Limits and norms in the education of children: objectives
The limits make children more successful in different social situations, because something that limits teach is to respect the right of the other. The main objective of the limits is that our children go through life with a series of guidelines and social norms, and that they act guided by internal motivations and in a responsible manner. This is what we call self-discipline.
Objectives of the limits and norms in the education of children
1. Self-discipline The main objective is that our children go through life with a series of guidelines and social norms, and that they act guided by internal motivations and in a responsible manner. This is what we call self-discipline.
Self-discipline is what the child imposes on himself after having internalized it through daily practice. Of course, a two-year-old child has no internal motivation. He has first external motivations and we have to teach him progressively to regulate his own behavior.
The responsibility exercised on his own initiative from the choices made by the child leads to independence and self-regulation of his own behavior, and that is the ultimate goal, that my son is independent but is able to self-regulate his behavior, that he does not need mom or dad all his life to tell him what is good and what is wrong, what can be done and what can not be done.
2. Fight rebellion.The traditional discipline was a discipline guided absolutely by external motivations, there was a reward for good behavior and punishment for bad behavior. In traditional discipline, parents are responsible for the child's behavior. And it is something that inspires fear and that, of course, incites rebellion.
A quiet rebellion in the school child is a manifest rebellion in the adolescent. If a person is raised saying "do not do this, do not do this ...", he will endure it in the school stage, because he is the only model he knows and he will think that in all the families the same happens. But when that teenager of 14 or 15 years goes out into the world and sees that the world works in a different way, it is very possible that he will rebel.
3. Education in responsibility. This begins when the child is a baby and we begin to set limits that, at first, he does not understand, but he will hear how we repeat them over and over again over the years. And quickly the children begin to understand, before speaking they understand the "no" and the "yes".
Remember that children have to learn what is "not" clear, what is "yes" and what is "you choose". And the "you choose" are fundamental because it is the prologue of self-regulation, that one knows that he has options, that he values the possible consequences of each option and that he chooses and then takes charge of the consequences. This is encouraged by allowing the child to always choose between several alternatives and always expose himself to the consequences of his choice.
Ignacio Iturbe
