Discipline as Control & Discipline as Freedom

What is discipline? Well some people are very sure of what they mean by discipline. Although you would probably not be able to get them to admit to the description that follows from John Holt's Book "Freedom and Beyond", it never-the-less is probably very close to what they really mean. It has a strong ring of truth to it.

"'If we give children freedom how will they ever learn discipline?' This is a common question - really a statement. When people talk about their child 'learning discipline' what is it that they really want him to learn? Probably, most or all of the following:

1. Do what you're told without questioning or resisting, whenever I or any other authority tell you to do something.
2. Go on doing what you're told for as long as you're told. Never mind how dull, disagreeable, or pointless the task may seem. It's not for you to decide.
3. Do whatever we want you to do willingly. Do it without ever having to be told. Do what you're expected to do.
4. If you don't do these things you will be punished and you will deserve to be.
5. Accept your life without complaining even if you get very little if any of what you want, even if your life has not much joy, meaning, or satisfaction. That is what life is.
6. Take your medicine, your punishment, whatever the people above you do to you, without complaining or resisting.
7. Living this way is good for your soul and character."

What does this really mean? Firstly it means that a teacher must be in control. It means that a teacher must control all student's every move at all times. It means that students must learn to obey without question those who are in a position of power, and that this is somehow good for them, and will make them better people. Before you start nodding your head and agreeing with these ideas, first listen to the words of someone who is or should be familiar to us all. He recalled being "taught that my highest duty was to help those in need," but added that he learned this lesson in the context of the importance of "obey[ing] promptly the wishes and commands of my parents, teachers, and priests and indeed of all adults...Whatever they said was always right." The man who said this was Rudolf Hoss who was the commandant of Auschwitz, the most infamous death camp under the Nazi rule.

No control. This site disputes that teaches need to control their students. This site asserts that students do not need to be controlled and that they can and should be allowed to control their own actions.

Obedience is not better. This site disputes that learning to obey without question is good for or makes students better. This site asserts that learning to obey without question is not good for students and will make them into much worse people.

The meanings of discipline. Discipline is perhaps the most confusing word in the English language. Webster's Dictionary defines it as having several meanings, all of which need to be looked at, as follows:

1. Punishment
2. (obsolete) Instruction
3. a field of study
4. a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity.
5. training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.
6. a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order, b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior, c : Self-Control.
7. self-discipline : correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement.

Punishment. Indeed as a verb, discipline is used interchangeably with punishment, although with the implication that it is for the person's own good. When a teacher says, "I am going to have to discipline a child." he means, "I am going to have to punish a child." If he says, "I am going to take disciplinary action," he means he is going to punish somebody. If you do a search on the web for images using the word discipline many of the pictures you will get are to do with whipping, beating, and red striped backs flayed with a cat-of-nine-tails. When we think about discipline the image that most readily comes to mind is that of some kind of punishment. Even when there is no actual punishment involved there is always the threat of punishment involved when we are talking about discipline. Indeed the word undisciplined has almost come to mean unpunished.

I cannot stress enough however, that punishment is simply one meaning that can be intended when we use the word discipline, and it should be discernable from the context in which it is used. When we use the word discipline to mean something else, the whole idea of punishment should be disregarded. When we talk about firing a gun, we don't think about something burning. When a person gets fired from his job we don't think of him being on fire. With the word discipline however, there seems to be some carry over between one meaning and another.

Instruction. It would indeed be convenient if words only had one meaning. However most words have several meanings, some of which are used more than others. As new meanings come into vogue or become more usual or popular the older meanings tend to drop away and are used less frequently. Take the word icon for instance, it originally meant an object that symbolized something, usually a religious artifact that stood for some religious concept. Nowadays icon normally means a small picture on a computer that indicates a directory or program that can be opened by clicking the icon. Some word meanings fall into complete disuse and are said to be obsolete. Some time back discipline meant to instruct, but this is no longer the case. This meaning of discipline has become obsolete.

