After teaching high school and watching first hand how children who were not disciplined turned out, I knew that discipline would be a high priority for us. Nate and I both had parents who were not afraid to discipline us, and Mom WAS that mean mom, and I am (now!) entirely grateful for that. I also knew that I would rather discipline my kids now instead of try to when they were 13.
For Z, the things we deal with most are backtalk and a "rude voice", along with "whining and complaining". There is the occasional hitting or throwing or something else, but we are mostly past that. For him, most often he ends up in timeout, or he will occasionally get some soap in his mouth. We make sure that he understands what he did wrong, and make him say "Mom, I was wrong to use a rude voice. Will you please forgive me?" (or whatever it was). I'm not sure that this is the right way, but it is what we do.
The little boys...wow. This is what is difficult. There are no books, to my knowledge, on disciplining and dealing with multiples. I've looked. It is a very different ballgame than with siblings of different ages, since they are all learning the same things at the same time. Our biggest problems with them are hitting, biting, not sharing, snatching, and throwing. I think that's it. ;) Before Christmas if they were snatching or throwing or not sharing we would simply say, "NO throw, that is not ok" or whatever. For the biting and hitting though, there was one kid in trouble and one kid crying and the other kid in the middle. I read somewhere that it is more important to deal with the hurt one first (so as not to give negative attention to the kid in trouble). Didn't work so well, because by the time I got to the "bad" kid, he had no idea what on earth he was in trouble for. So my method became to hug and snuggle the hurt kid, talking about how sad I was he was hurt and how sorry I was that his brother hurt him and how that is not nice, etc, and then hold the "bad" kid by the wrists as he flailed around screaming, occasionally turning to him and saying "No hit, it hurts, that is not how we treat brothers, no hit". The third kid was normally trying to climb in my lap, and Z was bouncing off the walls. Not pretty. Not even sure if it was effective. But it was something. And when the kid was out of timeout, he had to go be "soft" to his brother and pet his head. (Pretty cute.)
Since January, though, I decided that they are old enough for an actual timeout for pretty much anything (biting, hitting, throwing, etc). In our house, whoever is in trouble puts his hands on the wall (any wall, anywhere, that is the beauty of this) and stands there until I say he is done (30 seconds to a minute is all the longer the "bad" kid, me, and other kids can handle it). I started out having to hold his hands on the wall and hold him there, saying "no hit, you are in timeout" etc. It has gotten better, but I certainly am not able to just say "go to timeout!". The boys are a bit older now and while they still hit and bite, I feel like it has gotten better since the fall/winter, so I'm not having to calm the hurt kid down as much. Actually, now that I think about it, I doubt it has gotten better, but they are more used to it, so don't scream and cry as much. This is a major work in progress. I have no clue what I'm doing.
Occasionally I do swat my kids, too. I think mostly I do it if there is actual danger or if they are being totally disobedient and know it, or if I clearly need to make my point (climbing out of cribs!).
I know this is going to be the hardest part of parenting. It has gotten much harder with Z as he has gotten older, and with the little boys it is just hard to be consistent. If one hits another, and the second hits back, do I discipline that? What if one snatched but the other didn't care? Hard to be consistent. Again, I have no clue what I'm doing. By the grace of God, my children will grow up to be kids who respect adults and obey directions, and are kind and loving to others. That is my prayer for them.
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