discipline and the love languages

Which of the following words is negative: love, warmth, laughter, discipline?

The answer is—none. Contrary to what many people think, discipline is not a negative word. Discipline comes from a Greek word that means “to train.” Discipline involves the long and vigilant task of guiding a child from infancy to adulthood. The goal is that the child would reach a level of maturity that will allow him one day to function as a responsible adult in society. Now that’s a positive goal!

To train your child in mind and character to become a self-controlled and constructive member of home and community requires that you use every type of communication with the child. You will employ guidance by example, modeling, verbal instruction, written request, teaching and preaching right behavior, correcting wrong behavior, providing learning experiences, and much more. Punishment is also one of these means and does have its place, but in many homes punishment is greatly overused. In fact, many parents assume that discipline and punishment are synonymous. Punishment is a type of discipline, though the most negative (see page 138.

Some parents, particularly those who did not receive much love in their own childhood, tend to skip the importance of nurturing a child. They regard the main task of parenting as punishment, instead of using other, more positive forms of discipline. To be effective in discipline, parents must keep the child’s emotional love tank filled with love. In fact, disciplining without love is like trying to run a machine without oil. It may appear to be working for a while, but will end in disaster.

Because of the confusion about discipline, we are focusing in this chapter on the common, corrective meaning of the word, and in the next chapter on the teaching/learning aspects of discipline. In both instances, we will explore how your child’s love language can help you to develop discipline in your child.

Keeping Johnny Out of the Street

The common, popular definition of discipline is the establishing of parental authority, the developing of guidelines for behavior, and then helping children live by these guidelines. Every culture historically has held expectations for mature behavior and has devised means through which this would be achieved.

Historically, all kinds of societies have regarded human beings as moral creatures. Within the larger community, some things are considered right and others wrong; some are acceptable while others are unacceptable. While standards differ from place to place, no society is amoral. Each has its codes, rules, laws, and ethical understandings. When individuals choose to live immoral lives, they do so to their own detriment and to the harm of their society.

Parents play the most important role in the discipline of their children because it is they who interpret to their offspring their culture’s generally accepted standards. Babies are not capable of deciding how to live, and without parental rules, a child will not survive to adulthood. During infancy, parents must totally enforce the rules and control the behavior of the child. This means that they will not allow Johnny to crawl into a fire, no matter how attracted he may be to the rising flames. Later, as a toddler, Johnny must be kept out of the street lest he be hit by a passing car. His parents must put medicines and toxic substances out of reach.

From this infantile stage requiring total control, parents move toward devoting more than a decade to rearing their child to an acceptable level of self-discipline. This road to maturity is one that every child must walk and for which every parent needs to accept responsibility. It is an awesome task, requiring wisdom, imagination, patience, and great amounts of love.

Many parents are confused about the “best” way to raise children. They don’t trust themselves and are ready to listen to the latest expert. Yet even the experts offer clashing theories and often contradictory advice. This has yielded much disagreement as to the standards for discipline in American families. Thus the patterns of discipline vary greatly in America. It is beyond the scope of this book to deal with the full arena of discipline. If you want to read more about this, you will find suggested books in the appendix.

Before You Discipline

Love looks out for the interests of another; so does discipline. So discipline is certainly an act of love. And the more a child feels loved, the easier it is to discipline that child. The reason is that a child must identify with her parents in order to accept their guidance without resentment, hostility, and obstructive, passive-aggressive behavior. This means that we must keep the child’s love tank full before we administer discipline.

If the child does not identify with his parents, he will view each parental request or command as an imposition and will learn to resent it. In extreme cases, the child comes to consider a parental request with such resentment that his total orientation to parental authority—and eventually all authority—becomes one of doing the opposite of what is expected.

We must keep the child’s love tank full before we administer discipline.

Michael is ten years old. His father, Paul, is a lawyer who works long hours. On the weekends, he mows the lawn and does other household jobs. Occasionally he attends a football game on Saturday and often spends time working in his home office. Michael doesn’t see much of his father. Since Michael’s primary love language is quality time, he doesn’t feel much love coming from his dad. By the time the weekend rolls around, his father is physically and emotionally tired—not in a mood to put up with childish pranks. His discipline is typically accompanied with harsh words said in an angry voice. Paul thinks that his discipline is what his son needs to become a responsible young man. However, the reality is that Michael greatly resents the discipline and is afraid of his father. He has little desire to obey his wishes and spends most of the weekend avoiding his dad.