A field of study. The word discipline is often used to indicate a field of study. Martial arts such as Karate, Kung fu or Tae kwon do are often referred to as disciplines. Learning any difficult skill, such as learning to play a musical instrument is also usually referred to as a discipline. Such cases are certainly not the limit for using discipline with this meaning, as any branch of science can and is often called a discipline. Indeed any field of study can legitimately be called a discipline. You may however notice that again there is some a carry over of the other meaning punishment. We usually refer to a field of study as a discipline only if it is particularly hard, unpleasant, difficult or actually involves physical punishment.

A rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity. Various sports can therefore be considered disciplines or at least the rules of those sports. Again we find that the rules of boxing tend to be called a discipline rather than say the rules of table tennis. The rules of moral conduct in Christian or Buddhist religion can also rightly be called a discipline. All this being so, the main image we have of discipline as far as rules of conduct go, is from the military. Indeed the iconic image of discipline that we have as far as rules of conduct go, is from the worst examples of military use and misuse of power in the history of the world i.e. the Fascists and more particularly the Nazis.

These authoritarian systems of rules, cold, efficient, precise, machine like, are the very epitome of what some people mean by discipline. What are these rules made for? What is their purpose? Their purpose is to turn people into something capable of killing other people. People who do not question what they are told to do, but rather do it instantly without thought or regret. While it may well be that we need people like this in the military, surely we do not want a lot of this in normal circumstances. Do we really want it in our schools?

Training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character. This seems like the most noble of aims, to make people mentally and morally better. The only problem with it is that it cannot be done without taking away fee will. It cannot be done without coercion. Sure you can temporarily change what people do by using threats. But do you truly make them want to do those things that way? This meaning of discipline (training that corrects etc.) perhaps can find a usefulness in the idea of feedback which as cybernetics informs us is how people or anything learns. In his book "Freedom and Beyond" John Holt suggests that this kind of discipline should be separated into three subtypes. He suggests that these should be the discipline of nature, the discipline of culture and the discipline of superior force.

The discipline of nature is all about feedback (being wrong or a failure). John Holt has this to say about it.

"The first and most important is what we might call the Discipline of Nature or of Reality. When he is trying to do something real, if he does the wrong thing or doesn't do the right one, he doesn't get the result he wants. If he doesn't pile one block right on top of another, or tries to build on a slanting surface, his tower falls down. If he hits the wrong key, he hears the wrong note. If he doesn't hit the nail squarely on the head, it bends, and he has to pull it out and start with another. If he doesn't measure properly what he is trying to build, it won't open, close, fit, stand up, fly, float, whistle or do whatever he wants it to do. If he closes his eyes when he swings, he doesn't hit the ball.

A child meets this kind of discipline every time he tries to do something, which is why it is so important in school to give children more chances to do things, instead of just reading or listening to someone talk (or pretending to). This discipline is a great teacher. The learner never has to wait long for his answer; it usually comes quickly, often instantly. Also it is clear, and very often points toward the needed correction; from what happened he can not only see what he did wrong, but also why, and what he needs to do instead. Finally, and most important, the giver of the answer, call it Nature, is impersonal, and indifferent. She does not give opinions, or make judgments; she cannot be wheedled, bullied, or fooled; she does not get angry or disappointed; she does not praise or blame; she does not remember past failures or hold grudges; with her one always gets a fresh start, this time is the one that counts."

The discipline of culture is all about feedback also. John Holt has this to say about it.

"The next discipline we might call the Discipline of Culture, of Society of What People Really Do. Man is a social, a cultural animal. Children sense around them this culture, this network of agreements, customs, habits and rules binding adults together. They want to understand and be part of it. They watch very carefully what people around them are doing and want to do the same. They want to do it right unless they become convinced they can't do it right. Thus children rarely misbehave in church, but sit as quietly as they can. The example of all those grownups is contagious. Some mysterious ritual is going on, and children, who like rituals, want to be part of it. In the same way, the little children that I see at concerts or operas, though they may fidget a little, or perhaps take a nap now and then, rarely make a disturbance. With all those grownups sitting there neither moving nor talking, it is the most natural thing in the world to imitate them. Children who live among adults who are habitually courteous to each other, and to them, will soon learn to be courteous."

The discipline of superior force is about artificial and intermittent feedback. John Holt has this to say about it.

