Discipline.
What came to mind when you read that word?
Some of you may have thought of a moment when you were disciplined by a parent, teacher, or other adult.
Some of you may have thought of a moment when you were the disciplinarian.
And some of you thought about being punished.
Punishment is not the same as discipline.
Discipline is the coaching and teaching of expectations. This makes sense if we think about a root in the word:
Discipline—>Disciple—>Student
Punishment, on the other hand, is about power. The person with power demands submission or administers physical, mental, or emotional pain on another. (Note, this is not a post about the value or ethics of spanking—that is a different discussion.)
When we want to truly understand bigger concepts like expectations, we must also understand the difference between discipline and punishment. If we have high expectations for someone, then there will likely be times you need to discipline them. Most of the time, you are coaching, teaching, mentoring, and cheering the person on. But people are imperfect, and there may be times when the person you are caring for makes a choice that is unsafe, undesirable, or otherwise not acceptable. At that moment, discipline is important.
Unfortunately, too many students with complex disabilities are either over-punished or under-disciplined.
Let’s first consider when students are over-punished. This often occurs if the student has significant behavior challenges and the team is not adequately trained on how to understand the motivation of the behavior and how to encourage desired behavior. In these situations, the team tends to punish. Privileges are removed, words are said, and, very sadly and inappropriately, sometimes illegal or unethical physical punishment occurs.
Now let’s examine situations that lead to being under-disciplined. One common example is when a student has a significant cognitive disability. Too often, there is a quick “forgiving” of the student’s poor choices. Excuses like ”they don’t really know better” or “ they are cognitively like a two-year-old” are said. But these are lies we tell ourselves to justify lowering expectations. If we don’t discipline a student with a cognitive disability, we are, through our action, saying that we don’t think they can or will learn the expectation, we don’t want more for them, and we don’t need to take the time to understand their choice. In short, we don’t think they have a right to be heard, and we don’t value them.
But the thing is, I don’t believe people feel that way; they just don’t know that discipline is holding high expectations. And if you don’t understand that, it feels unfair to discipline. But when we do understand the difference between discipline and punishment, we are able to emotionally engage in tough discipline conversations with the student from a place of love and kindness.
When we are committed to a student’s learning and, ultimately, thriving, we coach them, teach them, mentor them, cheer them on, and
Discipline them.