-year-old was awakening at 2 am and playing the stereo in her bedroom, waking up her little brother night after night, I just matter-of-factly removed the power cord at bedtime every night, returning it each morning.

Sometimes the demands of "proper" behaviour are just developmentally beyond kids, even though they might be able to understand intellectually what is expected. This is especially likely to be the case if the child is intellectually precocious. Then there tends to be a significant mismatch between intellectual capacity and impulse-control. I figure it's only sensible to cut the kid a little slack until the impulse control and empathy catch up to the curiosity and intellect. In my experience, by avoiding turning the discipline thing into a perpetual power struggle, that "catching up" happens naturally. Children really do want to be good human beings.

I recently had a strip torn off me on another board for suggesting that fear was not a necessary parenting tool, that non-authoritarian parenting was effective at teaching respect. I hope, therefore, that you'll read this post as just my opinion, something I believe strongly in, but not something I'm proclaiming as the one true path to raising fine children. It works for our family, that's all I'm saying. Good luck, whatever path you choose!
Posted by Ensmom3, 9-18-2000
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I have found the "Raising Your Spirited Child" books really helpful (there is now a workbook, too). My 2 1/2 year old son is gifted and spirited and some of the qualities overlap. It is important to acknowledge that these children are more difficult to parent and that you won't receive sympathy from just anyone. We used to get all kinds of comments about how we needed to be firmer with our son, make him do more things, etc. Well, that advice might work for other kids, but not for children who absorb more, feel more, and think more. I have to add that we have a wonderful pediatrician who says she thinks raising gifted children is sometimes more challenging than raising a child with developmental delays. I just want to offer some supportive words to moms and dads who feel overwhelmed by their kids. Your feel overwhelmed because they can be overwhelming. But they are worth the effort to find out what ways to parent them. I think gifted kids need more freedom and more choices. Limit what rules you are going to enforce and then strictly enforce them. I have noticed a big change in the last month in how my son and I relate. I have to remind myself that he is still a baby...
Posted by Maryab, 4-6-2000

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