Stress-Free Discipline

 Backtalk is any non-compliant speech or behavior. Backtalk includes making faces, flattery, helplessness, denial, blaming, accusing, excusing, insults and profanity.[1]

All back talk has the same goal, whether it is confrontational or not. The goal is parent—or teacher—control: gaining power and attention.

Backtalk is any noncompliant behavior

Which of the following statements applies to inmates in correctional institutions (jails)?

1. …tries to “butter you up in order to get favors.”

2. …may fake illness to get what they want.

3. …tries to change the subject to avoid consequences.

4. …flatters, acts friendly, inflates your ego to make you emotionally dependent on his or her approval.

5. …does favors for you in order to manipulate you into breaking or changing rules.

6. …asks to be excused just this one time; won’t do it again.

7. …tries to get different people to say “yes” when the answer is always “no” in order to follow rules.

8. …tries to fast talk–guide–you  into ignoring rules.

9. …will take advantage of your depression, carelessness or other weakness.

10. ..tries to get you on an equal basis rather than allow you to be the boss.

11. ..hates being told what to do.

Yes, all of the above are “games inmates play” to get you to lose focus, give them your authority, and take control without responsibility for consequences.

Is it a coincidence that these behaviors start in childhood? Are you rewarding your child’s wrong choices by falling for this stuff?

Discipline is consistent consequences.

If a child gets away without consequences, we are rewarding bad behavior. We only help him or her to perfect his manipulative skills such as those above, drama and lying.

The above behaviors were all taken from The Art of the Con: Avoiding Offender Manipulation, by Gary Cornelius, published by The American Correctional Association, Alexandria, Virginia.

Stress-free Discipline gives a step-by-step plan to relieve stress on you and your child while keeping gentle pressure on the child to make right choices.

It is up to us.  We can choose to have optimal (the best) health or just-getting-by health–the best parenting skills or just-getting-by parenting skills.  Stress-free Discipline teaches optimal parenting.

Remember, what’s OK is the enemy of what’s best.

“Watching television for two to three hours or more per day is linked to significantly higher risks of developing diabetes and heart disease and dying from all causes, according to a new analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health.” (June 15, Journal of the American Medical Association.)

If it were just health, some parents would ignore the need to change TV habits.  But wait! Thinking ability is also at risk here.

A New Yorker study indicates that “A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some…a reader and a viewer even think differently.” (Crain, 2007, 135)

 In several cited studies, illiterates resisted giving definitions of words, grouping like objects, and making logical inferences about hypothetical situations. (Crain, 2007, 137) Moreover, “in an oral culture, cliché and stereotype are valued as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon…” (Crain, 138) 

Detailed and consistent decline in reading and thus in thinking ability have been reported by the National Endowment for the Arts…

It is much harder to compare viewpoints and ideas between streaming media than to analyze the written word.

Juxtaposed images give the impression of cause and effect where none exists. Logical thinking and learning words become a strain.  Social and communication skills suffer.  Experienced teachers and social workers have noted the trend.  Teamwork, highly valued in the global marketplace and in parenting, is suffering.

According to the scholars Jack Goody and Ian Watt, Crain says, (2007, 138) “it is only in a literate culture that the past’s inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth.”  My experience on the Navajo Reservation corroborates all of the above.

Recall is also enhanced by reading, as opposed to merely viewing. Moreover, viewers from the age of eight to sixteen months begin loosing word power for every hour of baby DVD’s and videos they watch daily, according to Crain.

Data on more than a million students worldwide by Micha Razel “found ‘little room for doubt’ that television worsened performance in reading, science and math.” (Crain, 2007, 138)

The N.E.A. reported recently that “readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theatre, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteer.” (Crain, 2007, 139)  

If parents cannot read, their children will not be encouraged to learn more than the minimum to get by.  Thus, each generation will become more ignorant.

Apply the Bingo test:  is reading, good health and the ability to live a richer, fuller life worth changing your TV habits? 

The Navy has a saying useful in setting priorities:  Considering the end result, is what I am doing now worth giving my life for?  Bingo means Yes!  Let us consider the end result of one of our many activities.  What is the end result of watching TV five hours a day?  

