Discipline for Your 9-Year-Old

“I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline.”– Fred Rogers

Now Is the Right Time!

Children ages 5-10 are striving to understand rules and apply them in various settings and situations. They are working to increase their independence and will naturally test limits and break rules. This is part of their development and necessary for learning.

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you can choose to be purposeful and deliberate in the ways you provide guidance and discipline. Guidance and discipline for skill building can help your child actively develop self-awareness — “the ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior.”¹ Self-awareness is a fundamental ingredient of self-management — “the ability to manage thoughts, feelings and actions, control impulses, persist toward goals, and manage stress.”¹ Research confirms that when young children learn to manage their feelings, they are better able to manage their behavior, problem solve, and focus their attention.² This directly impacts their school success and ability to follow rules. Children need the guidance and support of caring adults to learn these skills.

It is important to differentiate discipline from punishment. Some parents and those in a parenting role feel that if they do not impose punishments, their child will not understand that their behavior is inappropriate. In fact, when a child is punished, they often feel scared, embarrassed, and hurt. This overwhelming sense of fear or hurt negatively impacts their relationship with you while also failing to teach them the appropriate behavior. Your child is likely to miss the lesson you want to emphasize entirely and feel unsafe. On the other hand, the goal of guidance and discipline is to support the learning process and avoid harm.

Children ages 5-10 are exercising and developing self-control, a fundamental ingredient of self-discipline. And, they are working to empathize with others — to view thoughts and feelings from another person’s perspective. Empathy is also an essential ingredient of self-discipline. Children need to learn that their actions have an impact on others around them. This is developed over time and requires a lot of practice.

Guidance and discipline for skill building is challenging for many parents or those in a parenting role.³ Approaching guidance and discipline for skill building as teachable moments that grow your child’s skills can be transformational in the way you understand discipline and can enrich your relationship with your child. The steps below include specific, practical strategies along with effective conversation starters.

Why Guidance and Discipline for Skill Building?

When your five-year-old is experiencing frustration and envy over their sister’s new set of toys or your ten-year-old is refusing to go to bed, these situations are opportunities to provide guidance and discipline for skill building.

Today, in the short term, guidance and discipline for skill building can create

• a sense of confidence that you can help your child regain calm and focus,
• a greater understanding in you of the connection between your child’s feelings and their behaviors,
• trust in each other that you have the competence to manage your intense feelings, and
• a growing understanding of rules and expectations.

Tomorrow, in the long term, guidance and discipline for skill building helps your child

• build skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision making;
• learn independence and self-sufficiency; and
• build assertive communication to express needs and boundaries critical for keeping them safe and ready to deal with peer pressure.

Five Steps for Guiding and Disciplining to Build Skills

This five-step process helps you guide and discipline to build skills in your child. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues as well (learn more about the process).

“Too many children who have problems with behavior also have problems with accurately labeling their feelings.” – Maurice Elias

A child’s behaviors are often influenced by their feelings. Feelings are spontaneous reactions to people, places, and experiences.^2,4 Feelings are not right or wrong, but what your child does with their feelings may be appropriate or inappropriate.

You can help your child start to understand their feelings by asking open-ended questions. In gaining input:

• You can transform an unsafe or inappropriate behavior into a teachable moment by uncovering your child’s feelings.
• You can better understand why your child is behaving in a certain way.
• You can begin to teach your child how to understand their own feelings, which will help them manage their own behaviors.
• You can grow their self-control, social awareness, and problem-solving skills.

Actions

Before you can get input from your child to understand (and help them understand) what they are feeling, you both need to be calm. Your child will not learn from the situation if you or they are upset. Delay moving onto next steps until you are both calm.

• Ask yourself if your child is hungry or tired. You could offer a snack or offer to have your child take some time to rest.
• Check on how you are feeling. If you are angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed, take a “parenting time out” and take several deep breaths (it really does help) or sit quietly for a few minutes.
• If basic needs like hunger or tiredness are not issues for your child, then take additional steps to help them calm down. This might involve offering a hug or helping them take deep breaths.

