Lauren Edmunds, founder of a specialist school for children with learning delays, explores how to transform discipline into a lasting learning experience. Shifting the focus from shame to responsibility, Lauren explains why the “repair” of a mistake is more important than the mistake itself. By establishing a foundation of mutual respect and allowing children to face the natural consequences of their actions, parents and teachers can help them develop vital self-discipline and impulse control. This episode offers a practical, compassionate roadmap for raising accountable, resilient children who take true ownership of their lives.
Transcript
Discipline That Transfers From School to Home
Hi, I am Lauren Edmunds. I am the founder and owner of a school that supports children with learning delays. I am hoping this space gives you something to think about.
I am talking today about discipline that carries over from school to home and how you handle it with your kids. As always, this is just a particular point of view, and I could possibly argue three other ways to do it as well. I want you to listen to this one in relation to who you are, who your child is, what your relationship is like, and your own belief system, rather than just taking this as rote advice.
When we talk about discipline at home, I believe it should be a learning experience.
At my school, at Omatas, we have two rules. Besides the little rules, like not going past the gates and safety rules, there are two big rules. These rules are actually more for the teachers than they are for the children.
The first one is respect.
The second one is choice and consequence.
I will briefly talk about respect, then move into the second one, because that is where the discipline-and-punishment realm comes in. But it has to start with the first one. My ask of all my teachers and adults in that space is that you show respect first before you ask for it back.
Do you respect who the child is, their mood, and their attitude? Do you respect their learning? Do you respect their time? Do you respect their lives? Do you respect the processes?
If you can show respect for yourself and demonstrate respect for the whole process in the actions that you take, in the words that you use, in how you think about things, only then can you turn to the child and say, can you also respect.
You are always looking for the child to respect themselves in their own learning, their own equipment, their desk, their stationery, their books, their environment, their friends, and the teacher. You cannot ask for respect from a child until you show respect for them.
You cannot tell a child who needs to use the bathroom, “No, sorry, it was just a break; you cannot go.” That shows a lot of disrespect for a child’s basic human need to use the bathroom.
But you are also asking for respect by saying, “Thank you so much for asking me.” Yes, I am sure you can go quickly. Why do you not come back straight away? Then you can ask for respect for the classroom and learning when they come back in. You cannot ask for that respect unless you are prepared to do it.
If you want children to knock before they come into a classroom, then you need to knock before you come into a classroom. If you want children to say please and thank you, you need to say please and thank you. If you want children to be kind, you need to be kind.
That is the first ground rule for good relationships and for helping children progress. The second rule is choice and consequence.
At my school, and I love using this example, let us say they are playing with a soccer ball outside and they break a window. Shouting is not the way to go because shouting just shames a child and turns the broken window into my problem. But it is not my problem. They broke the window.
If we turn it into you did it, then it becomes more shameful. They were not trying to break the window. And even if they were, there would be other reasons for it. So the consequence is, right, let us check it out.
Is everybody safe?
Have you got shoes on?
Have we cordoned off the area?
Now, with you, the person who broke the window, come with me. I am going to show you how to clean this up. Here, let me show you with the brush. Now you take over, and you do the rest of the glass.
How do you keep yourself safe?
Where are we putting the glass now?
Let us put it in this plastic bag.
Is there glass still in the frame?
Let us look at everyone else’s safety.
All of that is learning, and they get to do that with you. After that, you collect it all up in a bag, and I hand it over to the child and say, right, you and your dad or your mom can come and fix the window on Saturday.
What that is about is, I did not break the window. You did. I am not shaming or punishing you. I am asking you to replace what you broke. I love handing it over to the parents, because if I get the children to replace the glass during the school day with me, then I am isolating the parent from the learning opportunity.
What I normally talk to the parent about is that your son did not mean to do this. They were having a great game of soccer. It came off the side of his boot. He broke the window. I am not angry about this, but it needs to be resolved. I have shown him how to clean up, and now I want you to show him how to fix it. Hopefully, the parent goes with the child on a Saturday.
They measure it out. They go to a glass place. They have a glass cut. They learn how to carry it carefully so they do not cut themselves. Why is it wrapped in newspaper?
They get it there. What is putty? How does that work?
If the parent does not know how to do this, they can always get a handyman to do it. But the child must be involved, because they must repair what they broke. That is really key to all of this.