Oh yes, we do need to relax from a stressful day of work, and TV will reward us with entertainments which either stimulate or sedate us…just like addictions will. 

According to Dr. Archibald Hart, writing in Healing Life’s Hidden Addictions, “…two basic drives or fundamental needs can be behind all addictions:  excitement seeking and tension reducing…These two drives are directly related to the two basic categories of drugs (stimulants and tranquilizers)…” (p. 57)

 These psychological needs play a “significant role even in non-chemical addictions.”

Hart says that “Since the function of an addiction is to place a buffer between ourselves and our awareness of feelings, wrenching the buffer away results in increased anxiety…”  Hmmm.  How uncomfortable do we get  when we miss our favorite program?  How many of us are truly listening to our children or our body or our felt needs during those hypnotic sessions with streaming media or facebook? 

Do we really need exercise after being chained to a computer all day, or a couch potatoe session?  Do we need real rest or merely a change of activity?

Moms, Dads, and teachers:  Stress-free Discipline of our children will relieve our stress as it happens, and it will provide rewarding, consistent consequences for our children’s right and poor choices of the day (or period).  The reward is time spent with us on educational, interpersonal activities.  Those activities may be a game of basketball ourtside, spell-down baseball inside, or learning good manners at a nice restaurant!

Let’s apply the Bingo test to those activities.  Is what I am doing now building skills and bonding and family teamwork for the long term?  Teachers, are your present choices of stress-relief really working for your body?

self-discipline, child discipline, happiness, healthy relationships, self-control, family breakdown.

Personal financial hardship is only one cost of  divorce. 

According to CitizenLink.org, a study done by the Institute for American Values has found that the breakdown of families costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion yearly.  The national, state and local costs–which add up to more than $1 trillion over the last decade–are caused, in part, by high poverty rates of single, female-headed households, which lead to higher spending on welfare, criminal justice and education programs.” (Williams, 2008, 1) 

What could the government do with a trillion dollars to create jobs and a better quality of life?  What could parents do with a little more in their bank account and lower taxes for preventable problems?  This is not rocket science.  It has to do with self-control and intelligent work toward family health.

The human cost of family breakup cannot be calculated.  While the average mother looses quality of life as she enters the ranks of the poor, there are many hidden costs.  If she got a divorce wanting control and freedom, her impulse control problems have bad consequences.  She is so overwhelmed with an additional work load–an impossible blend of the need to provide adequate income and good parenting–that she is unable to discipline her children or teach them essential skills. 

Happiness research by Dr. Ed. Diener of the University of Illinois indicates that we are most happy when our ability and the task at hand are closely matched.(see www.psych.uluc.edu/~ediener/research/research.html).  Poor parents can only be miserable, single parents are all stressed, and both children and parents suffer the kind of pressures which lead to poor health, depression, dysfunction, violence and full-blown mental illness. Read the rest of this entry »

Why then, call this process of salvation a “loop?”  Matthew provides an ongoing loop of events which continues after our salvation.  That chain of events is our sanctification.  We must follow the same process as we face hardships that we first walked through on our faith journey to salvation. 

Spiritual warfare is working against the passive “now I’m saved, I don’t have to do anything” attitude.

Hardships end up in one of two possibilities:  either we choose to submit ourselves to God’s vision for our lives, passing through the trials with His help, or we choose to cave in to temptation, which leads us away from God.  The same loop of events—OODA—is repeated each time we face hardships. 

Hardships are either trials or temptations, depending upon our choice to walk with Christ or to depend on our own flawed understanding.  First, we have to see the truth of our situation through God’s eyes or our own eyes, through humble dependence on God or prideful rebellion (Mt. 5:3-4).  When we are sad because of our sin, we receive the blessing of comfort in forgiveness.  We will then have observed truly or we will have fallen for satanic lies. 

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s a symbol for?  Do people merely react to symbols? Can they recognize how symbols move our feelings, motivating us to act, and then can people thoughtfully consider whether their action is right or not? 