Children ages 5-10 are still learning to understand their own feelings, other people’s feelings, and how their own actions affect others. They will need your support in figuring all this out. When both you and your child are calm, reflect on your child’s feelings so you can be prepared to help. Ask yourself:

• “Does my child have an unmet need?” They might need someone to listen or give them attention, some alone time, or some help so they can be successful at something they are trying to do. Sometimes your child’s unmet need is not directly related to the area of conflict.
• You can ask them about how they are feeling.
  • “I noticed your face got really red. So, when you said unkind things to your sister, were you feeling frustrated?”
  • “I saw your friend leave you at the playground to go play with someone else. I wonder if you are feeling sad?”
• You can also ask them about how they think others might be feeling.
  • “Your sister cried when you said those unkind words to her. How might she be feeling?”
  • “When your friend didn’t get to take their turn, how do you think they were feeling?”
  • “When you said that to me, how do you think I felt?”
• If your child has a hard time engaging verbally, you can offer them non-verbal ways to express themselves.
  • You can prompt your child to use crayons and show you how they feel- allowing them to use scribbles and colors to express themselves.
  • You can write notes back and forth with your child. Some kids feel safer writing than they do talking about how they feel.
• Use your best listening skills! Listen closely to what is most concerning to your child without assuming your child shares your thoughts, concerns, and feelings. It helps to use a paraphrasing technique to ensure you are fully understanding what your child is communicating.
  • Paraphrasing is echoing back to the person a summary of what they’ve said to check how accurate your listening is and also to confirm to the speaker that you have heard them. It may seem awkward at first, but this step is an important way for you to check your own understanding while simultaneously teaching children how to listen for comprehension. It might go something like this:
    • Child: “When my brother stepped on my foot, I got so mad that I hit him.”
    • Parent or someone in a parenting role modeling paraphrasing: “So, I hear that when your brother stepped on your foot, you responded by hitting him.”
    • If you hear a subtext of feeling, as in this example, you can reflect back the feeling implied. Also, you can seek further clarification if it’s needed. Parent or someone in a parenting role reflecting feeling: “I hear you were mad. Were your feelings hurt too when he stepped on your foot?”
• Explore the mind-body connection. In calmer moments with your child, ask, “How does your body feel now?” See how descriptively they can list their physical signs of wellbeing. Now ask, “How does your body feel when you are angry?” Parents or those in a parenting role can trace their child with chalk or on big paper and then have their child illustrate where and how they feel different feelings in their bodies. For every person, their physical experience will be different. Find out how your child feels and make the connection between those symptoms and the normal feelings they are having.

The fundamental purpose of guidance and discipline for skill building is to grow new skills and behaviors to replace inappropriate ones. Learning new skills and behaviors requires modeling, practice, support, and recognition.

Learning about your child’s developmental milestones can help you have reasonable expectations for your child and will provide context for how you can best support them in their skill building.

• Five-year-olds are working on understanding rules and routines. Consistency helps them feel a sense of stability.
• Six-year-olds may be more likely to question your rules. They thrive on encouragement. They can become critical of others and need experience with kindness and inclusion.
• Seven-year-olds crave structure and may find changes to the schedule difficult. They may be moody and require reassurance from adults.
• Eight-year-olds are more resilient when they make mistakes. The approval of their peers and teachers is very important.
• Nine-year-olds can become easily frustrated. They need directions that contain one instruction. They may worry about peer approval and their own appearance and interests.
• Ten-year-olds are developing a strong sense of right and wrong and fairness. They tend to be able to work through conflicts with friends more rapidly.

It is important to remember that teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and sets your child up for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.⁵ This is also an opportunity to establish meaningful, logical consequences for when expectations are not met.

