Use punishments for a long term benefit

Punishments have to be sparingly used to be effective. There is unmistakable data to prove that punishments - specifically spanking the children - make the children more aggressive and hostile over a period of years. So, why are punishments necessary?

Why are punishments needed 

Every child seems to have a  innate moral sense. Psychologists have agreed on this. But, surprisingly, it turns out that it there is a wide difference between moral reasoning and moral behaviour, a behaviour by which we resist temptation even when the possibility of detecting and punishment is zero. Enron and the Accenture cases seem to prove that even well paid corporate executives tend to behave 'immorally', when they see the possibility of detecting their behaviour is zero. If you are not convinced that  this behaviour is rampant, read this book of Jonathan Macey, The death of corporate reputation.

Harvard psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, believes that our moral reasoning is developed in three levels.  First level is of Pre-conventional morality. At this level, the view of morality is determined by obedience to fixed set of rules which are governed by punishment. Second level is of Conventional Morality where the morality is seen as the set of rules that enable one to maintain the deal and relations between people. Third view is Post conventional morality where the views are based on Universal Moral principles of right and wrong.

A child, to develop his own moral sense, needs to move from the  first level to third level in stages. He does not grow to third level in one leap. At the age of 3, child begins to lie.  By age 6, a child will tell a lie every 90 minutes, and that too in a more sophisticated manner. It is important to give such a child an experience of consistent and clear boundaries of rules (level 1), so that he can move to higher levels at later age. This is the purpose of punishment.

2 Pre-conditions to make punishment effective 

With this background, you will appreciate that if punishments have to be effective, it must satisfy these two conditions:

1. Punishments are effective when the rules of behaviour are told to the children before hand and that too, in clear terms.

For instance, the child does not understand the meaning of 'stealing' because it depends on the context. For instance, if his brother takes away his 'pencil' without asking him, we do not call it stealing. But when he 'picks the pencil' from a class student and brings it home, we call it stealing. The child should clearly understand what you mean by stealing.

In other words, punishment should not be given for unmentioned and unspecified rules. For instance, if the child breaks the rule for the first time - inadvertently - when the rule was not known to the child, the child should not be punished at that time. Instead, he should be forewarned of the rule.

This also means that rules should be as few as possible. Too many rules make it difficult to administer the punishments.

2. Punishments are effective when the rules of behaviour are consistently adhered to every time.

Consistency is very important. If the child breaks the rule, he should still be punished, even though the punishment may seem to be mistaken.

For instance, if the child is given the rule that he will be punished if he 'hits his sisters back', he should be punished even when he has 'hit' for more appropriate reasons, like the reason that his sister was 'teasing him' incessantly for long time.

Three musts while delivering punishment 

Punishments, on the other hand, should also be delivered effectively, if they have to enable the child to learn to remain within the boundaries of rules:

1. Punishment should be prompt

If the rule has been broken in the morning, punishment should not be delivered in the evening. Delay affects the child's learning from the mistake. It is of no use.

When for instance, if you are hearing about the infraction of rule on the next day, administering punishment with this delay is not effective. Although a strict forewarning could be used at such times.

2. Punishment should be emotionally safe

For a child, this is a very important condition. The message given to the child even while administering punishment should be, 'We actually care about you'. The child should feel secure even while receiving the punishment. For instance, threats of 'I do not love you', or 'I will send you to boarding' should not be issued during administering the punishment.

3. Punishment should be delivered along with 'why of the rule'

If the punishment is meant for ' not touching the dog', the child should be told the reason 'why touching dog' is harmful. If the punishment is for stealing, the child should be told the consequences of stealing. Punishments given with rationale are helpful for child in understanding the rules of behaviour, and later internalise those rules in his own behaviour.

Conclusion

In other words, to use punishments for its real benefit, the parents should first have a clear set of 'rules of behaviour' ( the boundaries). Then they should ensure that the children constantly remain within those set boundaries by administering punishments. The lower the number of rules, the easier  it is to administer. And above all, they should impart the rationale of the rules to the child so that he can 'internalise' the rules of behaviour and later develop the maturity to develop his own set of rules. ( Level 3)

What is the long term impact of Pre-school teacher on your child?

