Parenting Coach Katie Malinski LCSW coaches the parents of two toddlers on what research shows about discipline and punishment, what works effectively…and what should be avoided.

Children don’t always have the skills or ability to use words to describe what is going on in their brain or body.  Sometimes they don’t know, other times they just don’t have the words.  Even if it’s true, you’re not likely to find a 4 year old saying “Excuse me Mommy, but the sugar from that candy plus the nap I missed are really making it hard for me to sit down and stop shrieking.”   Know what I mean?

On the other hand, their behavior itself is a fantastic clue about what’s going on.  When a child is behaving in some inappropriate way, ask yourself what that behavior would tell you if you looked at it as though it was a message spoken in a foreign language.  Translate it, and see what your child is saying.  Here are a few examples:

What your child is doing: Hiding behind your legs when meeting someone new.

 What it means/what they need: I’m feeling uncomfortable and a little scared.  I need to be reassured and some gentle physical touch would help a lot.  Do my talking for me so I can watch and warm up at my own speed.

 What your child is doing: Coming to you, interrupting what you are doing with endless questions when you know they already know the answer.

 What it means/what they need: I need more of your attention.  I want you to stop what you are doing for at least a moment to play with me, talk to me, ask me how I am or what is up with me.

 What your child is doing: Running in to the street/away from you.

 What it means/what they need: I can’t handle being in charge of my body right now.  I need you to hold my hand, or take me somewhere safer, or carry me, etc.

 What your child is doing: Hitting their sibling.

What it means/what they need:  (This is a tough one—it can mean many different things, but here’s a most likely suspect:)  I am feeling such strong feelings that I can’t seem to control them appropriately.  I need your help managing myself and making safe choices.

 What your child is doing: Being defiant, talking back!

What it means/what they need: This one is tough, because it can mean a LOT of different things.  Here’s a typical translation for young children: “I am really angry/upset right now—maybe with you about what you are saying, or maybe about something unrelated to you.”  Either way, I need you to stay calm, acknowledge my strong feelings, and help me practice expressing my feelings in appropriate ways.

There are many, many different messages that our children’s behaviors can be sending, but the need for more attention, more support, more reassurance, and more limits are very common ones for the younger kids.  Stay tuned for how to translate your teenager’s behaviors next!

Are you the parent or do you know the parent who says, “Nobody’s going to tell me how to raise my kids. What was good enough for me is good enough for them. I was smacked all the time, and I came out just fine.”

I call these Ostrich Parents. The parents who can’t or won’t look beyond their own experiences to see there are better ways; the parents who don’t trust trusting children; the parents who see the only option to the traditional reward and punishment method as push-overs who let their kids run wild with no limits.

Recently, researchers from the University of Manitoba reported on data from more than 34,000 adults and found that being spanked and other forms of corporal punishment increased the risk of developing mental health issues and mood disorders in adults, including depression, anxiety, personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. Corporal punishment includes spanking, slapping, shoving, grabbing, and hitting. Being spanked increases the risk of major depression by 41 percent, alcohol and drug abuse by 59 percent, and mania by 93 percent.

The study was no surprise. The comments at the end of the article were startling. A few of the comments included the following:

• This article is ridiculous. That is all.
• My Mom was a serial spanker when I was a kid. I am 63 and have managed a pretty normal life and I am no murderer or haven’t attempted suicide.
• In my 65 years I’ve seen the results of people who were spanked and people who weren’t. I’ll hang out with the spanked ones, the others are usually horribly self-centered.
• I was spanked as were my siblings, as were my children.
• I got spanked quite a few times as a kid, and I deserved every one I ever got.
• Me too! And heaven help us if we picked a bad switch!
• I disagree with the experts, that is what is wrong with this society. There is no consequence for their actions, so they don’t have a valid reason to not just do whatever they want – from disrupting in public to murdering someone.
• Lets not try to turn the tables to keep from spanking these bad a– kids.
• No study is going to tell me how to raise my kids. My mom did it old school and the four of us turned out just fine.

Are we really fine? Can we stick our heads in the sand and say what was good enough for me is good enough for my kid and expect better results? Do we really think our emotional state as a result of physical and emotional punishment is not going to affect our kids? We have a society of the walking wounded.

• 22 million Americans have a substance abuse or dependency problem
• A half-a-million US children 9 – 12 are addicted to alcohol
• More than 10 million abuse prescription medications
• About 1 in 9 youths abuse prescription drugs

And then there’s food, gambling, and sex addictions, workaholism, anorexia, bulimia, cutting, etc. The reason for most addictions and substance abuse problems is depression, avoidance, and covering up emotional pain.

• An estimated 1 in 10 US adults take anti-depressants.
• Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market.
• The percentage of prescriptions for antidepressants written by non-psychiatrists has more than doubled in recent years.

Do we really not think that these statistics reflect how we have been bringing up children for the past many generations? Addictions of all kinds are attempts to feel good because without the substance or behavior, the person is left feeling empty, lost, depressed, unloved, misunderstood, unappreciated.

When a child screams, “No you can’t make me. You’re not the boss of me” or “You’re stupid, I hate you”, many parents can interpret the words as expressions of the frustration and powerlessness provoking the words. These parents do not take the words personally.

