What is the best way to teach appropriate behavior?

My granddaughter, a first-time counselor, reported that her bunk consisted of 9-year-old girls who were hard to discipline. They complained and often did not want to participate in activities. I said she was beginning to sound a lot like a parent.

Parents raise the question of discipline when children’s behavior runs counter to their expectations or requests. Children who “refuse to listen,” or is defiant, or behaves in unacceptable ways if they don’t get what they want. Discipline then becomes a search for a method that will control behavior we don’t like, or feel is inappropriate. Parents often say, “She has to learn to do as she is told,” or “He has to learn he can’t have everything he wants.” The question then is, if a child has to learn something, what is the best way to teach it?

Even when talking about teaching and learning, a strong feeling persists in many of us that only punishment will drive a lesson home. People have strong opinions about whether punishment is an effective teacher. But somehow punishment only comes up as a method of teaching for certain kinds of behavior — behavior that is considered “bad.” Few of us would think of punishment as a solution for a child having a hard time learning to tie her shoelaces, or learning spelling, or solving arithmetic problems. We distinguish between academic learning and social learning, yet both involve teaching.

So the question really is, what is an effective way of teaching appropriate social behavior? Maybe we have to start by asking why a child isn’t learning. Does he understand what is expected? Is he being expected to do something that he is not yet capable of doing, or is he being asked to do something he doesn’t want to do? Is he defiant because he feels the expectations are unfair? Answering these questions means trying to understand why a child is misbehaving and influences what we do about it.

The problem with punishment is that it doesn’t address the underlying reason for the behavior we are trying to change. If a child is having difficulty with self-control, the memory of having been punished is not going to help him control an impulsive expression of his feelings at the moment. If the behavior is defiance, punishment may serve to increase anger and then the defiant behavior. The idea that a child should be punished is usually an expression on our part of frustration about the behavior, and the feeling that it has to be corrected or responded to right then and there.

But teaching and learning is a process that takes time, and we may have to take a longer view when it comes to correcting behavior. Sometimes the process breaks down because it is too hard, or too inconvenient to see something through with a child when it is actually happening. It becomes easier just to let things slip by, or to threaten consequences that will be implemented later. Instead of teaching as we go along, we may let the behavior go too far and then try to correct it all at once.

Children often don’t like what we are expecting of them and their protests may be expressed in angry feelings toward us. We try to make sure that what we expect is realistic and fair. But we also have to be able to tolerate being called “the worst mom ever” when we stick to our expectations.

The young camp counselor referred to thinks homesickness may explain the behavior of her charges.

Elaine Heffner, LCSW, Ed.D., is a psychotherapist and parent educator in private practice, as well as a senior lecturer of education in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Heffner was a co-founder and served as director of the Nursery School Treatment Center at Payne Whitney Clinic, New York Hospital. And she blogs at goodenoughmothering.com