Discipline or Freedom or Habits
In many families there is a lot of focus on discipling kids. Generally disciplined kids are considered good kids and kids which have less discipline are considered bad kids. In some families the thinking is opposite. They say that kids can do anything because they are just kids. They will learn themselves when they will grow up. Which of the 2 thought processes is correct?
Having discipline makes a kid the darling of teachers. That helps in getting better education and marks. That generally helps in a better career although a good career depends on many variables. Good disciplined kids generally raise the esteem of parents in the society although few people also think that such kids are being dictatorially controlled.
Generally it is bad to control kids dictatorially since that kills the curious nature of the kid. It also kills a kid’s power to take new initiatives. Power to take new initiatives is essential in the digital age when we require entrepreneurs, creative people and people who can work in startups or with startups.
On the other hand kids who are not controlled in the childhood generally get used to controlling their emotions as they grow up but sometimes such kids also learn bad habits over the childhood. Kids need guidance and if not properly guided in childhood many do not learn best practices for living a life.
Thus a dictatorial disciplined life is not the answer nor is leaving kids alone the answer. So what is the answer?
I have researched and found that forming good habits in kids is the answer. Human beings habitually do a lot of things. Once a habit forms it is very difficult to remove it. Most of our daily routine is filled with actions we do habitually. Thus if a kid gets wrong habits in the childhood the habits have a good probability to pursue later on in life. Bad habits will obviously create problems later on in life.
Habits are a form of indirect control which parents can use to control a child. Parents should not and at many places even legally are not allowed to hit kids to discipline them. In India I often hear news of a few teachers getting suspended for hitting kids in order to discipline them.
Most of the problems in a family are due to bad habits of adults in a family. The kids sometime get those bad habits from those adults. Thus parents should be specially careful about inculcating good habits. Although this is easier said than done. I often find it difficult to inculcate good habits in my kids.
Sometimes parents do not know what are the good habits themselves. My wife used to think that finishing homework was a good habit but had not scheduled a regular routine for my son. She used to tell our son to do homework whenever she remembered about homework. I told her to build a soft routine in our house. That really helped. Now generally my son does homework promptly. Sometimes he does homework even without her. He does not do homework 100% of the time automatically but situation has improved dramatically.
The routine should be a soft one i.e. even though for habits to form the action should be done regularly and preferably at the same time still parents and teachers should not overrule the wishes of the child in general.
Basically a routine for homework can involve doing homework at 4 pm everyday. In case the family has a guest or some festival is their the routine should be allowed to be broken. In case the child wants to play for 15 more minutes and start homework at 4.15 pm the parents should not stop the child. Draconian schedules should be avoided. Age of child and aptitude of child should be taken into consideration. Schedules and routines should be flexible. A child is not a machine. Parents cannot program or control the child. As parents we can only indirectly control their habits.
A child who has the habit of eating himself or herself will always be in a better position than a child who does not. Unfortunately parents in their effort to give the best nutrition make kids play mobile games or watch YouTube and feed the kids themselves from a young age. The kid grows up and still remains dependent on the parent for eating. I have seen this at my home and at homes of my relatives. The mothers who do not put the habit of eating independently without any distraction then blame YouTube and mobile games for the kid not eating enough when the kid starts going to the school. Bad habit at play!
The same issue is in the case of education. Parents do not structure their own schedules and priorities. They just keep scolding kids for not getting marks. Marks are a by product of many things. One of the most important thing is the love of studies. Constantly scolding kids to study will not make kids like studying. On the contrary it will make them hate studying. Such kids will never become independent thinkers. Not doing homework is better than losing the ability to think independently in this day and age. A regular habit of finishing homework will only make kids finish homework. Any amount of scolding will just make matters worse in the long run. The parent will win the battle but lose the war. Thus parents and teachers should focus on good habits from the day 1.
I have founded an open education project called Fun2Do Labs. To know more about it visit : http://fun2dolabs.org . Subscribe to me on Medium to read my posts on education and technology.