Even a casual observer can see the connection between Paul’s seeming lack of love and Michael’s lack of respect. The father’s harsh words and angry tones might be tolerated by a child who felt secure in his father’s love, but when the love tank is empty, as in Michael’s case, such discipline creates anger and bitterness rather than responsibility.

If Michael felt secure in his father’s love, he would know that the discipline he received was, at least in Paul’s mind, for his well-being. But since he does not feel loved, he views his dad’s discipline as an act of selfishness. More and more, Michael is seeing himself as little more than a bother to his dad, and this is seriously affecting his self-esteem.

Clearly it is crucial that you love your child unconditionally. You can do this much more effectively if you know and speak all the love languages. Every child needs this unconditional love to keep his or her emotional love tank full. Then you will be able to discipline with the best possible results. First things first, fellow parents. Practice unconditional love; then discipline.

How a Child Loves

Before we are able to effectively discipline a child in love, we need to ask two questions:

1. How does a child love?

2. What does my child need when he misbehaves?

Well, how does a child love? In an immature fashion. In contrast, adults seek to love in an unconditional manner. Often we fail and settle for what is called a reciprocating love. For instance, David has a deep affection for Danielle, whom he wants to fall in love with him. Wanting to put his best foot forward, he tries to be pleasant, calm, helpful, kind, respectful, and considerate to her. Because he is not sure of Danielle’s love, he does not resort to immature behavior but seeks to earn her love. This rational approach to obtaining love is called reciprocating love because John is doing his best to secure Danielle’s’s love in return.

But a child loves with neither reciprocating nor unconditional love. Being immature, a child loves in a self-oriented fashion. She is instinctively aware of her own need to feel loved—to have a full emotional love tank. She is not aware that her parents also have love tanks that need to be filled. Her only real concern is the status of her own love tank. When it is on low or empty, she is compelled to frantically ask, “Do you love me?” How her parents answer that question determines a great deal about the child’s behavior, since the main cause of misbehavior is an empty emotional tank.

Some parents think a child should try to earn their love and affection with good behavior, but this just isn’t possible. A child by nature continually tests our love by his or her behavior. He is asking, “Do you love me?” If we respond, “Yes, I love you,” and fill his love tank, we take the pressure off and make it unnecessary for him to continue testing our love. We also make it much easier to control his behavior. However, if we fall into the trap of thinking our child should “earn” our love by good behavior, we will be continually frustrated. We will also see our child as bad, as disrespectful and unloving, when actually he needs to be reassured of our love.

When a Child Misbehaves

When a child asks through his behavior, “Do you love me?” we may not like the behavior. If the child feels desperate enough, his behavior will turn inappropriate. Nothing makes a child more desperate than a lack of love. However, it does not make sense to demand good behavior from a child without first making sure he feels loved.

It does not make sense to demand good behavior from a child without first making sure he feels loved.

The second question we must ask in order to discipline with love is, “What does my child need when she misbehaves?” Instead, when a child misbehaves, many parents ask, “What can I do to correct her behavior?” If they ask that question, the logical answer is, “Punishment.” This is one reason that punishment is so overused, rather than parents’ selecting more appropriate ways of training a child. When we resort to punishment first, later we cannot easily consider the real needs of the child. A child will not feel loved if we handle misbehavior this way.

However, when we ask, “What does this child need?” we can proceed rationally and decide on a proper course. A child who misbehaves has a need. To overlook the need behind the misbehavior can prevent us from doing the right thing. Asking ourselves, “What can I do to correct my child’s behavior?” often leads to thoughtless punishment. Asking, “What does my child need?” lets us proceed with confidence that we will handle the situation well.

Why a Child Misbehaves: An Empty Love Tank

When your child misbehaves and you have asked yourself, “What does my child need?” the next question should be, “Does this child need her love tank filled?” It is so much easier to discipline a child if she feels genuinely loved, particularly if the cause of the misbehavior is an empty love tank. At such a time, you need to keep the love languages in mind, especially physical touch and quality time, and the use of eye contact.

