Ideas for Helping Kids Develop Discipline

It's that time of year for school-aged kids where they're really in the thick of things. November is the month when, if a subject gets hard, push comes to shove; they'll either work their way through it, or not. So issues of hard work and discipline tend to be on many parents' minds. How involved should we be in helping our kids succeed at things that are difficult? It's a question worth pondering even when our children are very young, to prepare us for the future.

This past week, my 9-year-old daughter Ella was having a hard time pushing through some intense practicing for the Bach Children's Chorus. The Chorus not only performs at the RPO's Nutcracker the weekend after Thanksgiving, but they have several other holiday performances coming in the next month. The music is hard; the Chorus typically performs with adults. Some of it isn't in English. And there is a lot that has to be memorized perfectly. For Ella, it's a lesson in discipline; for me, it's an exercise in helping her become someone who has it.

All of us moms must go through this as our kids grow: giving them the freedom to manage their own accomplishments and the resulting pride in success. I can't memorize the music for Ella; she has to do it herself. But I can help her have the right attitude about hard work: that even the most tedious work is in the service of a greater goal. This idea is hard for kids to understand, because by their very nature, kids have a hard time taking a long-range perspective, especially if all they can see in the near future is a lot of work without a lot of reward.

When I myself need to slog through something difficult, I try to "keep my eyes on the prize" and imagine how good it will be when I'm done. And that's just what we parents can do with our kids: give them a vision for the future.

So I didn't tell Ella to make sure her music was memorized this week "just because I said so"; I didn't tell her to do it "because it's good for you" or even because "you committed to it." Instead, I reminded her of why she joined the Chorus in the first place. I helped her envision herself performing all of her perfectly-memorized music in front of a big audience, doing her part to help create something beautiful. She dried her eyes and got back to work.

So if you're looking for ways to motivate your kids to summon the discipline to push through those November quagmires, you might consider this as an approach:

First, help them choose long-range goals that they really want and that will help them become better people.

Then, when they have difficulty doing their schoolwork, or cleaning their room, or practicing their sport, don't simply tell them to buck up, that a lot of things are hard and they need to get used to it and that this will build character. Instead, try to remind them of the reason they are doing it in the first place. Paint a vibrant picture of your child's future self: A person who knows geometry, or all of the state capitals, who can play "When The Saints Go Marching In" on the French horn, or who lives in an organized, beautiful place. If you're lucky, that vision, and your confidence in their ability to get there, will push them through when they'd rather give up.