Here is an interesting study done by Raj Chetty and his Harvard Kennedy School associates such as John Friedman. Such longitudinal studies ( studies done of a student from pre-school years to late work-life) are rare.Read this summary of the report.

This study was done in 1980's. About 12,000 students were involved in the study done in US. Children were randomly assigned to teachers, not selected on any criteria. These children were tracked for next 30 years.

Four key findings of the study

Read the fuller report here. 

First, students in small classes are significantly more likely to attend college and exhibit improvements on other outcomes. 

However, Class size does not have a significant effect on earnings at age 27, but this effect is imprecisely estimated. It has been always assumed that small class size matters to students. However, as we have seen in earlier study, small class sizes do not improve the quality of education. This is good for Indian schools, where class sizes are large. 

Second, students who had a more experienced teacher in kindergarten have higher earnings. 

The earning effect was measured at increase in earnings of about 1000 US $ at the age of 27. This effect will naturally increase with age and experience, which was not measured by the study.

The study could not find the 'type of teachers' who affect the students most. It could find only one variable that mattered: the experience of teacher. What this probably means is that, experienced teacher gain the necessary patience and 'wisdom' to view 'child as child' and therefore tend to be better teachers. 

Third, an analysis of variance reveals significant classroom effects on earnings. Students who were randomly assigned to higher quality classrooms in grades K-3 – as measured by classmates' end-of-class test scores – have higher earnings, college attendance rates, and other outcomes.

This random assignment is important because this randomisation eliminates other differences like parental status, rich background or educational background. This means that teacher impacts a student's life more than other attributes such as parental background. 

Finally, the effects of class quality fade out on test scores in later grades but gains in non-cognitive measures persist. This finding is very important, but not-so surprising. 

This only reminds us that development centric schools are more important than learning-centric schools in the long run.  Students attributes such as manners, ability to focus and self discipline matter more than the learning attributes like IQ and talent.

Conclusion

Most interesting finding of the study, according to me, is that the effect of a good pre-school teacher vanishes in 7th and 8th grade. And it re-appears in the work-life. In other words it has long term impact.

As Raj Chetty says, ' A good kindergarten teacher teaches skills like how to be a disciplined student'. These developmental qualities matter more in the long run although they may not show in the learning scores immediately.

Learning to use Empathy is the first step in making an emotional intelligent child

In Sanjeevani's case that we discussed in the earlier blog, we saw the importance of empathy. Before helping her daughter Vidya to behave differently, she has to understand what her daughter is feeling and why.

According to John Gottman, the renowned researcher on marriage relationship and parenting, "Empathy not only matters, it is the foundation of effective parenting". Although sympathy and empathy are used in similar ways, they are different. In sympathy, you feel the emotions of others, but in empathy you go one step beyond - you can also understand why someone is feeling that by putting yourself in that person's shoes. So empathy is more personal. When you feel 'heard' in the presence of someone, then someone is showing 'empathy'.

Why does Empathy work? Empathy works so well , because understanding is enough to resolve many of the issues. One does not require any 'solution' to resolve an issue. When you are, for instance, facing disagreements with your partner, empathy is enough even if there is 'no solution' to the disagreement.

Three-step process of practicing empathy

Step 1: Embrace the feeling

When you see your child in disagreement or distress, or facing an issue with someone, and the child comes to you, describe the feeling you think you are seeing. Embrace the feeling. Do not run away from it. Do not intellectualise it, or moralise it.

For instance, Sanjeevani, observing that Vidya is not giving the biscuit to Uncle, her first response should be to observe Vidya's posture and describe the emotional changes Vidya could be experiencing. For instance, she could ask Vidya "It seems that you love biscuits so much." Or 'You look upset with something." "Or you look angry with something'. If Sanjeevani senses that she is angry with Uncle, she could also say " Are you angry with your Uncle?". The idea in the step 1 is to just identify the emotion, and try to 'name' the emotion. Nothing more.

