Coparent Academy Podcast
Lifechanging Coparenting
Coparent Academy Podcast
#159 - 8 Discipline Mistakes That Can Land You in Court
Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-miVOo1A5Nw
Discipline done wrong can destroy your relationship with your child—and even land you in court. In this episode, we break down 8 common discipline mistakes that cost parents not only thousands in legal fees but also the trust of their children and coparents.
Whether you're going through a custody battle, coparenting after separation, or just trying to raise emotionally healthy kids, this video gives you actionable insights to parent wisely—without risking your legal standing or your child’s emotional wellbeing.
Thanks for listening! If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please email us at ron@coparentacademy.com. To learn more about becoming the best coparent you can be, visit coparentacademy.com.
When discipline is done wrong, it doesn't just hurt your child, it can land you back in court. Today we're going to talk about eight discipline mistakes that can cost parents thousands of dollars in legal fees and, even more importantly, hurt their relationship with both their child and their co-parent. The first mistake is disciplining when you're angry. If you try to discipline your child when you're not regulated yourself, then you're not accomplishing what you're supposed to be doing. When you discipline and that's educating You're supposed to be teaching your child what they did wrong and what they can do in the future. If you yourself are just out of control, you're angry, you're maybe throwing stuff, you're raising your voice, you're slamming doors, whatever it is that you do when you get dysregulated, you're not teaching your child. Kids learn best when they feel safe, not when they're scared. If you discipline when you're angry, you're teaching your child to be afraid of you and to try to avoid that negative outburst from you, but you're not teaching them how they could have done something better. You're not teaching them to internalize why they want to do things better in the future other than to avoid your wrath. And when your co-parent sees that you're out of control when they hear these stories from your child or if they hear something on the phone, if they see something at a visitation transfer, you're creating distrust with your co-parent as well. You may know that you would never hurt your child and that you're expressing frustration in a way that certainly isn't healthy, but your parent sees potentially abusive behavior and, depending on how angry you get and depending on how you're emoting that frustration, you may be doing harm to your child anyway. So never discipline when you're angry. Discipline and anger don't go together.
Speaker 1:The second discipline mistake is using corporal punishment in any way. Now I know, depending on where you are and I'm in Oklahoma corporal punishment is legal. Just because you have the right to do something as a parent doesn't mean that you should. Corporal punishment is ineffective. It's not going to teach your child anything other than you get to control those you can hurt physically. So don't use corporal punishment. It is one of the fastest ways not only to harm your child, not only to damage your relationship with your child, but to land yourself back in court and possibly even facing DHS investigations, custody evaluations, even facing criminal charges and investigations. Corporal punishment doesn't help anyone. It's one of the worst parenting mistakes that you can make that can land you back up in court.
Speaker 1:Number three fear-based discipline, making threats no, if you keep this up, you're not going to have Christmas, santa's not going to come to our house. If you keep acting this way, we're not going to go see your grandparents, I'm going to throw away all your toys. I've even seen some parents say things like I'm going to cut this head off of your doll if you don't do what I say. That kind of fear-based discipline does nothing to actually instruct your child. Stories of fear-based discipline like that resonate pretty powerfully in your co-parent, especially if you have a history of using the same kind of controlling, manipulative tactics with them. So leave the fear-based parenting out of it. Number four I'm putting three together Emotional manipulation, guilt-tripping and shame.
Speaker 1:Kids are no different than adults. We all hate to be guilt tripped, saying things like I worked so hard for you and this is how you treat me, or I can't believe you made me look that way in front of your dad. You know what he's going to think. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't act this way. This isn't discipline. It's emotional blackmail dressed up as discipline. Again, you're not teaching your child anything other than to resent you. So keep the emotional manipulation, the blackmail, the shaming out of your discipline repertoire. It's going to do nothing but drive distance between you and your co-parent.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. Kids don't have much control over anything and so because of that, they really focus in on fairness. They demand that things be fair. That's how they deal with things at school with their friends. That's how they're going to deal with things at home with you. If you have inconsistent or arbitrary punishments, it feels really unfair to your child. They have no idea where it's coming from. And here's an example let's say that they forgot an assignment this week and you know they have to do two extra chores because of it. Then, a few months down the road, they've been doing everything great, haven't had any missed assignments, and then they miss another assignment. Now, all of a sudden, instead of doing a couple extra chores, now they don't have their phone for two weeks. That feels completely inconsistent, it feels arbitrary to them. They have no idea what to expect in terms of the results of their mistakes. They feel like why even bother trying to figure out what I can do or can't do? They feel like they're trapped in an unfair system.