So much research is coming out now confirming that the mistakes are not what hurt us. It is when the mistakes are not repaired. From an adult perspective, that is often what happened in our own childhoods. The mistakes that happened were not repaired, and we are still carrying those traumas. We do not want that for our children.
From an academic point of view, if you make a mistake with spelling, you rub it out and do it again or cross it out and do it again. That is the repair. If I am mean to you, being mean is terrible. But if I do not say sorry, that is where the trauma happens. I have got to repair it. I have got to say, I am so sorry that I was mean to you.
Same thing with the glass. You broke the window. That is okay. Just fix it. When it is fixed, it is not a problem anymore. If we leave it unfixed and we do not hold the child accountable for fixing it, we are teaching them that they can do whatever they want and other people will take the consequence. We do not want that.
We want children who are responsible. We want children to understand the consequences of their actions. We reduce impulse control issues, which are so prevalent today, especially with ADHD diagnosis. Children are impulsive.
How do we get them to not be impulsive? Not by shouting at them. By helping them to work through the consequences of their actions.
When we help them to work through the consequences of their actions, they learn in their nervous system to delay being triggered in the future. That is where healing happens, between the trigger and the response. If we can make space between triggered and responding, children gain control.
They are no longer responsive to their immediate needs. They can breathe and slow down and think about their response. It starts in every little component.
They break the window, no problem. This is how you are going to fix it.
You got the sum wrong, no problem. Rub it out and do it again.
You read the word wrong. Oh interesting. Can I show you how to read it right? Let us read it right now.
Can you see how all of it is about repair and learning. It is not about being perfect. It is not about being punished. It is about the natural consequence of your actions. If we do not drive the consequence, children continue to take the same action and we wonder why they do not change.
I am going to tell a beautiful story of a little boy who broke a ruler in my class. It was a one metre plastic ruler. Now we cannot measure one metre. No problem. Can you take these two pieces home and replace it? There is no punishment. You are not getting shouted at. Just replace it.
I find the mom and say, “Give him some chores to do at home so he can earn some money.” Figure out how much the ruler costs. Maybe you can take him to PNA, which is where I bought it. This is how much it costs. It is R150.00. You need to wash the car three times. You will get R50.00 each time. That is R150.00. Then we go to the shops. You take the R150.00 you earned and worked for out of your pocket. You buy the ruler. You take the ruler back into school. You hand it back and say, sorry, I broke your ruler. Here is a new one. And I say, oh, that is fantastic. Thank you so much for replacing the ruler. We can now measure one meter again.
Unfortunately, that does not happen.
Then he broke something else. I went to the mom again. Let us go back and take him something else. He needs to understand the consequences of his actions. Give him chores.
Let him earn money. He can go to China Mall. It is really cheap. He can buy it. He can bring it to me. It still does not happen.
Mom thinks she needs to replace the ruler and the globe. She is irritated with her son that she now needs to put money down to replace this. He is feeling her irritation and her anger, but it is not changing his behaviour. He continues to break things in the class.
If we can help children to be in the space of repairing what they have broken, they feel the weight of that. It changes their behaviour going forward. If we rescue them from the consequences of their actions, it changes nothing in the child and just makes us more irritated. Then, suddenly, there are fifteen or twenty-year-olds breaking things.
We need to catch it really early on. Responsibility is what choice and consequence are about. How do we teach children to be responsible? We teach them by giving them a naturally occurring consequence to their actions.
Not punishment.
Not shame.
Not something completely disconnected from the action.
You just fix what you broke. Let us find a way to fix what you broke. Children very quickly learn the value of things. Not just the value of things, but the value of learning and the value of people.
Otherwise, they just fumble and fall through life, being mean to friends, not learning, and not getting things done. Then we wonder why.
I think this is a really important message. Punishment is not what we are going for. Discipline is what we are trying to develop. We develop internal self-discipline by holding children accountable for their actions in a kind and loving way and teaching them how to repair mistakes.
Whether it is a broken window, a poor exam result, not doing their homework or being mean to a friend. How do you fix what was broken? Breaking things in the first place is something that we all do as human beings. We get stuff wrong all the time.
Can we fix it?
Can we repair?
Can we take responsibility?
That is how we counter the ADHD diagnosis. That is how we counter anxiety. We build in the child the strength and the ability to go through life proudly with ownership and responsibility. It is a very powerful way to raise children.