Step 2: Guess the trigger of the feeling.

Only after you get some kind of 'acknowledgement' that you have named the right feeling, you should take this second step.

In the second step, the parent has to guess the origin of the 'named accepted' feeling. If Vidya shows that she is 'angry with something', then Sanjeevani has to make an educated guess and 'guess the origin of anger'. For instance, Sanjeevani could say ' It seems that you are angry because you did not do well in the exam today'. Or ' You seem to be angry because your toy has got broken'. Or ' You seem to be angry because you had a fight with your friend' and so on.

As you would have realised, that making these guesses is not easy. One must be fully aware of the 'context' of a other person, to make the 'appropriate' guess.  It comes with practice.

Step 3: Resolve ( Not dissolve) the feeling 

Once the child accepts the 'feeling' and also the 'origin' of the feeling, then the child would acknowledge it. If the child is too distressed, she might come to the parent's lap and rest. Or she may just show in her body language. Once the child 'acknowledges', the feeling is resolved. It may recur again. It does not get dissolved.

Parents are often tempted to use the 'situation' and give more advice. For instance, Sanjeevani could now give a long lecture to Vidya as to how " It is not good to get angry with the friend'. Please refrain from this step. Just resolve the feeling. If advice has to be given, give a very specific advice. Take a deep breath, if necessary, and wait. Let the moment be 'accepted'. No further advice is necessary. Empathy is a powerful resolver.

Conclusion

After reading the three steps, you will understand why Sanjeevani was wrong in pushing Vidya to change her behaviour. She kept on asking Vidya to change her behaviour without showing empathy. Even if Sanjeevani had succeeded, Vidya would have felt 'unheard' and therefore 'felt cheated'. If this kind of experience keeps on repeating, Vidya will stop listening to her mother. Then, Sanjeevani will wonder what went wrong?

If you find practicing empathy with child is difficult, practice it with your spouse or close friend. It may be easy to learn empathy with spouse or friend, because you will get feedback on your ability to name the right emotion, guess the right origin, and then wait for the closure to happen. Practicing with spouse is more beneficial, because it also increases marital satisfaction.

Empathy is so critical in parenting that parents with empathy enjoy the highest probability of raising smart, happy and morally aware kids. They may not raise a child who is a genius like Einstein, but they will raise a child who is emotionally intelligent. 

Talking with your child in the first three years makes a big difference to your child

Two researchers, Todd Risley and Betty Hart, observed and recorded the physical and verbal interactions between parents and children in their homes for the first two and half years of a child's lives. They found something very interesting.

They found, that, on average, parents speak 1500 words per hour to their infant children. But there is a significant difference between educated and uneducated parents. They discovered that college educated 'talkative' parents speak about 2100 words per hour while parents in 'welfare families' speak about 600 words per hour. What impact does this difference have on the children's cognitive capacity?

They administered a Standard-Binet IQ test to these children at age 3. They found a powerful correlation coefficient of 0.6 between the size of the number of words the child had heard and the size of the vocabulary. But the bigger surprise is this:when they measured the correlation coefficient of parent's 'extra talk' , by eliminating the business talk between parent and child, they discovered that it increased to a staggeringly high figure of 0.78.  High correlation coefficient between x and y means that when x happens y also happens. When correlation coefficient is 1, y will definitely happen if x happens. This means, that increase in word size of parent talk has a 78% chance of increasing the vocabulary of the child. In statistical terms, this correlation is very high.

The researchers continued to measure the vocabulary as the children grew older. At age 9, the correlation coefficient was still at 0.77. In other words, breadth of child's vocabulary and reading comprehension remained high even till the age of 9. This means that children who have been talked more by their parents have an incalculable cognitive advantage compared to other children. When these students confront and succeed at the initial academic challenges they encounter in primary school, their sense of self-confidence can blossom. On the other hand, other students, because of this small cognitive disadvantage may find academic work intimidating and unexciting, robbing them of the self confidence. Do you understand how 'small' advantages ( or disadvantages) at a young age can create a big big difference at an older age?