"The third discipline is the one most people mean when they speak of discipline - the Discipline of Superior Force, of sergeant to private, of 'you do what I tell you or I'll make you wish you had.'... Some experts, in writing about discipline, try to equate and lump what I have called the Discipline of Nature and the Discipline of Superior Force. They say that when we tell a child to do something and punish him if he does not, we are teaching him to understand the natural consequences of his acts. In a widely praised book one expert gave this typical advice. If your child comes home late for dinner, tell him that he can't have any dinner, and he will soon learn the 'natural' consequences of being late and come home on time. The example is confused, foolish, and wrong. Being denied any dinner can be called a 'natural' consequence of coming home late only in the sense that anything and everything that happens is part of reality and hence can be called 'natural.' One might as easily say that being flogged is a 'natural' consequence of being late. In fact getting no dinner is not a natural consequence of being late at all, but a purely arbitrary one imposed by the parents...

It is punishment pure and simple. As such, it might be effective, and it might not. The child might learn the lesson. Or he might think bitterly, 'Boy, some family, you come home late and even though they've got your dinner all cooked, just sitting out there in the kitchen, they won't let you eat it, they'd rather throw the food away, waste it, like they're always telling you not to do, just to make you go to bed hungry and teach you a lesson. I'll show them. I'll get my food somewhere else and come home late every night. I won't come home at all. Punishers always tell the punished that their punishments are the natural consequences of their acts. Not so. They are the result of a choice which the punishers, or the authority they represent, have forced on the punished. The choice may be a wise and just one or it may not; in either case, it is imposed, not natural."

"Most important of all, we should not assume that having to yield to the threat of our superior force is good for the child's character. It is never good for anyone's character. To bow to superior force makes us feel impotent and cowardly for not having had the strength or courage to resist. Worse, it makes us resentful and vengeful. We can hardly wait to make someone pay for our humiliation, yield to us as we were once made to yield."

This is what Laura Huxley called "You are not the Target" where someone has a bad experience and then instead of dealing with what was wrong, takes it out on everybody around them. That reminds me of a old Sad Sack cartoon which I no longer possess but the gist of which is below.

Here is another cartoon with the same idea.

In his book "What Do I Do Monday?" John Holt speaks about forcing people to learn something and why, even when the outcome is good and the person truly learns something and even gains pleasure from it, that this is still the wrong and the worst way to go about learning it.

"More times than I can remember, teachers or parents have said to me, of some child, 'He didn't want to do something, but I made him do it, and he is glad, and if I hadn't made him he would never have done anything.' The other day a pleasant and probably kindly coach and swimming instructor told me about some child who hadn't wanted to swim, but he made him, and the child had learned and now liked it, so why shouldn't he have the right to compel everyone to swim? There are many answers. The child might have in time learned to swim on his own, and not only had the pleasure of swimming, the far more important pleasure of having found that pleasure for himself. Or he might have used that time to find some other skills and pleasures, just as good.

The real trouble, as I said to the coach, is this: I love swimming, and in a school where nothing else was compulsory I might see a case for making swimming so. But for every child in that school there are dozens of adults, each convinced that he has something of vital importance to 'give' the child that he would never get for himself, all saying to the child, 'I know better than you do what is good for you.' By the time all those people get through making the child do what they know is good for him, he has no time or energy left. What is worse, he has no sense of being in charge of his life and learning or that he could be in charge, or that he deserves to be in charge, or that if he were in charge it would turn out any way other than badly. In short, he has no sense of his identity or place. He is only where and what others tell him he is."

Control gained by enforcing obedience or order through inaction. This meaning of discipline is essentially about the prevention of action rather than the promotion of action as in training. While it is part of Holt's discipline of superior force, it is yet another shade of meaning. This is the discipline of restraint. Restraint can be performed physically as with children on a leash or criminals in jail. Or it can be performed mentally where threat of punishment prevents the action. There are times when this type of discipline is necessary, when we do not have the luxury of allowing the discipline of nature or the discipline of culture to do their work. But this has more to do with the convenience of the parent or teacher and has little benefit for the learner.

In his book "Freedom and Beyond" John Holt has this to say about it.