But many parents scream back, “Oh yes, I can too make you. I most certainly am your boss and you will learn that.” And “Don’t you dare talk to me like that. You get to your room and don’t come out till you have something nice to say.” The frustration and powerlessness are missed totally and all attention is put on the behavior—only the tip of the iceberg.

These are the parents who are not fine; the ones who suffered the same emotional and verbal abuse as children; the ones whose buttons are getting pushed and are passing on their legacy.

Ostrich parents! Take your heads out of the sand and look around. Your lives could be so much better. And your children will have a better chance of turning out the way you want.

How will things go after the baby comes? Will your child’s other parent do things the way you think they should be done? Or will your new parenting roles divide your family, as you and your partner argue over the right way to raise your child?

A new study set out to get an advance look at how parents will work together  – or not – following the birth of a baby.  Researchers got that look by videotaping parents as they interacted with a doll a few weeks ahead of their real baby’s birth.

You read that right: a doll.

Researchers visited 182 couples at home during the third trimester of pregnancy with a first child. They brought with them a doll made from a newborn-sized footed sleeper stuffed with 7 to 8 pounds of uncooked rice and topped by a head made of green fabric. As you can imagine, this doll was as heavy and as floppy as a real newborn but looked nothing at all like the expectant parents themselves!

Researchers then videotaped the parents-to-be as they interacted with this pretend baby, first individually, then together, and then as the parents discussed the interaction experience. Nine months later, after the real babies were born, the researchers again visited the families and videotaped parents as they interacted with their children.

Parents differed in their levels of support of each other during the pretend-baby interactions, including how well parents cooperated with each other, how playful parents were, the levels of warmth each parent expressed, and how much each parent seemed to use intuitive parenting behaviors. But the key finding was that the ways parents behaved with the pretend baby pretty much predicted how they would behave nine months later, after their real baby was born. Things don’t change after the baby is born. Parents continue to be the people they were before and to interact with their partners in the same ways.

Lead author Lauren Altenburger said, “Some of the couples were very positive, saying nice things to each other about their parenting. With the doll they might say ‘You’re going to be such a great dad.’ After the birth of the baby, their talk would be very similar: ‘You’re such a natural.'” But others, with both the doll and the baby,  were not so kind to their partner. They said things like “You’re not going to hold the real baby like that, are you?” They were critical of each other, she said.

So this is pretty interesting. I, for one, can’t wait to stuff a sleeper with rice and see how much it seems like an infant. But  – without getting out the baby dolls – what does this study mean for you?

1. Your partner is who he or she is and will continue to be the same person even after your children are born.  While becoming a parent is certainly a life-changing experience, parents’ personalities don’t change and you shouldn’t expect that to happen, for you or for your partner.
2. If you tend to be critical of others or overly perfectionistic – if you like everything to be done exactly your way – then now is the time to work on lightening up. Now, before the baby arrives. A new baby brings out the protective streak in most adults but you don’t want to alienate your child’s other parent by insisting that your way is always the best.
3. Notice the excellent qualities in your baby’s other parent and celebrate those. What is your partner bringing to the parenting experience and how do you complement each other? Parenting isn’t a competition and goodness knows every parent needs someone else to collaborate with.  Creating a happy family really requires partnership.

It’s a commonplace thought that we parent our children the same way our parents raised us. This might be true, and if it is, it supports the idea that how we might pretend to be parents carries over into our real life actions as moms and dads. It means our parenting instincts run deeper than the latest parenting advice books. But what really matters – what has always mattered – is that parents get along and respect and support each other.

Now, before your baby arrives or now even after your children are around, is the time to do just that.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Sometimes – and the dark, cold, cooped-up days of January are just such times – it seems that we can’t get this parenting thing right. Our kids fight us and each other, they defy our orders and all logic, and they seem to be moving backwards as much as moving ahead.

At times like these, it’s helpful to imagine what it takes to be “good enough.” Not spectacular. Not amazing. Just good enough.

The human race has been around for a long, long time and most people have turned out okay. This should be a clue that being “good enough” as a parent isn’t all that complicated. And it’s not. Study after study after study has shown that to become capable, competent, well-adjusted citizens, most children need just a few simple things.

Kids need to know they’re loved and appreciated. This isn’t very difficult to do, but often we forget how important this is. Stop and tell your children that you love them dearly, at least once every day.

Kids need to know you have confidence in them. Here again, it’s easy to try to make our kids perfect instead of recognizing that they’re a work-in-progress. Actually, we’re all a work-in-progress. We all make mistakes and have to redo things. Let your children know that you know they will eventually succeed.

Kids need to know that you’re there to help. You may not have all the answers. In fact, it’s certain that you don’t. But you do have your children’s best interests at heart and no matter what trouble they get into you’re there to lend a hand. Children need to know this with certainty. Do yours?

Kids need to know that there’s always a solution. Children who have a positive attitude and are resilient in the face of setbacks do better in school and grow up to do better in life. Being resourceful and persistent are skills every child needs, and they learn them from you.

There. That’s not too hard. Being “good enough” as a parent has nothing to do with what are sometimes called “the advantages” of life. It’s not about things that money can buy. It’s about the things money can’t buy. Being good enough involves trying to make a real emotional connection with your children without expecting them – or expecting you – to be perfect.

Actions speak louder than words. Acting “good enough” is good enough.

• © 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.