Actions

• Teach your child positive behaviors. Each time your child acts inappropriately, ask yourself what positive behavior you need to teach and practice that can replace the inappropriate behavior.
• At a calm time, ask “What helps you feel better when you’re sad, mad, or hurt?” Share ideas like taking deep breaths, getting a drink of water, taking a walk, or asking for a hug.
• Teach positive ways to ask for attention. It’s easy to get into the habit of pointing out what children are not doing right. When children are behaving inappropriately to get attention, they have not yet learned how to get attention in positive ways. Consider how your child can seek your attention in acceptable ways. Then, actively teach these kinds of attention-getting behaviors. Would you like your child to say a polite “Excuse me” when they need you and you’re engaged in a conversation? If so, practice as a family. Do a practice run so that all are comfortable and then reinforce that positive behavior to create more of the same.
• Notice when your child is behaving in a desired way and offer reflections. For example “I noticed how you took turns playing with the toy with your sister, I love seeing that.” Think of how often a child is corrected versus acknowledged for desired behavior. Your noticing will provide your child with positive motivation to keep showing a desired behavior.
• Create a calm down space. During playtime or time without pressure, design a “safe base” or place where your child decides they would like to go when they are upset to feel better. Maybe their calm down space is a beanbag chair or the family room. Then, think through together what items you might place there to help them calm down. The only way this space serves as a tool for parents to promote their child’s self-management skills is if they allow a child to self-select the calm down space. You can and should practice using it and gently remind them of it when they are upset. “Would your calm down space help you feel better?” But, if that space is ever used as a punishment or a directive — “Go to your calm down space!” – the control lies with the parents or those in a parenting role and no longer in the child, and the opportunity for skill building is lost.
• Work on your family feelings vocabulary. Children ages 5-10 are still learning about feelings. Notice and name feelings when a family member is showing an expression to offer plenty of practice. Ask, don’t tell. “Dad, you look sad. Is that right?” Being able to identify feelings is the first step in successfully managing emotions.
• While you are helping your child to understand their feelings, it might be helpful to think about how you feel and react when your child behaves inappropriately. You might ask yourself: “Do I get angry when they do a certain behavior? How do I respond to my anger? How do I want my child to respond when they feel angry? What coping strategies could I model for my teen?”
• Model assertive communication through “I-messages.” Here’s an example: “I feel (insert feeling word) when you (name the words or actions that upset you) because (state the impact).” Here’s another example: “I feel sad when you say hurtful things to your brother because it hurts his feelings.” This helps you take responsibility for your feelings while avoiding blaming language like “You did…” (which closes down the mind and ears of the other). It helps communicate the problem constructively.
• Begin to teach your child to repair harm. A critical step in teaching children about managing anger is learning how to repair harm when they’ve caused it. Harm could be physical, like breaking something, or emotional, like hurting someone’s feelings. Mistakes are a critical aspect of their social learning. Everyone has moments when they hurt another. But, it’s that next step that matters in repairing the relationship.
• End the day with love. When children behave inappropriately during the day, they often end the day feeling bad about themselves. Children tie your love to their behavior. If you act proud of them, they feel loved. If you are disappointed or mad at them, they feel unloved. Be sure that you spend one-on-one time with your child if they have had a rough time that day. During one-on-one time, allow your child to pick the activity, provide them with your full undistracted attention, and remember to follow their lead in the play. This teaches them that they are loved no matter what choices they make. It also encourages them to practice new ways of behaving.

• When a child is angry, instead of invalidating their feelings and saying, “You shouldn’t be mad,” shift to “I see you are angry; let’s try taking deep breaths.”
• When a child is frustrated, instead of saying, “Here, let me do it,” shift to “This can be hard. Do you want some help?”

Practice can take the form of pretend play, cooperatively completing the task together, or trying out a task with you as a coach and ready support. Practice is necessary for children to internalize new skills. Practice makes vital new brain connections that strengthen each time your child performs the new action.

Actions

• Accept feelings. If you are going to help your child manage their biggest feelings, it is important to acknowledge and accept their feelings — even ones you don’t like. When your child is upset, consider your response. Instead of focusing on their actions or the problem, focus on their feelings FIRST. You could say, “I hear you’re mad. What can you do to help yourself feel better? Would your calm down space help you feel better?” Then, focus on teaching and practicing better behavior.
• Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity. When a child learns a new ability, they are eager to show it off! Give them that chance. Say, “Show me how you can ask for attention.” This practice will prepare your child to use it when they require your attention and they are tempted to misbehave to get their needs met.
• Offer limited and authentic choices. Offering them a choice, even if small — “Do you want to do your homework sitting at the kitchen counter or at the dining room table?” – can return a sense of control to their lives. It also offers valuable practice in responsible decision making.
• Recognize effort by using “I notice…” statements like, “I notice how you used our ‘wait five minutes’ hand signal. It worked! That’s excellent!”
• Practice deep breathing. Because deep breathing is such a simple way to assist your child anytime, anywhere, it’s important to get plenty of practice so that it becomes easy to use when needed. Here are some enjoyable ways to practice together!⁶
  • Blowing Out Birthday Candles Breathing. You can pretend you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Just the image in your head of a birthday cake brings about happy thoughts. And, in order to blow out a number of small flames, you have to take in deep breaths.
  • Ocean Breathing. Practice making the noise of the sea waves while breathing deeply from your diaphragm. Close your eyes with your child and imagine that your anger is a fiery flame waiting on a sandy shore. And, as you breathe life into the ocean waves, they grow closer and closer to the flame to extinguish it.
• Follow through on repairing harm. When your child has caused harm, they need your guidance, encouragement, and support in following through to repair it. They may need to hold your hand through that process, and that’s okay! They are learning the invaluable skill of responsible decision making.
  • Start with asking your child questions. First help them consider how their actions impacted others. You might ask, “How do you think your friend felt when you broke their toy?” And then help your child brainstorm how to repair harm. You might ask “How do you want to repair the harm?” Ideas may include apologizing, fixing the toy, or buying a new toy.
  • Resist forcing your child to apologize. Forcing a child to apologize teaches your child a memorized response. An apology may make you feel better, but it does not teach your child to accept responsibility for their actions or to begin to understand another’s feelings.
• Include reflection on the day in your bedtime routine. You might ask, “What happened today that made you happy?” or “What were the best moments in your day?” You should answer the questions as well. Children may not have the chance to reflect on what’s good and abundant in their lives throughout the day, yet grateful thoughts are a central contributor to happiness and wellbeing.