"There is bound to be some of this in a child's life. Living as we do surrounded by things that can hurt children, or that children can hurt, we cannot avoid it. We can't afford to let a small child find out from experience the danger of playing in a busy street, or of fooling with pots on the top of a stove, or of eating the pills in the medicine cabinet. So, along with other precautions, we say to him, 'Don't play in the street or touch things on the stove, or go into the medicine cabinet, or I'll punish you.' Between him and the danger too great for him to imagine we put a lesser danger, but one he can imagine and maybe therefore want to avoid. He can have no idea of what it would be like to be hit by a car, but he can imagine being shouted at, or spanked, or sent to his room. He avoids these substitutes for the greater danger until he can understand it and avoid it for its own sake.

But we ought to use this discipline only when it is necessary to protect the life, health, safety or well being of people or other living creatures, or to preserve things that people care about. We ought not to assume too long, as we usually do, that a child cannot understand the real nature of the danger from which we want to protect him. The sooner he avoids the danger not to escape our punishment, but as a matter of good sense, the better. He can learn that faster than we think. In Mexico, for example, where people drive their cars with a good deal of spirit, I saw many children no older than five or four walking unattended on the streets. They understood about cars, they knew what to do. A child whose life is full of threat and fear of punishment is locked in babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts."

Self-discipline. Confusion is often caused by the fusion of several of these many meanings of "discipline" into a composite where there is only one meaning. Two of these are completely opposite in meaning. One is the ability to control and direct our own life (self discipline) and the other is the ability of others to control and direct our behavior. It is the muddling of these two meanings in particular and the implication that perhaps one rubs off on the other, that causes students so much trouble at school. The fourth dictionary meaning introduced at the beginning of this page is "training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character". This could be a form of self discipline or it could be control gained by enforcing obedience. It is the contention of this web-site that only self-discipline has real worth and that the others are mostly fancy and misleading ways of describing coercion.

Firstly by submitting ourselves willingly to the discipline of those with superior competence. When we are truly interested in learning something, especially a physical skill it is possible that all the various meanings of discipline may come together. A teacher of ballet or martial arts for instance, may say, 'Do it this way, don't ask why, just do it.' Because we want to learn, and we can see the competence of the teacher clearly demonstrated, we trust in what they say. We willingly defer to this master. We try to do as they say and try to carefully mimic their movements. We can do this because of a great desire in ourselves, because we trust the master and because we can already imagine ourselves performing as does the master. John Holt in his book "Freedom ad Beyond" puts it like this.

"There are places where all three disciplines overlap. [Also Self Discipline] Any very demanding human activity combines in it the disciplines of Superior Force, Culture, and of Nature. The novice will be told, 'Do it this way, never mind asking why, just do it that way, that is the way we always do it.' But it probably is just the way they always do it, and usually for the very good reason that it is a way that has been found to work. Think, for example of ballet training. The student in a class is told to do this exercise. or that; to stand so; to do this or that with his head, arms, shoulders, abdomen, hips, legs, feet. He is constantly corrected. There is no argument. But behind these seeming autocratic demands by the teacher lie many decades of custom and tradition, and behind that, the necessities of dancing itself.

You cannot make the moves of classical ballet unless over the years you have acquired, and renewed every day, the needed strength and suppleness in scores of muscles and joints. Nor can you do the difficult motions making them look easy, unless you have learned hundreds of easier ones first. Dance teachers may not always agree on all the details of teaching these strengths and skills. But no novice could learn them all by himself. You could not go for a night or two to watch the ballet and then, without any other knowledge at all, teach yourself how to do it. In the same way, you would be unlikely to learn any complicated and difficult human activity without drawing heavily on the experience of those who know it better.

But the point is that the authority of these experts or teachers stems from, grows out of their greater competence and experience, the fact that what they do works, not the fact that they happen to be the teacher and as such have the power to kick a student out of the class. And the further point is that children are always and everywhere attracted to that competence, and ready and eager to submit themselves to a discipline that grows out of it. We hear constantly that children will never do anything unless compelled to by bribes or threats. But in their private lives, or in extracurricular activities in school, in sports, music, drama, art, running a newspaper, and so on, they often submit themselves willingly and wholeheartedly to very intense disciplines, simply because they want to learn to do a given thing well."

Secondly by continuing when we seem to be growing in skill or accomplishment only a little. The reasons we tend to keep going and continuing to learn, in the face of little of what the behaviorists would term reinforcement, are twofold.