What is surprising is that level of income, ethnicity and even parent's education does not have as much 'explanatory power' ( high correlation coefficient) in determining the level of cognitive capacity as much as this 'extra talk' has. In other words, even if you are poor,  it will still help your child improve his cognitive capacity, if you manage to talk to your child as much as 2000 words per hour.

What 'extra talk' did the researchers found to be more effective? The talk that matters to building the cognitive capacity of child is not the 'business talk', but the 'extra talk'. Researchers found that business talk such as 'Finish your food' ' Do this' or 'Get in the car' etc does not impact the cognitive capacity as much because they seem to be simple, direct and lack nuances. The talk that a child listens when he is put infront of television also does not help the child.

On the other hand, the 'extra talk' that impacts the cognitive capacity is the talk which happens when parents engage with their infants and speak in a fully adult, sophisticated and chatty language ( not bubbly language). This talk happens when the infants are listening, comprehending and fully responding to the comments. It is the talk that is about 'what if', 'do you remember', 'shouldn't you', and so on. They invite infants to think deeply about what is happening around him. This 'extra talk' happens when the parents think aloud of what they are doing or planning.

Researchers have discovered various 'causes' for the above 'correlation'.One of the important cause seem to be Auditory processing skill, that children must be acquiring in these first three years of listening to 'extra talk' with the parents.                                                                     

What happens when parents use too much of rewards and punishment?

I met Sanjeevani, a mother of four year old daughter Vidya, yesterday. I am describing the event as it happened with me.

When i met Sanjeevani,, Vidya was eating a biscuit. So when Sanjeevani saw me talking to Vidya, she asked Vidya to give me a biscuit. Vidya refused. Sanjeevani continued to insist. " Why don't you give Uncle a biscuit". When Vidya did not budge, she told her that " I will give you one chocolate if you give Uncle a biscuit'. Vidya did not move. So she changed the tactic " Uncle gave you a chocolate yesterday. If you do not give him now, I will not give you anything again?'. Vidya continued to resist. Ultimately, she went inside, kept the box of biscuits inside the house and returned to talk to me. 

Are Sanjeevani's method of teaching behaviour right or wrong? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Rewards and punishments are called as external motivators that are used to modify behaviour of children. They are also referred as Carrot and Stick method of motivating. For instance, Sanjeevani first tried using 'reward' when she told Vidya that 'she will give one chocolate if she gives Uncle the biscuit'. When it did not work, she used a veiled punishment ," I will not give you anything if you do not give him the biscuit". Both carrot and stick motivators did not help Sanjeevani alter Vidya's behaviour. But it could have worked also.

Whether they work or not, there are many disadvantages in using external motivators. One, the more you use them, the more addictive they are. For instance, next time Vidya will ask for chocolate if she has to do something again. Morever, because of addiction, Sanjeevani also has to increase the amount of reward. She may have to offer 'two chocolates' if the expected behaviour is difficult to undertake. But overuse of external motivators leads to one big and disastrous consequence: locus of child's control shifts from 'inside' to 'outside'.

As parents and elders keep on using more and more carrot and stick, the child starts depending more and more on outside control. Due to this dependence, the child's mechanism of internal controlling of behaviour never develops. Child never learns to find  'when to behave how and why' on his own. Because the child has never answered the question of 'why' himself, the child is 'rudderless'. The child's never develops his internal motivation. He never becomes autonomous or self-driven. When he grows old, he is confused when he has to chose the discipline after 10th class. Unable to stand up to his friends, he never chooses his values. He becomes a child who has no internal direction, but waits for others to direct him. He choses to do Engineering not because he wants it, but because most of the friends have chosen it.

The more earlier parents try to teach child to shift to internal motivation, the easier it is for him to understand the whys of making those choices and then sticking to those choices. In Montessori, when a child enters Montessori at the age of 3, he is unable to chose his 'activity' and 'place to work'. But in montessori school, he has to chose both. He is given the practice of developing his 'internal drive' at an early age.

