Rule 3 for Discipline—Teach Self-Control

In the last post, we met Billy, who openly defied his mom’s instruction to put the cookie back in the jar. What does it take to place a warm, sweet-smelling, chocolaty cookie in a jar rather than a mouth? Self-control. Lots of it. A little boy will not, cannot, put the cookie back unless he’s been taught how to deny himself and do what he’s told.

To teach obedience—teach self-control. In so doing you make obedience the habit of your home—your child’s natural response to your loving instruction.

How do we do it? Never allow your child to disobey a direct order or a standing rule.

You can stop laughing now.

As the mom of eight strong-willed children, I get how hard this is. Yet, to normalize obedience, we need this standard.

Every interaction we have with our children normalizes something. We normalize healthy communication or yelling. We normalize encouragement or discouragement. As we give commands—we will either allow our child to disobey or require them to obey. If we consistently choose to require our child to do what we asked when we asked, we teach our child to control themselves to follow instructions. In this, we normalize obedience.

Billy’s mom told him he couldn’t have the cookie he snagged before lunch and to put it back in the jar. Instead, Billy shoved it into his mouth. No self-control. How do we get a different outcome?

Begin young. As soon as your child can understand your words, require her to follow direct commands. If you call your toddler to come for a diaper change, require her to come to you. You can tease, play, repeat the instruction, or whatever system works with your child—but she must come to you. If she runs the other direction or ignores you, go get her by the hand and walk her back to where you began and change her diaper saying, "You must come to me when I call." UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you take the diaper and go to her—that normalizes disobedience. Normalize obedience—require your direct instructions be followed. Every time.

Use breaks. Once children get beyond the toddler stage, Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller of National Center for Biblical Parenting offer a strategy that takes requiring obedience a step further. If child doesn’t immediately comply with a direct order, or complies but with a lousy attitude, give them a break.

In the cookie scenario, Mom would say, “Billy, you just ate a cookie after I told you not to. I want you to go to the next room and take a break. When you are ready to listen to me, you can come back.”

This isn’t normal time-out. In time-out parent sends child to a corner or their room for a set time and then calls him back. The child passively waits for parent to say when they are free. Because parent remains in control of the length of the time-out, child has little incentive to contemplate his conduct or how to fix it.

With a break, Billy is in the break until he is ready to cooperate with parent. This gives incentive to the child to get himself under control and ready to obey. It allows him the time for a breather if angry, time to contemplate his attitude if sorry, and time to mentally catch up to all his disobedience may cost. Once he’s ready to deal with the situation, he returns.

Then you repeat the situation giving child the opportunity to obey. Odd as it may seem, you say something along the lines of, “Billy, I want you to take a cookie out of the cookie jar. I’m going to give you another chance to obey.” When he takes the cookie out, tell him to put the cookie back until after lunch. When he returns the cookie, he experiences forcing himself to comply with your direct order which normalizes obedience. Then, release him—say something like, “Thank you, Billy. Go play, and I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”

If Billy seems genuinely repentant, this is unusual conduct, or you’re just beginning to use the break—the break can be the sole consequence. He still gets his after-lunch cookie. If defiance is more entrenched, you may add a punishment on top of the break such as, “I’m sorry Billy—if you had listened and put the cookie back the first time, you could have had two after lunch. But, your disobedience means you won’t have another.”

Whether you tell your children to pick up their toys, begin their homework, or bring you the telephone—require your child to do what you said within the time-frame you set. When you consistently require obedience—you teach self-control, the foundation of all the rest of the parenting work you will do. The foundation of engaging life as a mature, healthy adult.

To create a healthy home—teach your children self-control.