What is EPP?
Effective Practical Parenting
How to appropriately discipline children is a topic that we begin to consider during our own childhood. This process becomes acute and urgent when we become parents ourselves. What works? What’s best? How are we going to teach this child to behave? How are we going to show love to this child? What rules are we going to have and how are we going to enforce them? These are the questions that parents-to-be ask themselves as soon as they become aware of pregnancy, adoption or guardianship.
Our culture has often stopped at “what works”. This is a short term and limited way to approach discipline. The discipline choices we make affect the quality of our daily lives and, later, the daily lives of our adult children. The tone, tenor and family dynamic we cultivate emerges as a result of the discipline choices we make. That is why I am offering the program in EPP known as Family-ing.
As parents, it helps to develop a deliberate discipline philosophy. I’ll be as bold as to suggest that not embracing a discipline philosophy results in haphazard, inconsistent and confusing family life. In order to do the best for our children and also create joyful homes while our children are young, we must be intentional, conscious and deliberate.
Considering discipline choices, I began mine with a stalwart decision to “never spank”. That was limiting and not very productive. Aside from the fact that it failed to account for needed foundational and proactive discipline, “not spanking” also failed to offer any specific what-to-do ideas.
Early on in my teaching about discipline, I adopted a firm “no spanking” and soon, “no punishment” approach. I spent a great deal of time arguing against punishment, reading theories and ideas on why punishment isn’t necessary (at best) and damaging (at worst). It was a necessary stage in my growth as an individual and parent and teacher on Family-ing. I’m grateful, however, to have emerged from that stage.
The reality is that good parenting isn’t characterized by the presence of or lack of punishment. Over the years, I’ve observed that good parenting has common elements.
Good parenting has these common elements:
1) Good parents establish a positive relationship
2) Good parents do not damage the relationship when disciplining
3) Good parents punish infrequently, yet discipline often
4) Good parents are knowledgeable about expected behavior and challenges relative to the ages and stages of their children
5) Good parents don’t have an agenda to avoid “outside” and community resources. Instead, they are willing to seek the support, information, assistance and accountability if needed
6) Good parents cultivate a family tone of lightheartedness, connection, playfulness and connection.
7) Good parents have “done their work” in terms of getting their own act together as soon as they realize their act was apart.
Let’s be honest, and above all, practical. Quality discipline combines knowledge of age expected behaviors, reasonable standards, clear expectations, proactive discipline and consistency. Anything less is not effective discipline. Let’s remove the “extremes” of the discipline pendulum swings. Let’s drop the image of the heavily punitive parenting in which parents punish and fail to teach positively. Let’s forget the parent who pleads, tentatively requests passive parent who fails to establish or enforce rules of conduct.
We are left then with the parent who says “stop that” or “do this” and immediately makes it happen. This is the parent who looks at the toddler on the dining room table and removes them while also thinking “This child likes to climb. How can I make that happen safely?” A parent fitting this profile may or may not punish. However, such a parent takes both a proactive and a responsive approach to the discipline challenges they face. That parent uses a bare minimum of physical punishment, if any, but lots of physical redirection in the younger years.
As you can see, quality parenting looks very similar, even if the parent uses punishment or reserves it as an option. If a good parent uses punishment, it’s not often - not daily, or even weekly.
Effective Practical Parenting ideas can be used in a home that reserves punishment as an option. Although EPP is best utilized in the absence of punishment, it can be incorporated into the approach you currently use. As you practice EPP and begin your Family-ing journey, I believe (and certainly expect and hope) that you’ll see the “need” for punishment diminish or disappear entirely.
In a EPP home, punishment is simply punishment. It does not teach the value of doing better. It does not address the foundational needs of the family members. It does not avoid or mitigate a repeat or similar issue.