Dear Kerry,
The situation is what does one do when there is not a natural consequence to implement as a result of a behavior? What discipline strategies can one use in such a situation? For example, my 6-year-old Sammy was testing limits the other day telling me that he was not going to go to school, blah blah, and then he started talking back to me mocking “nnah nnah nnah nnah nnah,” along the lines of ‘what you are saying is stupid and I’m not listening to it.’ I have no idea what to do in the face of this behavior—I obviously tell him that he’s being disrespectful to me, and I don’t want to be around him if he speaks to me that way—but truly, that isn’t enough. And it makes me flippin' mad when he is such a smug little jerk.
KI, Illinois

Dear KI,
Yes, indeed, whether the bully is another kid on the playground way in the past, or one’s own child being so very mean and disrespectful, the helpless, angry feeling is pretty hard to bear. Especially when you have the sense that he is feeling good for the moment, getting a charge out of putting someone else down. It’s also tough to resist the impulse to fight back at the same level. So your question is a good effort to reach for your own strengths and knowledge to help Sammy handle himself more constructively.

It sounds like you generally try to use the natural consequences of actions to bring home to Sammy what he should and shouldn’t do. If he pours too much milk in his glass, and doesn’t stop himself soon enough, it will spill over and he will have to clean it up. Having to do the job before he can have his snack will help him remember to be more careful next time.

This method of discipline teaches, rather than punishes, children. The word discipline comes from the word “disciple,” that is, someone who is learning. Learning the cause and effect connections between actions and consequences teaches children to anticipate what might happen. This is the foundation of judgment, a quality we all want children to develop.

Sammy’s conscience, that “inside helper” that makes those judgments, that tells us what is wise to do and what isn’t, what will make us feel like a good person or not, was not available to him in that moment. Someone 6 years old already has a lot of capacity for judgment; he probably can usually access it to manage his own behavior better. But it sounds like Sammy couldn’t get it together that day. It was too hard for him to reach down inside and act his age. You don’t say if you ever figured out why he didn’t want to go to school in the first place. There might have been a worry that he was trying to cover up with blustering and throwing his weight around. Worry or not, however, there is no excuse for behavior that is mean and disrespectful, to a parent or anyone. We can try to explain naughtiness, but there is usually no justification for it.

Let’s go back to your angry reaction for a minute. Instead of dismissing it or feeling bad, we can use it to point the way to a helpful response. When Sammy was disrespectful to you, I think you lost respect for him. Instead of your usual feeling that he is a nice boy, fun to be around and growing into a solid citizen, you thought he was a jerk, a little twerp. That is the natural consequence of his behavior.

How can we use your natural reaction to help Sammy learn a better way to deal with not wanting to go to school and having to obey his mom? Your dip in respect suggests a natural consequence. Lots of people might get impatient at this point and say you should just punish Sammy - they might say ‘just take his TV time away or say he can’t play with his new toy.’ I think they would be right, but for the wrong reasons. There are some important steps that have to come in between the bad behavior and your taking something away, if you want Sammy to grow inside from the experience.

When Sammy sticks out his tongue and says “nyah, nyah, nyah,” you can let him see that you are taken aback and disappointed. “Oh my, Sammy, I thought you had already learned to manage your feelings better than that. Six year olds are really strong, strong enough to say what they want in words and not put other people down to feel strong. But you’re acting like your baby sister, Sarah, who doesn’t know how to do that yet.”

You might remind him that you think he actually does know how to pull himself together. If he still can’t manage, feed that back to him. “It looks like you aren’t able to do that for yourself today. You are going to need my help, just like Sarah did the other day. That’s part of taking care of her and taking care of you.”

By this point Sammy might have stopped, intrigued or insulted at being likened to his baby sister. That’s not such a bad thing, since he shouldn’t feel good about what’s been going on. Your priority here isn’t to protect his self-esteem at all costs; he can surely stand a little discomfort about himself, especially if it makes him stop and think. One of your goals is to enlist his actual 6-year-old capacities — his ability to pause and reflect, to imagine, to anticipate consequences, tolerate some frustration, use his words, trust your judgment and his own, to name but a few.

If he keeps on, and some kids do get themselves backed into a corner and can’t figure how to get out, then you can make the crucial connection, the one that will be a building block for learning. “I don’t let Sarah do what’s bad for her or unsafe. I don’t let her play with your 6-year-old toys, because she doesn’t know how to manage them well. She doesn’t know how to stop herself putting them in her mouth. That’s just like the trouble you are having today stopping yourself using a mean voice with me. So I will put your new small Legos away in a box for a week, while you practice using your strong stopping muscles to control that mean voice. We’ll take them out next Saturday when we see how it’s going.”

You will have taken away his toys, but for a different reason and with a different explanation for Sammy. Instead of just tit-for-tat, you are teaching him that his actions do indeed have consequences that matter to him, and that you are willing to back up that learning with actions to help him master it.

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local psychoanalyst, affiliated with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council, and a family consultant at Allen Creek Preschool. You can reach her through AllenCreek.org, or you can e-mail her your comments and questions for future columns. The ideas and opinions in this column are Kerry Kelly Novick’s and do not necessarily represent the views of Allen Creek Preschool, MPI or MPC.