Why do parents use external motivators to influence the child's behaviour more often? I can think of four reasons. One, they are simple to use. Parents use them automatically and unconsciously. Two, they are more acceptable way of influencing behaviour in the family. Everyone, including teachers, agree with this method of influencing behaviour. Three, parents do not know the ill-effects of using external motivators. And four, parents do not know how to shift their child from external motivation to internal motivation.

For instance, if Sanjeevani has to help Vidya to develop her internal motivation what should she do? She should ask Vidya and discover Vidya's reason of why she does not want to share the biscuit with Uncle? Is it because she likes biscuit too much? or is it because she is too hungry? Or is it because she is angry with Uncle for some past event? Or is it because she wants to give the biscuit to her friend who will come later? I always get surprised to hear the child's reasons even after hearing so many children.

Ofcourse, if Sanjeevani asks Vidya, Vidya is not going to 'answer' her immediately. Vidya first has to trust her mother to believe that her mother will listen to her. For this to happen, Sanjeevani has to learn to empathise with Vidya first. That is the first step of developing the trust. We shall later see how parents develop empathy. Without empathy, parents often ignore the way child thinks, because they do not 'consider' that the child's reason has merit. Parents therefore have to first realise that their child has a 'uniqe identity' and has her 'views' ( howosoever childish they may be). Only when parents respect the child's views, the child starts telling their 'thoughts' to parents. And only after their thoughts are understood by parents, parents can slowly influence them and help their child become an 'independent child'.

In other words, the child's shift to developing his internal motivation is a long and difficult process for parents ( not for child). Very few parents have the patience and energy to 'change' themselves to help their child. Instead, they are more comfortable in doing what other parents are doing. But when parents do decide to  go through the difficult process of helping their child, they are rewarded with a biggest prize of their life: of playing a big part in developing an independent child who can control his own destiny. 

Do you really want to help your child? 

Use Technology for Individualised learning

Here is a teacher, Ananth Pai, who is practicing individualised learning in class 3. Instead of all the students being taught the same lesson, each student learns his 'own' matter at his own pace. This is a very good example of Montessori method which is also based on individualised learning.

But what is important to observe in this video, is the use of technology in promoting individualised learning. Technology, when it is used to help teachers, is not known to help teachers. If you visit any private school, you will find these white boards + projectors+ e-learning content that are practically lying unused. Schools feel that it is unused because teachers are not adept at using technology. But the rot is much deeper. Technology has remained unused, because the  vendors have merely tried to 'automate' the current process of teaching. And therefore, you will find that these schools hardly use technology for educating students.

Ananth Pai has used technology differently. Instead of helping teachers teach differently, he has used technology to help student learn differently. This simple shift from teacher-centric method to student-centric method of learning can produce a big difference in learning, as Ananth Pai has demonstrated. He has used technology to 'customise learning' for every student.

He has used technology to let children learn at their own pace and style. For instance he uses Ninetedo's Maths buster game to help the child learn Maths. Or Brain Age game for helping to learn words  One site is being used to help students learn about the rights. Another site is being used to help children listen to spoken English.

If you are a technology sophisticated person, here is a chance for you to use technology to customise learning for your child.If you visit this blog, you will find many examples of brilliant use of technology that can enable child to learn at its own pace. 

Montessori Method of Internal discipline

In a traditional classroom, the child is supposed to be disciplined when he is obedient, compliant, obeys all the instructions, sits at one place without murmur and answers all the questions correctly. This is called external discipline.

In a Montessori classroom, the child is supposed to be disciplined when he chooses his own work, follows his own instincts, understands the intentions of the instructions, sits and finishes his work from start to end and asks intelligent questions to others. This is achieved through internal discipline.

External discipline can be achieved through formal authority, punishments, rewards and prizes. Internal discipline can be achieved only through careful preparation of conditions, observation and patience of the teacher ( called as adult in Montessori method.) and the policy of giving freedom with constraints.

