Why I'm happy we chose gentle discipline

As a lot of you already know, we've been struggling lately to find out how we can best help Matthew, who's now 3 1/2.

It's been clear for a while now -- and I've suspected for much longer -- that something is just a little ... well, different ... about him. He's just more EVERYTHING than other little boys his age -- louder, wilder, you name it. Things came to a head when he returned to his preschool this fall. Every time I picked him up, I'd hear that he was crashing into things, jumping on other kids, completely unable to sit still for more than one to two minutes at circle time, etc. (And this was at a school where he had outside time AND gym time, so he wasn't just restless because he was sitting for long stretches.)

Several members of an amazing forum of women that I've been on for many many years (the oft-mentioned NFP board), when I asked, gently suggested that his behavior perhaps did not sound like that of an average 3-year-old boy. One suggested sensory processing disorder ... and when I read about it, the sensory-seeking type of SPD sounded like its description was written by someone who followed Matthew around all day and kept a list of everything he did :)

After an evaluation with a very well-regarded occupational therapist, he has been found to have sensory processing disorder, low muscle tone, and gross and fine motor delays of about 12 months. We are still working with the neuropsychologist, but ADD and language delays are also very possible issues as well.

So what does all this have to do with discipline? And why on earth am I sharing my kid's medical concerns with all of you?

Because my heart breaks when I think about children like Matthew possibly being punished constantly for things that have a medical, not a behavioral, basis.

There was a time in my life, before I was a mother, when I believed in very strict discipline. (Fortunately, a member of the NFP board told me about Gentle Christian Mothers, where I saw many stories by women whose families had been terribly damaged by authoritarian parenting methods.) I was one of those people who thought, "WHY can't that woman just CONTROL her child?!" And then I had Matthew and realized that there just IS no controlling some kids.

Let me be clear: We are not lax parents. We have NEVER given him his way -- literally not one single time -- because he cried or whined or threw a tantrum. But yet the crying and the whining and the tantrums continued.

And as he got older, more issues arose. He didn't answer questions directly, if he answered them at all. He seemed literally incapable of holding still for ANY length of time. He kicked, screeched, ran, jumped and crashed into things to what seemed an abnormal degree. (The other day I found him standing on his chair, trying to get Eli to push him off.) He seemed practically impervious to pain.

Keep in mind that to the vast majority of people -- even my husband -- Matthew seemed like a completely normal child. No one has EVER told me, "You know ... it seems like there's something a little different about him. Have you talked to your pediatrician?" In fact, many people told me I was just being an overanxious mom when I voiced my concerns that he seemed different from other kids. So his differences were NOT things that would leap out at most people, not even (in our case) his own father and grandparents. You might have just thought that he was rather wild and impulsive and disobedient. (I am sure many people who don't know him well think just that!)

All of these things are things that would be dealt with swiftly and harshly by the authoritarian parent/authors such as Michael Pearl and Tedd Tripp and that lady from Raising Godly Tomatoes. And that breaks my heart, because he is a sweet, kind-hearted, loving little boy, one who loves to share his candy with his little brother and, when he found a dead bird the other day, told his daddy he wanted "to make it feel better." He WANTS to please us ... but for whatever reasons, he has a set of issues that just don't allow him to behave like a "normal" child.

I'm sure some people would scoff at his diagnoses and say that we're just "medicalizing misbehavior." To them, I'd say, "YOU don't know him. He's not YOUR child -- and you should be grateful that you've clearly never had a child with a genuine developmental disability, because it's not something you can discipline away." (And if anyone tells me it's because I don't spank, then I would LOVE to hear them explain how conditioning my child to obey me out of fear of being hurt will result in anything but a terrified kid with even more issues than he currently has.)

And if you're a parent whose child just does NOT obey or behave appropriately, no matter how consistent you are with your discipline, I beg you to do some research. Look at a book like "A Parent's Guide to Develomental Delays" and find out what might be going on with your child. Talk to your pediatrician (and if he or she brushes you off, find a new one). PLEASE just don't assume that your child is just disobedient or rebellious or incorrigible. Not all problems can be solved by parenting, and not all kids are capable of the behavior they "should" exhibit.