The first reason has to do with Festinger's "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance". Although what this theory describes, can not be properly called self discipline, it is often mistaken for self discipline. When we start to do something, be it learning or buying a car, we make a commitment to it. The person who buys a car wants to believe he bought the best car he could, and he wants other people to believe that he bought the best car he could, also. What happens then when he buys the car, is that he convinces himself that he did just that. He convinces himself that he bought the best car he could. He will then try to convince others that he bought the best car he could also. The principle is the same with learning. A person who chooses to learn a certain subject, area of expertise, or skill, will continue to try to learn it, even if it becomes very difficult, simply because he is unwilling to admit to himself and others that he made the wrong choice. Not only that but Festinger's theory further predicts that this desire to continue learning will be stronger if he had much opposition to his choice. If, for instance, his parents were against him trying to become an actor, but he made the choice to learn about acting, he will be highly motivated to continue learning when it becomes hard or difficult. This will be stronger than if he just made the decision without parental opposition. The point is, that this continuing, in the face of unpleasantness and difficulty looks very much like self discipline but in fact it is not. It is a kind of pigheadedness or obstinacy.

The second reason has to do with self confidence and growth. This can quite correctly be called self discipline. The more confident we are, the more strongly we believe in our own ability to transform or improve ourselves, especially our ability to learn, the more willing and determined we are to continue learning in the face of little improvement and even complete failure. This kind of confidence and belief in change can only come from past successes in learning and particularly past successes that also involved slow improvement and failure. This kind of confidence cannot come from someone forcing you to do something, but must come form your own success with gradual movement toward accomplishment, and the incorporation of failure within and as part of any success. To do this we need a strong belief that our own efforts will increase our abilities and intelligence. We need a confidence that can only come from self motivation, and not from the efforts of others to control us.

Thirdly by performing unpleasant actions in order to perform pleasant ones. Often, particularly in the beginning of learning a skill or some area of knowledge, there is a period, or periods, where many of the things that have to be done seem tiresome, boring or unpleasant, because they have yet to be fully associated with a growing feeling of accomplishment in this skill or area of knowledge. In his book "Freedom and Beyond" John Holt contrasted the idea of will power with the way he really motivated himself to get up early in the morning to practice the cello.

"On some pitch black mornings, hearing what I knew was a cold wind howling outside, I might think, 'Well, it is certainly comfortable here in bed, and maybe it wouldn't hurt if I just skipped practice today.' But my response to this was not to draw on something called willpower, to insult and threaten myself, but to take a longer look at my life, to extend my vision, to think about the whole of my experience. to reconnect present and future, and quite specifically, to ask myself, 'Do you like playing the cello or not? Would you like to play it better or not?.' When I put the matter this way I could see that I enjoyed playing the cello more than I enjoyed staying in bed. So I got up. If as sometimes happened or happens, I do stay in bed it is not because will power is weak but because I have temporarily become disconnected, so to speak, from the wholeness of my life. I am living in that Now that some people pursue so frantically, that gets harder to find the harder you look for it."

"If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence. It must initiate them into those kinds of activities which they can perform themselves and which keep them from being a burden to others because of their inabilities. We must help them to learn how to walk without assistance, to run, to go up and down stairs, to pick up fallen objects, to dress and undress, to wash themselves, to express their needs in a way that is clearly understood, and to attempt to satisfy their desires through their own efforts."

"In our system we obviously have a different concept of discipline. The discipline we are looking for is active. We do not believe that one is disciplined only when he is artificially made as silent as a mute and as motionless as a paralytic. Such a one is not disciplined but annihilated. We claim that an individual is disciplined when he is the master of himself and when he can, as a consequence, control himself when he must follow a rule of life."

(Discipline) socialization through autonomy support. The word discipline has too many imprecise and conflicting connotations to adequately stand for the following ideas yet there is no other word. It will have to do. While it is easy to support people in motivating themselves if the tasks are in themselves intrinsically motivating there are activities that are simply not intrinsically pleasant that society currently requires of its constituents. This kind of self discipline might better be called: The internalization and integration of society's regulations.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have created a theory about how people motivate themselves and integrate external regulations into their self structure. They have presented this theory in their book "Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior". They have also compiled a great deal of empirical evidence about how an environment can be created which encourages people to both motivate themselves and regulate their own behavior. This was also explained by Steve Chandler in his book "100 Ways to Motivate Others" (a bit of a misnomer if there ever was one). He puts it like this: "We do give whole seminars on this topic [people management]. But one of the first things we teach managers is that they can't really directly control their people. Motivation always comes from within your employee, not from you." "So what do you teach?" "We teach you how to get people to motivate themselves". If motivation comes from within, in an ideal world this should be supported. Each person's autonomy should be supported by the world around him.