When a child obviously misbehaves, what he has done should not be condoned. However, if we deal with it wrongly—either too harshly or too permissively—we will have further problems with that child, and those problems will worsen as he grows older. Yes, we need to discipline (train) a child toward good behavior, but the first step in that process is not punishment.

Young children are not subtle about asking for our love. They are noisy and often do things that seem inappropriate to an adult way of thinking. When we realize that they are really pleading for us to spend time with them, to hold them, to give ourselves to them in a personal manner, we will remember that they are children and that we have the precious responsibility to fill their love tanks first, and then train them to move on in their journey.

Why a Child Misbehaves: Physical Problems

But what do we do when misbehavior is not caused by an empty love tank?

After you have asked yourself, “What does this child need?” and you have determined that the child’s love tank is not depleted, ask yourself, “Is this a physical problem?” The second most common cause of misbehavior is a physical problem, and the younger the child, the more behavior is affected by physical needs. “Is my child in pain? Hungry or thirsty? Fatigued? Ill?” Misbehavior cannot be condoned, even if it is caused by a physical problem, but the problem behavior can usually be quickly relieved if its source is physical.

A Child’s Remorse, a Parent’s Forgiveness

Let’s assume that you determine that your child’s misbehavior is not caused by physical reasons. What’s the next question? “Does my child feel sorry for what he has done?” When a child feels genuinely sorry for what he has done, there is no need to proceed further. He has learned and repented; punishment now could be destructive. If your child is truly sorry and shows genuine remorse, you should rejoice. This means his conscience is alive and well.

What controls a child’s (or adult’s) behavior when he doesn’t have to behave appropriately? Right, a healthy conscience. And what is the raw material from which a normal conscience is formed? Guilt. A certain amount of guilt is necessary for the development of a healthy conscience. And what will wipe away guilt, as clean as a new slate? You guessed it—punishment, especially corporal punishment. However, punish the child when he already feels genuinely guilty for his behavior, and you hinder his ability to develop a good conscience. In such a situation, punishment usually produces only anger and resentment.

When your child is truly sorry for her misbehavior, instead of punishing her, forgive her. In your example of forgiving her, you are teaching beautiful lessons about forgiveness she can take into her adult years. By experiencing forgiveness from her parents, she is learning to forgive herself and later to forgive someone else. What a beautiful gift this is. Have you seen a child who was truly remorseful about a wrong she did and then experienced a parent’s forgiveness? This is a rare and unforgettable experience. The love that flows from the child’s heart is overwhelming.

The only other way you can teach your child how to forgive is to ask forgiveness when you have wronged her. While you should do this occasionally, it should not be necessary often. If it is, you are unduly offending your child and not learning from your own mistakes.

Five Ideas on Controlling Your Child’s Behavior

As parents we are responsible for so much that happens with our children, often more than we want to admit. We can learn ways to help our children avoid bad behavior and subsequent punishment. Here are five methods you can use to effectively control your child’s behavior. Two of these are positive, two are negative, and one is neutral. As you read this section, you will want to think about the methods of control that you have employed with your children; you may want to change or add to your approach.

1. Making Requests

Making requests is a very important, positive means of controlling behavior. It greatly benefits both parent and child. Requests are pleasant to the child and help to ease the anger that may be stirred by a parent’s commands. And it is so much easier for parents to be pleasant when using requests, thereby remaining “kind but firm.”

When you make requests, you are sending three nonverbal messages to your child. The first is that you respect his feelings. You are saying, “I respect the fact that you have feelings, and your feelings about this matter in particular.” The second nonverbal message is the fact that you realize your child has a brain and is able to form opinions. “I respect that you have an opinion about this.”

The third message is the best of all. Requests tell your child that you expect her to take responsibility for her own behavior. This kind of responsibility is so lacking today. Your child can learn to be a responsible person when you give her the opportunity to do so. By the use of requests, you are guiding and encouraging her to take responsibility.

By the use of requests, you are guiding and encouraging her to take responsibility.

A child who is raised in this way comes to feel that he is in partnership with his parents in the molding of his character. This kind of child rearing is not permissiveness. The parent is not giving up authority or respect. In fact, the child will have much greater respect for his parents because he will feel that they are not simply telling him what to do, but are interested primarily in what is best for him.

Also, requests are the best way of giving instructions. Since requests are more pleasant, thoughtful, and considerate than commands, you can use them to instruct your child almost endlessly. No other method of control allows this.

