This is a topic that my husband and I discuss at length, sometimes late into the night. How do you discipline an intelligent child? We agreed long before she was born that we would never use any form of violence...no spanking, no swatting. Studies show that violence teaches violence and we want Beth to understand that violence is never the answer to any question. If we want peace in the world, we need to teach children that the best way to resolve a disagreement is through discussion, open-mindedness, and mutual understanding, not violence. So, we agreed when Beth was born that we would use the “Time-Out” method of discipline.
Time-Out gives Beth some quiet time to rethink and understand her actions (or lack thereof) and think about her choices. We are very big on choices. My husband is very good, both with his students and Beth, about discussing how choices can affect people and can have consequences. (He says every Friday to his classes of high school Seniors, “Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!”) He always stops Beth, before she does something wrong like throwing a toy, and calmly asks her, “Is throwing Elmo a good choice or a bad choice?”. He explains that throwing the toy will not accomplish anything, will not fix the problem,and might break the toy. Then he explains that the good choice is to ask for help or put the toy away, or whatever the appropriate thing to do happens to be. Nine time out of ten, Beth calms down and makes the good choice.
The problem occurs when we get one of those one-out-of-ten situations. Like when Beth was three and got upset that I wouldn’t let her play another game before dinner. In frustration, she tried to hit me. I stepped out of reach, but recognized what she had done. She was sent to Time-Out for three minutes (remember their attention span is only as many minutes as they are years old, so three minutes for a three-year-old). Time-Out means she has to sit on the love-seat in her bedroom all by herself without any toys.
We hover outside her bedroom door the whole time she is in Time-Out, ready to rush in if she gets too upset. In this particular instance, she was fine. At the end of the three minutes, we went in to talk with her. My husband, James, crouched down and looked Beth in the eye. “I want to know if you know why you have been in Time-Out?” he asked. Beth replied, “What I want to know is, why is this couch so comfortable?!?” Her delivery was impeccable. I completely lost it. I had to put my head down on the couch, I was laughing so hard. My whole body was shaking, and tears of silent laughter were raining from my eyes. I have no idea how James kept a straight face, but he very calmly put a hand on my back and said, “See, Beth, you’re making Mommy sad because you don’t feel bad about trying to hit her.” I finally pulled myself together and lifted my head. Beth, upon seeing the tears rolling down my cheeks, got sad and apologised. I told her that I was upset that she tried to hit me, but that I forgave her We hugged her and went off to dinner. I’m not saying guilt is the best tool to use, but I am glad it worked that time. I really have no idea how I would have handled the situation by myself, or what we would have done had James not thought so quickly. I mean, obviously, Beth had been thinking while in Time-Out, but definitely not about what we needed her to think about.
We had another similar situation this evening. As a four-year-old, Beth has been having trouble “turning on her listening ears” and ignores us the first two or ten times we ask her to do something (especially something she doesn’t want to do, like take a bath). She had been asked four times to please go to her bathroom and start getting ready for bath. When she ignored my husband for the fifth time, he finally looked at her and said, “Beth! I don’t know what to do to make you listen. What will help you listen better?!?” Beth enthusiastically replied, “Cheese!!!” Once again, I failed in my duties of being the adult and had to dive behind the kitchen counter to hide my laughter. My husband glared at me over the counter while explaining to Beth that we were not going to give her cheese to make her listen to us.
My mom, who was a Kindergarten teacher before she retired, told me that we needed to try rewarding the good behavior, rather than always punishing bad behavior. We have tried a sticker chart for good behavior, and it worked to a point. As long as we were at home, and could give her the sticker immediately, the sticker chart was great. But, when we were out in public and didn’t have the chart nearby, or when my aunt is watching her, the sticker chart just wasn’t as appealing. So far, the only thing that really worked for us was using Santa Claus as leverage from about Halloween through Christmas. It wasn’t something I was especially proud of, but one mention of having to send Santa a message and tell him Beth wasn’t being good this year, and she was perfect. Too bad we can’t use Santa all year round!
Sometimes I am at a complete loss on how to deal with this child. She is so intelligent that most of the time we can reason with her like we would an adult and she understands and responds correctly. I think that might be what makes it more difficult when she actually acts her age and throws a tantrum or acts out like a four-year-old. Our biggest challenge right now is listening to instructions and doing things the first (or even second or third) time we ask. I don’t know how many more times we can ask her not to use the sofa as a trampoline. If you have a magical trick that works, please leave it in the comments! We would love to hear what works for other intelligent kids. What do you do to discipline your intelligent child in a way that they understand and learn?
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