Synergy. Synergy is the principle by which one person acts to benefit himself and in doing so benefits others. This is exactly what we do when we support the autonomy of others. We act in a way that gives others wider choice and the feeling that they are in control of their lives. We act in a way that is beneficial to them, but as it turns out, supporting the autonomy of others is beneficial to ourselves. It is beneficial to us because it makes those others far more likely to behave in a manner which we would find acceptable.

Autonomy support. Deci and Ryan's findings show that in allowing children, or any person for that matter, to ingest external regulations and integrate them into their psych-self that both punishments and rewards should be should be avoided as much as possible. But it should be noted that this process is not a mater of laissez-faire or permissiveness but one where behavioral limits must be presented, absorbed and integrated into the person's self.

Animals and children who have not yet developed the means of communication can be physically restrained from doing things. They do not need to be punished the mere prevention conveys the regulation. Once communication has been established restraint becomes unnecessary as the child can regulate him/herself.

When communication has been developed in children a system of contractual agreements can reached so that consequences can be forthcoming in the event of failure to comply. These consequences are to be forthcoming not in order to punish or control, but rather to show consistently that if agreements are broken the child must accept the responsibility and consequence of that. Since it is an agreement the child has to agree to the severity of the consequence. The idea is not to make the consequences unbearable but rather reasonable and appropriate. Steve Chandler has this to say about adults: "A leader creates agreements with team members and enters into agreements on an adult to adult basis. All communication is done with respect. There is no giving in to the temptation to be intimidating, bossy, or all knowing." Chandler points out that if we try to control people they tend to rebel or resist often producing the very opposite effect to that which we may want. What he does not say, and which Deci and Ryan expound on a length, is that trying to control people always causes intrinsic motivation to decrease, regardless of whether they comply or resist.

Deci and Ryan's Self-determination theory. Autonomy is the most significant factor in maintaining intrinsic motivation. Support for autonomy is support for intrinsic motivation. What we want with social regulations is for people to want to follow those regulations and not simply follow them because they feel forced to. We want them to follow social regulations because they are right and the person has internalized them so completely as for them to be part of his very self.

How can we facilitate people in internalizing and integrating society's regulations into their self persona? The answer is partly the above mentioned agreements. But how can such agreements emerge? How can agreements be reached when there is disagreement? Deci and Ryan have ascertained that there is a social need in people that moves them toward cooperation with others, if each understands why cooperation is necessary, and that each side has to be willing to make an effort for the common good. This means abandoning the idea that one group should control another. It is a curious paradox that the more control you give up, and the less you seem to control, the more likely it is that others will endorse what we want, and because they wish to. Deci and Ryan offer us a number of behavioral suggestions as to how we can construct environments where such agreements are likely to emerge:

1. Group agreement. In many cases it is possible for those who have to internalize these social regulations to choose and arrive at some consensus as to how to socialize themselves. In schools for instance children could be left to come to some agreement about consequences for those who disturb others when working or who bully etc. This has many benefits not the least being the wide scope of choice which provides very good autonomy support. More than this it makes children more aware, through discussion, of how one person's choices can infringe on the rights of the group. This idea can be used where ever there is a group such as schools or the workplace. Even in a small group like a parent and a child the child will be much more willing to agree if he is part of the process of arriving at consequences. At Summerhill this process was most effective. There the students were encouraged to have group discussions for the purpose of forming their own school rules.
2. Acknowledgement. Another way is to acknowledge that the person may desire to venture outside the limits that are being set. Curiously, people are much more likely to be willing to behave as requested and not venture beyond the limits being set, if it is acknowledged the that they might not wish to comply.      
3. Watch your language. While it is not always possible to provide the above amount of freedom in coming to agreements there is much that can be done to improve the likelihood of behaving as requested. Perhaps the simplest idea is to refrain from using controlling language. Words like should must and have to and be good are not helpful in being autonomy supportive and thus it is best not to use them in trying to reach agreements.   
4. Provide information. The first, and most essential way in which any action can be autonomy supportive is to provide information as to why there is need for the limitations you are trying to convey. People need to know why such limitations are necessary. If they understand, they are much more likely to accept limitations without feeling undetermined. It can become thus, meaningful to them to stay within the limits requested.
5. Provide choice. Although it may not be possible to let the other person have complete freedom of choice in agreements or when requesting limited behavior, it may be possible to set very wide limits within which the other person still has wide possible choice. This helps to keep people from feeling quite so much restricted by the limits.