2. Issuing Commands

Issuing commands is necessary and appropriate at times. Requests are vastly superior when you have a choice, but commands are necessary when requests fail. Then you must be more forceful. Commands are a negative means of control because they require harsher tones than requests, with a downward voice inflection at the end of the statement. This combination almost always elicits irritation, anger, and resentment in the child, especially if used frequently. Also, the nonverbal messages that accompany commands are generally negative. Because you are telling a child what to do, with no choices or opportunity for feedback or discussion, you are conveying that the child’s feelings and opinions are not important to you. Most of all, you are taking all the responsibility on yourself and essentially saying, “It doesn’t matter what your feelings or opinions are about this. I don’t expect you to take responsibility for your own behavior. I simply expect you to do what I am telling you.”

The more you use authoritarian techniques such as commands, scolding, nagging, or screaming, the less effective you become. But if you normally use pleasant requests, then the occasional use of commands will generally be effective.

As parents, you have only so much authority. If you waste it being negative, you will not have enough left for the difficult, critical times. Being kind but firm not only conserves your authority, but it enhances your authority, because you are gaining your children’s respect and love as well as their gratitude.

Children are great observers. They see and hear how other parents resort to unpleasant, authoritarian, and angry discipline with their children. When you are kind but firm with them, you can’t imagine how much they appreciate you and how thankful they are to have you as their parents!

3. Gentle Physical Manipulation

Gentle physical manipulation can move a child in the appropriate direction. It’s especially effective with young children who often do things that are not necessarily wrong—but are not to your preference. For instance, the negativism of two-year-olds can be easily confused with defiance. “No,” Henry says, but then he will do what you request of him. Sometimes there is a delay after Henry says it, and then he responds to your request. It may seem to you that he is being defiant, but this is not so. Negativism in two-year-olds is a normal step of development, one way the child begins to separate psychologically from his mother or father.

Please be careful not to confuse negativism with defiance.

This simple ability to say no is important. If you punish a small child for this, you are not only hurting him but directly interfering with his normal development. Please be careful not to confuse negativism with defiance. They are completely separate.

Let’s say that you want your three-year-old daughter to come to you. You begin with a request, “Come to me, will you, Honey?” Your child answers, “No.” You move to a command, “Come to me now!” Again she answers, “No.” At this point it is a real temptation to punish her, but you should resist. Instead of taking a great risk and hurting your child, why not gently guide her to where you want her to be? If she resists, then you know it may be defiance and you can take an appropriate course. But, the vast majority of the time, you will discover that the child was not being defiant but was just saying no. And you haven’t hurt a thing.

Negativism usually starts when children are two, but you can see examples of it in virtually every age. When you are not sure how to handle a situation, you can try gentle physical manipulation. It is particularly helpful when a small child acts up in a public place. Instead of giving in to frustration, her parents can simply move her on.

4. Punishment

Punishment is the most negative and also the most difficult method of control. First, the punishment must fit the crime because children are so aware of fairness. They know when a punishment is too lenient or severe. They can also detect inconsistency in their parents’ attitudes toward the children in the family.

Second, the punishment may not be appropriate for the particular child. Sending a child to his room, for example, may feel very painful to one sibling and seem like a playtime to another. Third, punishment brings with it variation, since parents often rely on their feelings when they are dishing out a punishment. When everything is going their way and they are feeling good, they tend to be more lenient. On bad days, when a parent isn’t feeling very good, the punishment meted out is harsher.

As difficult as it may be for you to decide when and how punishment should be used, you still must be prepared to use it and to use it appropriately. This can be facilitated by planning ahead so that you can avoid the “punishment trap.” This means sitting down with a spouse or good friend to decide appropriate punishments for various offenses. Such planning will keep your anger in check when your child does something that upsets you.

When your child misbehaves and you quickly ask yourself the questions we suggested earlier, and come up with negatives on all of them (including a two-year-old’s constant “No”), you should ask one more question, “Is this child being defiant?” Defiance is openly resisting and challenging parental authority.

Of course, defiance cannot be permitted and the behavior must be corrected. But a child’s defiance does not automatically mean that punishment is indicated. You want to avoid the punishment trap. If a request will break the defiance, and it often does, great. If gentle physical manipulation or a command is appropriate, good. If punishment is indicated, do it with care. For more on this, we recommend Kids in Danger by Ross Campbell.

