Discipline and strokes - Part 2.

As was mentioned in Part 1 of this topic, discipline involves the exchange of negative strokes from the parent to child. Discipline is in part always involves a negative stroke of some kind. A common way of disciplining involves using the Critical Parent ego state.



This ego state is expressed when the discipliner is telling off, criticising and putting down others. This is sometimes used in the discipline of children but lets use a workplace example here.

The problem with CP discipline is that it works. If a boss tells his secretary that she is doing a bad job and is not working up to expectations in a CP kind of way then it is quite likely that her work performance will increase very rapidly. Quickly she will put in a better workplace performance.

So it would seem that in the workplace at least the CP type of discipline is the way to go to produce a productive organisation. If a parent wants a child to change its behaviour quickly then CP discipline does work. However this is not the case in the longer term and consider the graph below.



Line A is what happens with CP discipline. Initially there is a rapid increase in performance followed by a slow reduction in performance. Why would this be so? Here is the CP discipline transaction.



1. The CP discipline is given
2. The person responds from CC and complies to what is demanded. Work performance increases.

Whilst this may seem good the problem is the background relationship is harmed.

3. At the same time as conforming the FC also feels anger and resentment at the criticism and being treated with little respect.
4. When the FC feels this and the person is being conforming it is highly likely that at some point the person being disciplined will switch ego states from CC to RC and respond back.

When this happens the boss may have won the battle but he has lost the war. The employee will fight back in some form and express the anger or resentment. That may come as open defiance or more subtle and even unconscious undermining of the boss and the organisation.

If you surround yourself with people who resent you and dislike you, they are not going to go out of their way to help you or assist you if they can get away with it. Thus the organisation starts to flounder.



Line B. The other way to increase performance is with the boss using Adult and Nurturing Parent to deal with the under functioning employee. This is usually seen as the ‘counselling’ type of management. However this style does have its draw backs.

As you can see from the graph the increase in performance is much slower. Also it takes more time, effort and money than a quick short telling off. And there is no guarantee of a significant increase in the performance level in the long run. Some people simply do not have the natural abilities required or they just don’t have the belief in self or the motivation.

However with those who do respond to the A & NP approach then you are going to have a person who feels better about self and feels respected by the boss. If you surround your self with people who like you and feel respected by you then they are going to go out of their way to assist you and they will be keen to help and make the organisation function well.



Child rearing and discipline is the same. If a mother uses a Critical Parent type of discipline then the relationship with the child is damaged. The child will feel worse about itself and angry and resentful to the parent. More problems are created than the original discipline attempted to solve even though there is an initial quick positive change in behaviour.

Disciplining a child with out belittling it of course results in the relationship and attachment increasing in its psychological quality. CP discipline may get quicker short term results but the war has been lost.

In addition with parents and children one must make the distinction between loving and liking. As I have mentioned before here, loving and liking are two different psychological processes. All children love their parents, in that children are biologically programmed to develop and attachment to the parent but there are some children who don’t like their parents. The different discipline styles will in particular effect the liking aspect of what we are discussing. NP & A discipline will result in a child loving mother and liking mother. CP discipline will result in a child loving mother but not liking mother.


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Strokes and discipline

From a child development workshop

Strokes and attachment are intimately related (of course). The quality, strength and psychological health of an attachment between mother and child is directly influenced by the types of strokes that are exchanged between them. As we know there are 4 types of strokes
Positive unconditional
Positive conditional
Negative conditional
Negative unconditional



If mother (and to a lesser extent the child) is giving positive strokes to a child then the quality and strength of the attachment between them will increase as is shown in the diagram. When there is an exchange of negative strokes then the quality and health of the attachment decreases. Thus the quality of the attachment is directly influenced by the nature of the stroking patterns between mother and child.

When there is no exchange of strokes from mother to child there is a plateau effect initially as is shown in the diagram. The longer the period of no strokes continues then there is a decrease in the quality of attachment at an exponential rate. Initially it is nil, then slow and then fast as is shown in the graph.

When a parent disciplines a child it is giving the child a negative stroke. Discipline causes a child pain. If the transaction does not cause pain then it is not discipline but something else. As discipline is a negative stroke that means it will subtract from the quality and psychological health of the attachment with the child.



If in the past there has been a lot of positive strokes then the attachment quality will be high up on the graph. Thus the negative strokes from the discipline has minimal impact on the relationship quality between mother and child. If the attachment quality is already low on the graph then the discipline has a more devastating effect on the relationship.

Most parents who present with discipline problems with their children have an attachment quality that is already low on the graph. One sees endless books on the disciplining of children which discuss the different types and styles and the pros and cons of both. When I work with parents on discipline I am mostly looking at what they are doing when they are not disciplining the child. The most important part in disciplining a child is what you are doing when you are not disciplining it!

This may seem a little odd and parents at times find this hard to accept and will try to bring it back to how to discipline the child and see the non disciplining periods as inconsequential. However I would assert that if the attachment between mother and child is high up on the graph then discipline problems will be negligible or quite transitory.



Other points.
One negative strokes is five times more powerful than one positive stroke. If a parent gives one negative stroke to get the graph back to where it was prior to that the parent has to give five positive strokes.

This however is just a general rule of thumb. The negative relationship effects of negative stroking vary greatly depending on the type of negative stroke (discipline) given. However negative strokes are more powerful than positive strokes as described above.




Main types of discipline

1. Physical - Hit the child, bite child, pinch child, pulling hair.

2. Behavioural - Loss of privileges. This is the consequences of behaviour
approach. “If you don’t clean your room then no TV tonight”, “If you don’t get
home by 12 midnight then you are grounded”.

3. Emotional -
Anger at the child. All people have a natural aversion to anger because the
consequences of anger are never pleasant and can even be physically threatening.
“If you don’t get ready for school mummy will get angry”.
Withdrawal of love. Very powerful in changing behaviour. “If you draw on the
walls mummy wont love you any more”. Or the parent who gives the silent
treatment or the cold shoulder to the child who misbehaves.
Abandonment fear. Also a very powerful discipline technique. “If you don’t stop crying I will get a policeman to come and take you away”. Or the parent who simply walks away from a misbehaving child.
Shame. The cinderella of the destructive emotions. “You should be ashamed of
wetting your bed”. “I am going to tell your friends how horrible you are for
drawing on the walls.” A powerful form of discipline indeed

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