Speaker 1:Number six punishment as retaliation against your co-parent. So this usually comes into play when your child's a little bit older and they can understand better the dynamic between you and your co-parent and they can see a couple moves ahead. So let's say that your co-parent has asked, and you've agreed, for them to take your child to some sporting event, maybe a concert downtown, maybe some sort of interesting thing in the park, whatever. Your kid gets in trouble and instead of issuing a punishment for them that's going to take place on your own time, this punishment is going to keep them from doing the thing with their co-parent they wanted to do. Your child is going to see this as an unfair intrusion onto their relationship with them and their other parent. So keep their co-parent out of punishments at your house. Now, certainly if you and your co-parent can be on the same page about continuing punishments. So let's say you have a parenting schedule that's a 2-2-5. For example, where you have Monday and Tuesday, your co-parent has Wednesday and Thursday and you alternate the weekends With the child going back and forth like that during the week. It can be really good if you and your co-parent can be on the same page about, say, no electronics for the week and it's enforced at both houses. But unless you have that kind of agreement and the child understands that you and your co-parent are on the same page about the punishment, don't have your discipline efforts, don't have your punishment interfere with your co-parent's house or your co-parent's planned activities with your child. It's just not going to go well for you.
Speaker 1:Number seven including a step-parent or a romantic partner in discipline. Let me make this one easy from the very beginning Step-parents, romantic partners, should have nothing to do with discipline. It takes absolutely years before the relationship can be built up sufficiently where your step-parent may have any concept that they should be involved in any kind of discipline whatsoever. The primary role for a step-parent or romantic partner is to be kind of like a fun, safe aunt or uncle that your child can get to know, maybe at most a mentor type relationship with a safe adult. They should have nothing to do with discipline. It's going to do nothing but fuel resentment and it's completely unfair to your with discipline. It's going to do nothing but fuel resentment and it's completely unfair to your step-parent to ask them to step into that role.
Speaker 1:Now we see this happen a lot. A lot of times men will get remarried and ask their wife to start taking over a bunch of the household duties, including taking care of the children, and including within that discipline For moms. A lot of times they'll remarry and they'll start asking their husband to be that scary disciplinarian in the house. If they were a mom who used to say, wait till your dad gets home, trying to push off that discipline to the father, now they're going to be saying the same thing about the step-parent or the romantic partner. Pushing off the harsher discipline to the male figure in the house is something that a lot of women still do. It's incredibly unfair to your step-parent or romantic partner to put them in the role of the bad guy. They don't have the relationship for it. You have to connect with the child before you can direct them, and children view direction as correction. So it's unfair to have your step parent direct, correct, punish your child in any way until they've been in a relationship for years and have built up that sort of common tapestry of experience that gives them sufficient connection where your child is open to receiving helpful discipline and guidance from them. If you're doing it within the first several years, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 1:Number eight is a broad category of just essentially taking harsh, unnecessary stances on different topics. So, for example, extracurriculars you know I get it that extracurriculars take time and money, especially when you have multiple children. But if you take an unnecessarily harsh stance on extracurriculars that does nothing to try to compromise with your child's desire to be engaged in some of these activities and your other parent, your co-parent, is more open to it, then you're eventually going to breed resentment for yourself with your child. Same thing with screen time. Definitely there need to be limits on screen time, both in terms of duration and also in terms of just safety. What kind of sights can your child see? What kind of information will your child receive while they're online? But it has to be something that is shared between the two homes and it has to be reasonable given your child's developmental stage. Is your child the only 13-year-old without a cell phone at their school? That's something that's going to breed resentment.
Speaker 1:Are there legitimate needs for your child to have a device? Does your child have a device at their parents' home but not at yours? These are things that can cause disruptions in your co-parenting relationship. It's better for both parents to be on the same page about device usage, device limitations, restrictions, device safety. If you're having difficulty in getting something like this figured out, get a third party involved. This is a good opportunity to get a therapist who is familiar with their child's developmental stage to be able to advise you on what's safe for your child, and different children have different requirements. For some children, having more screen time is going to be even worse than for other children. You just have to understand your children's specific needs and you have to be on the same page about them.