(Self-discipline) socialization through social modeling. Social modeling is the simplest and most effective way to influence others, to lead by example. What Deci and Ryan discovered in their research was very clear about this. If parents were autonomy supportive, their children not only became autonomous, but also they in turn became more autonomy supportive. If teachers were autonomy supportive not only were their students more autonomous but they in turn became autonomy supportive. In each case the children clearly wanted to be more like their parents and the students wanted to become more like their teachers. If parents were controlling and coercive, their children also became controlling and coercive. If teachers were controlling and coercive their students became controlling and coercive.   

When your father models how he wants you to act, you want to be like him. When your teacher models how he wants you to act, you want to be like him. All great leaders lead by doing what they want you to do. Alexander and Napoleon stood with their men in the thick of battle and never asked their men to do anything that they themselves were not willing to do. When great men give us a glimpse of how they behave they inspire us to behave like them. The dark side of this is that if our parents or teachers model bad behavior, if they model coercive, controlling, punishing behavior this is the orientation we will develop and it will be difficult to change when we are adults.

"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." Eric Hoffer 

"You can't change people. You must be the change you wish to see in people." Mahatma Gandhi

"As a motivational practice, leading from the front hits harder and lasts longer than any other practice. It changes people more deeply and more completely than anything else you can do. So be what you want to see. ...If you want your people to be more positive, be more positive. If you want them to take more pride in their work, take more pride in yours. Show them how it is done. If you want them to look good and dress professionally, look better yourself. Want them to be on time? Always be early (and tell them why...tell them what punctuality means to you, not to them.)" Steve Chandler

If you want your children not to lie you must not lie to them or lie to others in their presence. If you want them to be honest you must try to be always honest with them and others in their presence. If you want them not to swear you must not swear in their presence. To be completely effective in this ideally you should act in this manner all the time. If you only put on a performance for people you will eventually be found out. But then again people by nature are never completely consistent they just do the best they can (as authentically as they can) to act as role models for those around them.

Albert Bandura and the studies of role modeling. The information for this was presented in "Human Learning" by Jeanne Ellis Ormrod. The effectiveness of role modeling is dependent on a number of variables. Many of these variables concern the model. Studies by Bandura suggest the following attributes of the model to affect the likelihood of imitation of the new modeled behavior and the frequency of imitation of that behavior.

The prestige of the model. Children copy their parents usually, but if the parent is lacking in prestige and another role model is available that is strong, they may well not copy their parents, but choose to follow the other model instead. As children get older they find other models to imitate that have more prestige than their parents. In sociology parlance these figures are called significant others. We learn morality from those that our community reveres as being moral. We learn bravery from those who our community reveres as being brave. These role models do not have to be real people that we know, and can be symbolic figures in folk tales, books and comics. Thus the morality of a community is usually reflected in the actions of symbolic figures featured in that culture.  

The competence of the model. When children are learning skills such as drawing or riding a bicycle or hammering a nail, they will tend to pick as their role model the person who is most competent at that activity. If they are presented with an incompetent model for such skills they will generally be less willing to imitate the model.

The appropriateness of the model. It was found that aggressive male models were more likely to be imitated than aggressive female models. One probable reason for this is to do with sex roles: perhaps it is more acceptable in Western culture for men to be aggressive than women, and even by three or four years of age children are learning the dominant stereotypes that relate to sex-role differences. So aggressive male models are more likely to be imitated since this is seen by the child as more fitting or appropriate for men (in general) than for women (in general).