Finally, do not use punishment as your primary way of disciplining your young child or teenager. You will provoke great amounts of needless anger. You will also force your child to “stuff” his anger; he may develop passive-aggressive attitudes and behaviors, trying to get back at you indirectly. (We will discuss passive-aggressive behavior in chapter 10

5. Behavior Modification

Behavior modification can also control a child’s behavior. It utilizes positive reinforcement (placing a positive element into a child’s environment), negative reinforcement (withdrawing a positive element from the child’s environment), and punishment (placing a negative element into the child’s environment). An example of positive reinforcement is to reward a child for an appropriate behavior by giving her a piece of candy or fruit. One negative reinforcement could be withdrawing television privileges from a child for inappropriate behavior. An example of punishment (sometimes called aversive technique) would be sending a child to his room.

Behavior modification can be helpful at times, particularly for specific, recurring behavioral problems for which a child shows no remorse. But we believe it should be used sparingly. If parents overuse behavior modification, their child will not feel loved. The first reason for this is that the very foundation of behavior modification is conditional—the child receives a reward only if he behaves a certain way. Second, behavior modification does not deal with a child’s feelings or emotional needs and cannot convey unconditional love. If parents control their child’s behavior primarily by trying to modify it, the child will develop a warped value system in which he does things primarily for reward. A “what’s in it for me?” orientation will follow.

Behavior modification can also teach children to use the same method on their parents. They will do what the parents wish in order to get what they want. This leads to manipulation.

Behavior modification cannot convey unconditional love.

Because of all the cautions about this method, you may be surprised that we suggest using it at all. Again, it can help with specific, recurring behavioral problems for a defiant child. However, working with a system of rewards takes time, consistency, effort, and persistence. An excellent book on this topic is Don’t Be Afraid to Discipline , by Ruth Allen Peters.

Love: Before and After Punishment

Because discipline is most effective when it happens in the context of love, it is wise to give a child a conscious expression of love both before and after administering punishment. We have noted that the most effective way to communicate love is by using the child’s primary love language, so speak it even when you must correct or punish the child.

Larry is an electrical engineer and by nature his personality is quite rigid. In his early years of parenting, he tended to be stern and matter-of-fact in disciplining his children. After learning about the five love languages, he determined that his son’s primary love language was physical touch. He tells how he applied this in disciplining his son. “Kevin had broken the neighbor’s window while playing baseball in the backyard. He knew it was against the rules to play baseball there—the park was just a block away and the place to play ball. On several occasions, we had talked about the dangers of playing ball in the backyard. When our neighbor saw Kevin hit the ball that broke the window, he called my wife to inform us.

“After I got home, I calmly went into Kevin’s room where he was working on his computer. I walked over and started rubbing his shoulders. In a minute or so, he turned from the computer and gave me his attention. ‘Stand up,’ I said. ‘I want to hug you.’ I wrapped my arms around him as I said, ‘I’ve got to do something really tough, and I want you to know that I love you more than anything.’

“I kept hugging him for a long minute—it felt good to be close. Then I released him and said, ‘Mom called today to tell me what happened to Mr. Scott’s window. I know it was an accident, but you are well aware of the rule about not playing baseball in the yard. Therefore, I have to discipline you for breaking that rule. It hurts me to do this, but it is for your good. No baseball for the next two weeks. And you must use your money to pay for repairing the Scotts’ window. We’ll call the window company to find out how much it will cost.’

“Then I hugged him again. I know he felt my tears running down his neck. I said, ‘I love you, Buddy.’ And he said, ‘I love you too, Dad.’ I left the room knowing I had done the right thing; somehow it felt so much better when I assured him of my love before and after the discipline. Knowing that physical touch was his primary love language, I felt the discipline was received in a positive manner. I remember well previous times when I have disciplined him out of my anger and said harsh and bitter words and sometimes spanked him in a heat of rage. I thank God that I now know a better way.”

If Kevin’s love language had been words of affirmation, Larry’s encounter with him might have gone something like this: “Kevin, I need to talk with you for a few minutes. I want you to know how much I love you and appreciate the hard work you do at school. I know when you come home you want to relax, and that you enjoy playing baseball. You usually follow our house rules and I really appreciate that. It is rare that I have to discipline you. What I am trying to say is that what we need to talk about is an isolated incident and not typical of your behavior, and I’m grateful for that.

