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4 The Cognitive Approach to Discipline Underpinnings and Three Principles T he Cognitive approach to discipline owes much to the work of Alfred Adler, one of the first founders of psychoanalysis to break with Sigmund Freud. Adler was a major psychotherapy theorist whose work is considered to be a precursor of the (currently very popular) cognitive-behavioral emphasis in psychotherapy. He was one of the few early psychiatrists to work directly with children and is considered the father of the child-guidance movement in Europe and America. He contributed many important concepts— including self-esteem, sibling rivalry, and birth order—to the field of personality psychology. Adler’s break with Freud, as was the case with other pioneers of psychoanalysis , was ostensibly over what he saw as Freud’s excessive emphasis on sexuality as the core motivational drive explaining human behavior and psychopathology. For Adler, a better candidate for such a core drive was the need to feel important and valued as part of a social unit. The mark of mental health, Adler believed, was not healthy sexuality but, rather, healthy relationships with other people—that is, achieving a balance between autonomy (selfdefinition and actualization) and empathy (being a kind person who avoids using people and who cares about others and about society). Unhealthy adult social patterns, often found in persons who are cruel and antisocial or who care excessively about power, reflect an imbalance that probably stems from an inability as children to learn that feeling good about oneself and obtaining approval from others, including parents, does not have to be obtained at the expense of others (e.g., siblings). As with the theoreticians (Freud, Rogers, Skinner) whose work provided inspiration for the Affective and Behavioral discipline approaches, Adler himself did not, to my knowledge, have much to say directly about discipline. Rather, implications of the Adlerian 54 Chapter 4 framework for discipline were worked out mainly by his followers, with the biggest contribution coming from Rudolf Dreikurs, whose many books, including Children: The Challenge (Dreikurs with Soltz 1992) and A New Approach to Discipline: Logical Consequences (Dreikurs and Grey 1968), are widely known. Don Dinkmeyer and Gary McKay’s STEP Program (1976; Dinkmeyer, McKay, and Dinkmeyer 1998) is another example of a widely used discipline curriculum that is primarily grounded in the Cognitive framework, although these authors appear to have incorporated elements from the Affective approach as well. The basic idea underlying the Cognitive approach, and the reason why I call it “Cognitive,” is that the development of child social competence occurs when the child learns to consider the perspective of others, peers as well as adults. Helping a child become someone who is well-behaved hinges on his acquiring mature moral judgment—namely, an ability to take the feelings, needs, and rights of others into account. Development of such “perspectivetaking ” in a child is not likely to be fostered by discipline that is arbitrary or that is justified by the superior strength or status of the caregiver. Saying “Do it because I say so” may work in the short term, but it does not help a child become self-regulating; instead, this tactic merely teaches him that it is all right for the strong and powerful to dominate the weak and less powerful. Within the Cognitive discipline approach, a great deal of emphasis is placed on helping a caregiver avoid getting caught up in a power struggle with a child when setting limits on the child’s behavior. Power struggles are counterproductive for several reasons: (1) They foster resentment and cause a child to focus more on justifying his own position (and plotting revenge) than on taking the caregiver’s perspective; (2) they typically lack an educational component , and thus are less likely to help the child develop an understanding of the need for certain kinds of conduct; and (3) they encourage the child to develop a habit of blaming or using others rather than taking responsibility for his own behavior. For these reasons, a caregiver is encouraged not only to avoid engaging in her own power struggles with a child but also to resist efforts by the child (such as through tattling) to ensnare her in his power struggles with peers or siblings. Caregivers are also strongly discouraged from comparing children, whether favorably or unfavorably, to others, and they are advised to treat every child as an individual with his own talents, needs, and interests. Elements of the Cognitive approach to caregiving and positive mental health...

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