The relevance of model. Bandura found that boys were more likely to imitate the male model than the female role model. Perhaps the greater relevance of the male model's behavior for boys lies in the fact that boys perceive the similarity between themselves and the model.

The similarity of the model. Children often use as models those children maybe just a little older than themselves. Bandura found that similarity between the model and the child is another important factor. Perception of this similarity is based upon development of the child's gender identity, i.e. the ability to classify itself (and others) as a girl or boy, female or male. 

The friendliness of the model. Bandura has carried out many other studies showing that a number of other important characteristics are important for imitation. For example nurturant (warm and friendly) adults are more likely to be imitated than unfriendly ones. 

The powerfulness of the model. That more powerful models are more readily imitated.

The remuneration and honors of the model. People who are seen to be rewarded or honored for their behavior are more likely to be imitated.

Conditions necessary for effective modeling to occur.

1 Attention. In order for imitation to take place, the person must be aware of the models actions and attentive to those actions. Modeled activities should therefore be attention grabbing.

2 Retention. There has to be something about the activity modeled that makes the person interested in recalling the activity. The activity should be unique novel and interesting and therefore memorable.

3. Motor Reproduction. The person must be physically capable of performing the action as presented or at least feel confident that they can become physically capable through application of effort, trying alternative strategies or through shear persistence.

4. Motivation. The person must be motivated to perform the action presented by the model. The appearance of enthusiasm and enjoyment on the part of the person modeling the action is essential for the modeling to be motivational.

Social contagion. Please note that the above ideas on modeling behavior, can be far more easily explained by the simpler theory of "Social Contagion". This sub theory of self-determination theory was presented by T. Cameron Wild and Michael E. Enzle in the "Handbook of Self-determination Research". This theory of "Social Contagion" predicts that people will be motivated to imitate certain behavior modeled by others if and only if the person is led to believe that the person modeling the behavior is doing so because he is intrinsically motivated to do so. This theory suggests that when people perform any action or form of behavior that they will also dispense certain cues that will allow an observer to perceive that they are performing the behavior because of the intrinsic pleasure they are obtaining from the action. This theory also predicts that anybody observing someone acting in such a manner, as to give such cues as to indicate that they are being intrinsically motivated, will in turn tend to be motivated to imitate the activity observed. One can see that this could easily cover many of the points presented by Bandura above and be more consistent with Self-determination theory.

Change. The best results for enabling the internalization and integration of society's regulations come from combining autonomy support with the desire to emulate the behavior of others. It is certainly the case that people can be highly controlling and yet understand completely the necessity of setting a good example. General George Pattern was one of the most controlling and coercive leaders who ever lived but he knew well the idea of being what he wanted to see in his men. He said: "There are three principles of leadership; (1) Example, (2) Example, and (3) Example." Steve Chandler in the revised edition of his book "100 Ways to Motivate Others" actually gives us 101 ways. The 101st. way he suggest is to allow people to see change occurring in ourselves. Even more effective than leading from the front, is allowing others to observe us in the process of changing. We all tend to cover up our former less perfect selves and present ourselves now as if we had always been that way. But what better kind of model can you be to inspire people, than to open up your former flawed self for them to perceive, so that they can see how much you have changed, and perhaps catch a glimpse of you in the very process of change.

The ideal disciplined person. This site holds that the ideal disciplined person is the person who is master of himself. The disciplined person is self-disciplined. The person who is fully in control of himself, who does what is socially acceptable, because that is what he wants to do. He needs no threat and cannot waver because for he has no desire to waver to. The disciplined person, is the one who always takes others into consideration in all that he does, not because he is afraid of what they will think, or because he fears punishment if he does not, but because he cares for others and wishes them to be in harmony with himself and wants to be like (to imitate) the best he sees in them. He is the person who conforms with society's rules and regulations out of understanding the need for those rules and regulations and his need to be part of the community to which those rules and regulations belong.

Controlling yourself. There is only so much others can do to help us become self disiplined. The rest is up to each individual. Science has come a long way in studying the subject of self control and we now know some of the answers to the question, "How can people become better at connecting themselves to their future?" But this begs a different question, "Do people want to be in control of themselves?" For information on how people may take control of themselves click here.