“You probably know that Mr. Scott called your mother this afternoon and told her that he saw you hit the baseball that broke his window. While it was an accident, you do know the rule about playing baseball in the backyard. It is hard for me to do this, but because you disobeyed, I have to discipline you. No baseball for two weeks. And, you will have to use your own money to pay for having the Scotts’ window repaired. I’ll call the window company to find out what it will cost.

“Do you understand that I am not angry with you? I know that you didn’t mean to break the window, and also that you probably weren’t thinking when you started playing ball in the yard. I love you very much and I’m proud of you. I know you will learn a good lesson from this experience.” Their conversation may end with a hug, but the primary expression of love is in the words of affirmation both before and after the discipline.

Using your child’s primary love language doesn’t mean that you may not also use some of the other love languages; it does mean that you are giving your child the most effective expression of love you possibly can, both before and after the discipline. Because you know that you will be showing love to your child, you will probably be more careful about the type of discipline you choose to administer, and the way in which you do it.

Respecting Your Child’s Love Language

Understanding your child’s primary love language will help you choose the best method of discipline. In most cases, do not use a form of discipline that is directly related to your child’s primary love language. Respect the child’s love language by not selecting it as a method of discipline. Such discipline will not have the desired effect and may actually cause extreme emotional pain. The message your child will receive is not one of loving correction but one of painful rejection.

For example, if your child’s love language is words of affirmation and you use condemning words as a form of discipline, your words will communicate not only that you are displeased with a certain behavior, but also that you do not love your child. Critical words can be painful to any child, but to this child, they will be emotionally devastating. Thus Ben, age sixteen, told us his father didn’t love him, citing his dad’s discipline, which included a raised voice and cutting words: “If I happen to do something he thinks is wrong, his screaming can go on for hours. I remember the day he told me he wasn’t sure I was his son because he couldn’t believe his son would do anything that terrible. I don’t really know if I am his son, but I know that he doesn’t love me.”

As he talked further, it became obvious that Ben’s primary love language was words of affirmation. When his father used words to communicate his displeasure with Ben’s behavior, he destroyed the boy’s sense of being loved.

Be careful. If your daughter’s primary love language is quality time, you don’t want to discipline her with isolation, such as sending her to her room each time she misbehaves. If it’s physical touch, don’t discipline by withholding your hugs. We remember Carlos, a ten-year-old whose primary love language is physical touch. He often walks up behind his mother and puts his arms around her or rubs her shoulders. His mother is also physically demonstrative and often communicates love to Carlos by physical touch. But Carlos’s father Joe was raised in a home where spanking was the normal method of discipline; consequently, that is his primary method of discipline when Carlos disobeys.

These spankings are not abusive, in that they do not break the skin or leave Carlos with welts. However, when Carlos receives one of Joe’s spankings, he may cry for three hours. What his father does not understand is that he is taking his son’s primary love language, physical touch, and using it in a negative way. Consequently, Carlos feels not only punished but also unloved. His dad never hugs him after a spanking, for this would seem incongruous in his philosophy of discipline.

Joe is sincere in his efforts to discipline his son, but he doesn’t recognize how much emotional distance he is putting between himself and Carlos. As parents, we must constantly be reminded that the purpose of discipline is to correct the wrong behavior and to help a child develop self-discipline. If we do not apply the love language concept, we may well destroy a child’s sense of being loved, in our efforts to correct bad behavior. Understanding the primary love language of your child can make your discipline far more effective.

About The 5 Love Languages of Children

The 5 Love Languages of Children by Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Ross Campbell is a groundbreaking parenting guide that reveals how every child has a unique way of understanding and receiving love. Building on the bestselling The 5 Love Languages concept, this book helps parents discover their child's primary love language and learn to speak it fluently.

About the Authors:

Dr. Gary Chapman is a renowned marriage counselor, bestselling author, and creator of the original Five Love Languages concept. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and transformed countless relationships.
Dr. Ross Campbell is a psychiatrist specializing in children and adolescents, with decades of experience helping families build stronger emotional connections.

Discipline and the Love Languages