Speaker 1:Religion is another topic that is ripe for controversy here. You and your co-parent may have different views about religion. Your co-parent may have agreed to go to your church while you were married because they were trying to placate you or because they really wanted to try to support you, but now that you're separated they want to follow their own religious path and they want to show that same religious path or no religious path to your child on their parenting time. So it doesn't help to take a pure black and white, severe stance on religion. It does no good to say that your co-parent's going to hell because they don't share your religion. If you want your child to follow in your religion, then you need to allow them to get to know it and to get to accept it on their own terms and at their own pace. You can't force someone into religious belief. It doesn't work. And if you are concerned that your co-parent is showing them some other religion that you think is not going to be helpful for you, like, maybe your co-parent marries someone who is of a different religion than yours, well then, just take satisfaction in knowing that on your parenting time you're showing your child the religion of your choice, and if your religion is presented at them in a way that is attractive and substantive, then it'll win the day.
Speaker 1:Potentially, trying to cram your view of religion down your child's throat, getting into conflict with your co-parent about who can show what in terms of religion to your child, is going to wind up backfiring against you. If you find yourself wrapped up in some of these unhelpful discipline patterns, there's some things that you can do. First, focus on communication, not control. If you want your child to learn from you, which is what discipline is all about, you need to connect with them before you can correct them. Focus on that connection first, that connection when you're not angry, when you're calm and well-regulated. If you communicate with them and connect with them, they'll actually receive what you want them to learn way better.
Speaker 1:Second is to figure out your own triggers. We each have different parts of us that respond differently under different circumstances. There may be a behavior that your child's engaging in that, even though you don't have any conscious understanding of it, it's triggering a fear in you based on your own childhood. It's triggering a fear based on your relationship with your co parent. There may be something that triggers shame inside of you, something you don't like about yourself. It's a good idea, if you realize that you're acting in a way that you shouldn't, to try to figure out how is that impacting you? What part of yourself that maybe you keep hidden, even from yourself, is responding in these moments and creating these unhelpful communication patterns?
Speaker 1:Third, as much as humanly possible, work together with your co-parent to build shared discipline across the households. It doesn't have to be everything that you want, it doesn't have to be everything your co-parent wants, and it's unhelpful to have completely separate rules in the different households. You'll probably find, if you'll just work with a co-parent, that you probably agree on 80 or 90% of the discipline questions. Get as much of a shared framework in place as you can and help your child to understand that it is a shared decision. Communicate together with your child that these are things that you agree on. It's going to be the same in both houses, believe it or not. That will not feel oppressive to your child. It'll feel good. It'll help your child to understand that their parents are on the same side, that they have some sense of stability and understanding what they can expect at both homes if they misbehave. That kind of certainty is good for a child and seeing that their parents are working together is good for them as well.
Speaker 1:And finally, no matter what, always focus on that connection between yourself and your child. If you get into disagreements, if you get dysregulated, if you use one of these unhelpful discipline tactics, focus on repair, apologize, talk with your child about where that came from and why you understand it's not good and how it's not going to happen again in the future. No matter what, focus on your connection first, before you think about how you're disciplining. If you focus on healthy patterns of communication to build up strong relationships with both your children and your co-parent, what you'll find is that you'll have less conflict and you'll have maybe even less need to discipline If you engage in these negative discipline patterns and if you don't focus on that kind of emotional connection, then what you're going to find is increased conflict all over the place.
Speaker 1:You're going to be fighting battles with your child and with your co-parent. Eventually, what's going to happen is your child is going to resent you more and more and it's going to get closer to your co-parent as they get older. The court's going to get closer to your co-parent as they get older. The court's going to pay more attention to what it is that your child wants, what their preference is.
Speaker 1:So, ultimately, what you're doing for yourself, if you're engaging in these disconnecting, unhelpful discipline patterns, is to build a scenario in which you're looking at down the road or very soon, depending on developmental stage, a custody case in which you're looking at down the road, or very soon, depending on developmental stage, a custody case in which you're going to be defending yourself against allegations of improper discipline. You're going to be potentially working with the guardian ad latem, having a custody evaluation and putting your custodial position up to a judge. Who knows what that judge is going to do in that circumstance? So do yourself a favor. Do something that helps your relationship with your child, improves your relationship with your co-parent, decreases the risk of renewed litigation and decreases the chance that a judge, who's going to hear about your case for a very short period of time, is going to be deciding not only your life but also that of your child. You've got the power. Thank you for listening. Hope you have a great day.