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  1. If the child takes off his seat belt, stop the vehicle and don't drive it again until everyone is safely buckled and the situation is satisfactory to the driver. The same goes for screaming, throwing objects, kicking the driver's seat and spitting. It isn't very complicated. Would you drive with an unbuckled adult in your vehicle? What if he was screaming at you? What if in the car ahead, you saw an unbuckled adult screaming at the driver, or the driver turned toward the back, screaming at the passengers? Would you continue to drive at such close proximity? When I'm in a vehicle, I expect everyone to be buckled and not screaming. If I'm driving, I stop whenever something or someone causes my situation to be unsafe. I have stopped for each of my children a few times, once for each sort of infraction they chose (because yes, mummie stops for screaming and kicking the back of her seat). I have stopped more than once for my partner when he wasn't buckled: his body flying around in the van would likely kill any one of the rest of us in a collision. We have stopped the vehicle several times for each child at around the 18 month and 2 1/2 yr stages. Then, we don't need to do so anymore. In my experience, a five, six, or seven year old who causes unsafe conditions in a moving vehicle has either not been adequately instructed or has issues beyond the scope of healthy impulse management. I have had no issues at all with my children beyond that 2 1/2 yr mark, in the vehicle. I stop for crying babies, too, because I am emotionally distraught by their continued crying. I meet their needs, and we move on. Of course this happens within the context of a family in which each individual truly values his time for the sake of productivity, and even our two yr old has chastised a sibling for taking his time from him through misbehaviour in the vehicle. My children have a healthy appreciation for the reality that time wasted is not regained, that time spent waiting for unsafe behaviour is time they cannot spend drawing dragons and building cities with blocks, or practicing sword-fighting. If children do not value their time, then it stands to reason that they will not care that they are wasting it. My solution to all of the problems in this thread is to deliberately lay a foundation of reasoned values and then live accordingly, virtuously. Children are eager to learn. Hitting them or taking away so-called privileges only regresses the issue, and shows up the holes in one's parenting (barring very unusual circumstances and of course accounting for genuinely new circumstances to the child). Parenting is enormously inefficient and inconvenient. The best-case-scenario is usually to take the time necessary to provide foundational information and conclusions for children to use in their own re-invention of the wheel. If you don't have the time or inclination to do this, you will find yourself having to teach lessons that could have been more easily learned and internalised when they first emerged as issues, rather then later on when an uneducated child can do more damage to himself and/or others. It is also imperative that a parent's expectations accord with the abilities of the child. Discipline is about guidance, not punishment. A child who does not have the ability to take responsibility for his own actions fully, should not be punished, even when behaving in a way that draws attention to his inability to take full responsibility (like pulling off a seatbelt), but the parent who neglected to guide the child in the first place- foundationally- should be (or better yet: take the cue!). Parenting should be proactive, not reactive. Some people object to the obvious intensity of engagement that this would require. Well, this is why most people shouldn't have children until or unless this undertaking is within their scope of abilities. Parenting isn't automatic. I filled in at a daycare once, for a friend, and was completely shocked at how unengaged the children were. I spent the day with ten children from 18 months to 5 yrs old in my charge and it was like a vacation. At the time, I had four children, and it would have taken two weeks for that group of ten children to receive what my four do in a day, at the rate of the program and the rate of inquiry of those cow-eyed children. Imagine my stunned silence when the other workers (who between the three of them, handled only five children)commented at how talkative and curious the children were with me. Then they asked how much harder it was for me to care for so many kids. I couldn't help but blurt out that it was like a vacation for me. Then my friend asked if I would stay on, and bring my children, too. I think I lost my usual composure and exclaimed with a bit too much emphasis, "No, thanks." If you send your child to daycare or school, trying to do this will be a bit like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up a hill. Schooling enforces enormous wasting of one's time and lack of productivity, so trying to explain that doing the wrong/inappropriate thing uses up time that a child could be spending doing something enjoyable and productive, is likely to fall on deaf, or anti-productivity-conditioned ears. In this case, the child is likely to think, "But who cares? I'll just do it tomorrow." This is how school works: the continuous rolling over into tomorrow what could/should/would have been accomplished today, followed by repetition to bring back to mind what was forgotten because it was neglected in the first place.
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