At this point, you’ve taught your child some new strategies. You’ve practiced together. Now, you can offer support when it’s needed by reteaching, monitoring, coaching, and, when appropriate, applying logical consequences. Parents or those in a parenting role naturally offer support as they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Ask key questions to support their skills. For example, “You are going to see Julie today. Do you remember what you can do to communicate your feelings?”
• Learn about development. Each new age and stage will present differing challenges and along with them, stress, frustration, and anger.
• Promote an “I can” belief. Children need to hear that you believe in their ability to learn anything with time and hard work.
• Foster friendships. Close friends can be an invaluable source of empathy and support for your child.
• Stay engaged. Working together on ideas for trying out new and different coping strategies can help offer additional support and motivation for your child when tough issues arise.
• Apply logical consequences when needed. Logical consequences should come soon after an inappropriate behavior and need to be provided in a way that maintains a healthy relationship. Rather than punishment, a consequence is about supporting the learning process and avoiding harm.
  • First, recognize your own feelings and practice a calm down strategy when needed. It helps to know which calm down strategies work best for you and have a plan. Not only is this good modeling, when you are in control of your emotions, you are able to apply logical consequences that fit the behavior.
  • Second, invite your child into a discussion about the expectations established in Step 2.
  • Third, consider a logical consequence of their actions as a teachable moment. Be certain to consider the following questions before making your decision: (1) What will you teach with this consequence? (2) Has a natural consequence already taken place such as a friend turning away, a broken toy, a failed grade? Sometimes the natural consequence is more than enough and you don’t need to impose yet another. (3) Will the logical consequence be obviously connected to the poor choice so that you can teach cause and effect with the action?

Learning new behaviors to replace inappropriate behaviors takes time. Children ages 5-10 will likely not do it right the first time (or even the second or third!). That’s OK. What’s important is that you approach guidance and discipline for skill building by understanding feelings, teaching new behaviors, and practicing all the while maintaining a healthy, supportive, loving relationship with your child. Your healthy, supportive, loving relationship with your child is what is most important.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement has a big impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worth it to recognize them. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways you can reinforce your child’s efforts. It is important to distinguish between three different types of reinforcement – recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example,“You used your calm down space when you were frustrated– I love seeing that!” Recognition can also include nonverbal acknowledgement such as a smile, first bump, or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely and positive incentive for doing a good job. A reward is determined ahead of time so that the child knows what to expect like “If you remember to take deep breaths and keep calm when it is time to put your game away, we will listen to your favorite music while you get ready for bed.” (if you XX, then I’ll XX) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment. A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child to progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s intrinsic motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent or someone in a parenting role offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when it is going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when all is moving along smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the important reinforcement that you see and value the choice your child has made. For example, when your child is practicing a calm down strategy, a short, specific call out is all that’s needed:“I noticed when you got frustrated with your homework, you took a drink of water and took some deep breaths. Excellent.”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for the big accomplishments – like your child using their calm down space without a reminder – in order to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.

Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after your child repairs harm with a sibling, snuggle together and listen to some relaxing music. Or, in the morning once ready for school, leave a special note of gratitude in their lunchbox.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that builds your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role to use on many other issues and builds important skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Throughout this tool, there are opportunities for children to become more self-aware, to deepen their social awareness, to exercise their self-management skills, to work on their relationship skills, and to demonstrate and practice responsible decision making.