Symbols are a brain short-cut: they bypass thinking

Because the flag of the United States is a symbol of all our history, struggles and victories, we have great feeling when we see it.  Groups of symbols can quietly manipulate our feelings into, for example, buying a car because it is advertised with a beautiful woman who lovingly touches it.  Our subconscious mind thinks, “chick magnet!”  Desire is aroused by a symbolic association, without words and without appeals to logic. Read the rest of this entry »

Your action or inaction, planning or failure to plan, all sum up your legacy to your children.

Consider my legacy from my biggest career challenge: teaching delinquents at an alternative high school on the Navajo Reservation. I prayed for weeks and got very frustrated before I was offered that job.  Than I didn’t know if I should accept it. 

I wanted a job where I could express my faith and lead students in meaningful ways.  Should I say “yes?” 

 After three days of especially intensive prayer by my pastor and friends, I dreamed an odd name.: Zerubbabel.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is your child really the most important person after God and your spouse? How do your priorities line up? If streaming and social media consume four or more hours of your time each day, how are your children going to learn effective life skills?

Effective life skills are those things everyone has to do–to be an effective adult–or pay someone else to do them. The teaching job required for this list of chores takes time and plenty of work.  It is ongoing, frustrating, lasts a lifetime and is worth every minute of your self-sacrifice.

If your child can do those adult chores fast and well, he or she will be happy, according to “happiness research.” How many of the following adult chores are you planning to teach your child…or how many of them have you mastered? Here’s a list of adult responsibilities which—if you are skillful—will make you a happy adult.  Unplug from the TV and plug into life.

Parent’s Duty and Skill List (Frame this and hang it in plain sight.  Review it often with your child when you assign chores to yourself and children.) Read the rest of this entry »

Stress-Free Discipline gives you tested, unique, time-saving tools for tots-to-teens discipline!

This step-by-step plan not only reduces stress, it builds life-long love, teamwork, life skills and responsibility.

• Five expectation sets are realistic, gradually building complex skills.
• Children master adult skills almost painlessly.
• They are rewarded for every right choice.
• Negatives are minimized, releasing energy for building and bonding.
• Motivational rewards are simple, fun and educational.
• Parents and children grow accountable in a bond of love.

Endorsements

William C. Reeves, Ph.D. Human Behavior writes: “Stress Free Discipline presents some great ideas that have been successfully used to help children mature.  Setting up positive rewards for good behavior is presented as the best way to help children learn self discipline and appropriate behavior.  Children are also presented with the reality that poor behavior results in unwanted consequences for them.  Behavior is tracked by a point system that allows the child to understand the results of both good and improper actions.”

Charles Jeter, Combat Veteran, Software Engineer writes:  “Stress Free Discipline has valuable strategy and rules of engagement.”

John Demas, attorney writes:  “Stress Free Discipline has worked with my children.  Judith has a gift.”

Gary Kirk, pastor, publisher, counselor writes: “As the father of a son with special needs, I feel your book should be required reading for everyone involved in an IEP—educators and parents alike…From many years of being a small group pastor and counselor, I consistently see the need for parents to find the kind of equipping that you have offered in your book.”

Contact Judith to purchase the book ($17.95 + shipping), or contact legacylinepublishing.com.

When families malfunction they may not know how to do target correction.  Do not play the blame game!  Use win-win techniques.

Agree on some ground rules for your quarrels. 

Quality Progress (Redmond, 2007, 80) moves people closer to a solution in 60 minutes with four basic tools. Redmond’s suggestions are similar to those made by Richard Feder and John Mitchell nineteen years earlier in a ‘4-day task force’ (1988, August).

Rule 1 – Agree on time management

Both sources argue for the restriction of time as a key to efficiency.  While some problems may require more urgency, sixty minutes is an arbitrary time in which Redmond demonstrates problem solving.

Please do not vent for hours without allowing some kind of decision to be made.  Repeating your beef over and over just makes your family more “hard of hearing” each time you speak. 

It is hard to respect someone who chooses not to be rational.  Vent to an older friend who can talk with you like your grandmother might.  They’ve been down that road and have seen what works or does not work.

The following are simple, but not easy ground rules for problem solving.

Read the rest of this entry »