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Fritz Redl (1966) spent a long
career pondering the type of discipline that would help children develop
“controls from within.” His clinical experience showed that, although punishment
works with many children, it regularly backfires with many aggressive children.
Punishment requires pain, but many youths are impervious to pain and only
respond to punishments that reach the level of abuse. Punishment motivates not
penitence but rather angry or avoidant responses against the punishing adult who
replays past cruelty. Finally, youth who believe that punishment is unfair feel
no remorse but become more skillful in avoiding detection.
Further research has clarified why punishment has unpredictable results (Sherman,
1993). If punishment is to be a deterrent, youth must have strong bonds to
the person or community administering the sanctions. They then feel shame and
are motivated to change their behavior. However, when violators view punishment
as an unfair act by a hostile person, this triggers defiant indignation, which
actually increases defiance. Motivated by the master emotion of angry pride,
they resist change with a tenacity called the unconquerable soul in William
Henley's 1875 poem Invictus. The good news is that youth caught up in conflict
cycles motivated by angry defiance can be positively bonded to adults who give
them the respect they so desperately pursue.
Discipline systems that do not consider the developmental maturity of a child
will be off target much of the time. Indulgent adults seek to nurture children
but fail to set high expectations or hold them accountable. By excusing problem
behavior, they abdicate their role as adults and become “friends without
influence.” At the other extreme, coercive adults believe in holding youth
accountable, but they fail to respect the young person's need for autonomy. The
most effective management style avoids these two extremes. Respectful adults
simultaneously nurture the needs of youth and maintain high expectations for
positive behavior. They create strong helping alliances with youth that foster
autonomy and responsibility (Gold & Osgood, 1992). |
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