Montessorian child, because he is internally disciplined, can be easily spotted in a group by his behavior. He is more assured of himself, makes choices even when they are difficult, can sit patiently if required, or even explore situations even in a constrained place if needed.

How does this child acquire internal discipline in a Montessori school ( also called as Montessori House of Children or MHOC) ? Here are three critical practices followed in a MHOC:

 a. Help the child to choose his own activity

 A child, attracted equally by different objects and activities, follows everything and passes from one thing to another without stopping. Only with internal discipline, a child can choose and stop at something. With external discipline, the child always requires someone’s instructions or orders. Even when he is told to do something, the child is unable to remain with that activity for a reasonable time. This is one of the most important distinctions between the external and internal discipline. The child who does not yet obey an internal guide is not the free child. He is still the slave of superficial sensations.

Because of this importance of free choice, in a Montessori School, a child is given freedom to choose his activity. He can also do ‘nothing’ and observe. He can remain with one activity as long as he wishes. Or he can work with 3/ 4 activities in a short time. In a Montessori school, this freedom to child is also provided with certain constraints. For instance, a child, if not doing anything, cannot disturb another child. A child, when he finishes one activity, has to keep the activity box back at its respective place. In a Montessori School, there is place to ‘sleep’ also. This freedom with constraints enables a child in Montessori to develop internal discipline, instead of getting used to external orders and instructions.

b Help the child to fine tune his motor movements 

 The small child, clumsy in his movements, also finds it difficult to maintain discipline, as his actions are disorderly. With uncontrolled body movements, the child tends to spill work, inadvertently trips while walking, hurts others unknowingly because of clumsy hands. Montessori philosophy therefore presumes that a ‘physically independent’ child will be able to practice discipline better than a child who is physically clumsy and disorderly.

In a MHOC therefore, the child is first enabled to get control of his movements through various activities. Special emphasis is laid in designing activities that help both gross motor movements ( like walking, getting up with a jug in hand, carrying stools from the original place to the place of work, laying mat for work and walking on a curved line) as well as fine motor movements ( such as pouring water in a cup, threading needle, opening locks).

 c. Help the child avoid fantasy 

By its nature, a child’s mind wanders constantly. Because of this, child’s attention keeps on fleeting from one thought to another. Such a child is unable to focus on anything for any time and therefore displays indisciplined behavior. Morever, if a child is encouraged to go into fantasy, the child finds it even more difficult to discipline his attention. In a fantasy, the child instead of playing with stones, talks with stones. Due to fantasy, a child is unable to stay in the ‘real world’ activities, and constantly seeks refuge in fantasy. Instead of enjoying ice-cream, he is fantasizing eating tons of icecream like a superman. In such a fantasy, there is no control of error, because everything is possible in fantasy. The mind, which divorces itself from reality, is unable to focus on anything real.

Montessorian method, on the one hand, seeks to attract the attention of the child to something real. By focusing the child’s attention on daily activities and doing them again and again, the child learns to focus on real actions. In a MHC class, the children are in direct touch with reality; their occupations have a practical aim, such as dusting a table, removing a stain; going to the cupboard, taking a piece of the material and using  it correctly. On the other hand, a child in Montessori is told stories of real characters and real world. For instance, in a Montessori, the child is not told of the stories where animals talk to each other, or when men fly, or where impossible incidents can happen. This enables the child to restrict his wandering mind to the real-life activities.

Conclusion 

How can you distinguish between External discipline and Internal discipline? It is infact quite easy. Visitors to Montessori schools will observe the silence of the school that has been developed not by order and authority, but through work and concentration of the children who are busy in finishing their work. The entire school of 30 children works in silence and order.

A child in Montessori, with practice, acquires internal discipline and is free to choose his own work. He feels so secure, that he will no longer seek the approval of authority after completing his activity. Due to internal discipline, the child also tends to listen to elders fully and follows the instructions with intent, instead of just following the instructions of others by rote. A child with internal discipline also helps other child. For instance, if something spills in a Montessori school, you will often observe children helping each other to collect the spilled material.

What would you like your child to have ? Internal discipline or External discipline?