Parenting can be a headache, there’s no doubt about that. But, being a child can come with a set of challenges, too, especially when living with somewhat difficult parents.

The latter can come in all shapes and sizes: some might be too controlling, and others—not care at all. Some might yell constantly or use the silent treatment as a way to solve everything. Then, there are the parents who need to be parented themselves, which doesn’t give the child much of a normal childhood, either. Whatever the case, it doesn’t make the child’s life any easier and is likely to affect them for years, if not decades, to come.

Unfortunately, poor parenting is not something that’s easy to change. To make matters worse, it can become a cycle, as certain parenting techniques that people experience as kids might later be used with their own children. One study suggests that poor parenting can be passed down from one generation to the other, NBC News reports. The authors found that the more adverse childhood experiences a person had, the more likely their offspring were to be troubled, too, as early as the time they turned five.

“We found that 91 percent of parents had at least one adverse childhood experience, while 45 percent had four or more,” said one of the researchers behind the study, Anne-Marie Conn of the University of Rochester Medical Center. “And among their young children, 72 percent had already experienced at least one adverse childhood experience.”

Talking about how people’s detrimental experiences as kids can affect their own style of parenting later in life, Conn noted that it’s not easy to break patterns of behavior. “You were brought up in an adverse environment and that is what you know,” she said.

Take spanking, for instance. If they were spanked while growing up, some people might consider that a normal way of disciplining misbehaving children. But, individuals who want to break out of the cycle of poor parenting might think twice about doing that or find a way to change their ways completely.

In parenting/202401/5-alternatives-to-spanking-for-cycle-breaking-parents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a piece for Psychology Today, delving deeper into the topic of people refusing to parent the same way their parents did, clinical psychologist and parenting expert, Dr. Robyn Koslowitz noted that cycle-breaking parents who don’t want to spank their kids might fear that their children will be undisciplined or spoiled. But there are ways to instill discipline in children without having to use physical force, which is also not as effective as some parents might think.

“Spanking interferes with a child’s ability to gain interpersonal intelligence and interpersonal effectiveness skills, is correlated with later life mental health problems, and most crucially—it doesn’t work,” the expert wrote. “It doesn’t actually teach what we think it teaches. In many cases, it can reinforce the very behaviors we're trying to teach kids not to use.”

Dr. Koslowitz continued to point out that many cycle-breaking parents know what they don’t want to do when it comes to parenting their children. However, they might not know what to do instead of certain vetoed methods, when it comes to enforcing discipline, for instance.

The expert suggested that there are many more effective ways than spanking to teach children discipline, as well as help them learn social pragmatics skills, instill conflict resolution abilities, and keep them safe. Some of the said ways include enforcing the stop signal, allowing children to experience logical consequences, preloading self-control, teaching the little ones self-regulation skills, and lastly, controlling the environment rather than the child.

Expanding on the first way to discipline a child, Dr. Koslowitz suggested using the stop signal—teaching the child to stop immediately after hearing the word. It can be an especially useful way to ensure that the child is safe and that they don’t, for instance, run into the street.

The second step, logical consequences, is exactly what it sounds like—it entails using consequences of their actions (instead of punishment, such as spanking) to teach children that certain behaviors are not acceptable.

The third step parents might want to take when disciplining their children and keeping them safe is preloading self-control. In parenting/202401/alternatives-to-spanking-for-cycle-breaking-parents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">part two of her thoughts on alternatives to spanking for cycle-breaking parents, Dr. Koslowitz noted that this method comes in handy when parents anticipate their offspring going into an overstimulating or threatening environment, or engaging in silly behavior—that’s when they might want to coach the little one beforehand, using coping tools.

The fourth method suggested by the expert—teaching self-regulation—entails creating a safe space for the child to deal with big emotions. This should be a low-input, low-stimulation environment, which would allow a child to restore a sense of being at home in their body.

The last means of altering children’s behavior without having to use spanking and similar forms of discipline is controlling the environment, not the child—sometimes parents might have to adjust the environment. Put the kid’s phone away when it’s time to do chores, for instance—in order for the child to engage in certain expected behaviors.