Exploring the Parents’ Disciplinary Strategies to Promote Children’s Learning Interest

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Discipline starts at home and is further nurtured at school with the help of the teachers.Parents are responsible for disciplining their children by teaching them right or wrong, obeying rules and regulations, and having good manners and proper conduct.Effective discipline helps children learn to control their behavior to act according to their ideas of right and wrong, not because they fear punishment (Telep, 2019).Discipline greatly influences success and progress in achieving goals.Lansford (2019) stated that parents use discipline either reactively to respond to misbehavior that has occurred already or proactively to prevent misbehavior from occurring in the future and, by anticipation, to promote behavioral adjustments and morality in the future.
Children are often interested in various things and are eager to feed their curiosity.Learning motivation refers to the internal and external factors that motivate students to improve their behavior.It can be triggered by the desire to succeed, encouragement, and a conducive environment (Tabuena & Pentang, 2021).The article "Promoting Young Children's Interest in Learning English in EFL Context: The Role of Mothers" (2019) states that interest is a significant factor in learning at any age, but it plays an especially crucial role in young children's learning.Learning occurs when children are interested and actively engaged in the learning activity (Choi et al., 2019).Promoting children's learning interests should start at home through parents' disciplinary strategies and parental styles.Pupils' motivation and engagement are important in learning and academic performance (Simeon & Nnaa, 2020).Parents used positive and negative discipline to monitor their children's behavior in promoting learning interest.A positive discipline is an approach to raising children based on the teachings of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreikurs, which emphasizes the need for belonging as a fundamental motivator of human beings (Carroll, 2021).It emphasizes giving encouragement, motivation, and mutual understanding toward your children's feelings.Many parents are drawn to positive discipline because they know punishment is not effective in the long term, and they like the idea of being kind and firm simultaneously (Nelsen et al., 2019).
Disciplining a child does not necessarily through force; however, successful discipline requires the imposition of clear and consistent rules, autonomy support, perspective-taking, and acceptance rather than rejecting the child.Consequences are not necessarily the implementation of physical force; it is through taking away something precious to a child to decrease unwanted behavior.However, instead of giving unnecessary force to the children, giving them a punishment wherein they can learn should help them not to do it again and leads them on the right path.By giving them positive consequences, the children are motivated to do what they love, specifically to study more and strive to excel academically.
Their parents support them by boosting their confidence and caring about their mental health.Positive consequences can encourage the children to obey their parents, knowing they will be rewarded for behaving appropriately.
Unlike the previous research that only tackled parenting styles and parental involvement of parents in disciplining their children, this study focused on the various parents' disciplinary strategies in promoting children's learning interests.Parents' disciplinary strategies play a vital role in children's interest in learning and success in academic performance.In addition, this study also provides aid for the parents to know if their strategies apply to promote their children's learning interest and academic performance inside and outside the classroom.

Theoretical framework
This study is anchored on the Operant Conditioning Theory introduced by B.F Skinner in 1937.B.F. Skinner (1937) coined operant conditioning, which means roughly changing behavior using reinforcement given after the desired response (McLeod, 2007).Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental conditioning, is a learning method that employs rewards and punishments for behavior.Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior (Cherry, 2019).This theory that guides this study associates with parents' use of rewards and punishments for disciplining a behavior.Reinforcement is a desirable outcome that strengthens the preceding action.
Similarly, an undesirable outcome or punishment will weaken the actions and prevent a recurrence.Beside from the Operant Conditioning Theory, this study is also anchored to the Self-Determination Theory by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan in 1985 that is a psychological framework for understanding human motivation.Self-determination theory (SDT) is a broad framework for understanding factors that facilitate or undermine intrinsic motivation, autonomous extrinsic motivation, and psychological wellness, all issues of direct relevance to educational settings (Ryan & Deci, 2020).This theory that guides this study have also supported the parents in disciplining their children and in promoting learning interest in a way that Self-Determination Theory focuses on the study of two specified motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic.It explains that pupils learn and do something with willingness when they are intrinsically motivated.On the Open Access: https://ejournal.papanda.org/index.php/edukasiana/other hand, pupils are extrinsically motivated once they choose to learn when they want something in return and opted to avoid any punishments.

Research objectives
The objective of this study is to explore the parents' disciplinary strategies in promoting children's learning interest.With this, five (5) statements of the problem are provided as follows: (1) What are the different kinds of behaviors manifested by children that need discipline from their parents?; (2) What are the different disciplinary strategies parents employ to discipline their children?; (3) How do parents' disciplinary strategies help to promote children's interest in learning?; (4) What are the challenges encountered by the parents in disciplining their children?; and (5) What are the coping strategies used by the parents to overcome the challenges in disciplining their children?

Disciplinary strategies
Disciplining children also involves other factors, such as that discipline differs in various ways and cultures.In China, Baumrind's typology of parenting styles has been frequently used to classify Chinese parenting as more authoritarian (Fung et al., 2017).In Egypt, a recent survey done by UNICEF in three big Egyptian cities revealed that most children surveyed are still exposed to physical violence, with more violence happening at home than in the street (Seleem & Amer, 2020).The study by Pinquart (2021) stated that the term harsh parenting refers to coercive acts and negative emotional expressions of parents towards their children, wherein it includes verbal aggression, such as yelling or name-calling, and physical aggression, such as slapping, spanking, or beating up.Parenting of African American children is often conducted by young, single women in poverty (Damaske et al., 2017).African American mothers in the urban community face child-rearing challenges like single motherhood and being in a lower socioeconomic stratum (King, 2018).When parents promote children's learning interests, children are more likely to be motivated and participative at home and school, regardless of whoever raises them.
For some Filipino parents, part of disciplining is having intensive communication with their children.
In addition to this, content analyses revealed that the most frequently endorsed parenting strategies were giving reprimands and advice (pinagsasabihan at pinangangaralan) and monitoring and prohibition (pagsubaybay at pagbabawal) (Jocson & Garcia, 2017).
Effective disciplinary strategies appropriate to a child's age and development teach the child to regulate his or her behavior; keep him or her from harm; enhance his or her cognitive, socio-emotional, and executive functioning skills; and reinforce the behavioral patterns taught by the child's parents and caregivers (Sege et al., 2018).In the family, communication is the key to a good parent-child relationship.
Parents should be able to communicate effectively with their children by asking them about their interests, hobbies, and what they want to do to assess the children's needs.

Positive Discipline
Discipline is one factor that helps in giving a student self-direction to be studious in his or her academics which in turn influences his or her academic performance (Simeon & Nnaa, 2020).The discipline of one's pupils can be seen from actions that show everything in carrying out their responsibilities (Hikmawati, 2018).Hence, without discipline, it will result in a lack of chances to achieve their goals in life, and children may not have a clear direction toward their goals.
Parents used positive and negative discipline to monitor their children's behavior in promoting learning interest.A positive discipline is an approach to raising children based on the teachings of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreikurs, which emphasizes the need for belonging as a fundamental motivator of human beings (Carroll, 2021).It emphasizes giving encouragement, motivation, and mutual understanding toward your children's feelings.Many parents are drawn to positive discipline because they know punishment is not effective in the long term, and they like the idea of being kind and firm simultaneously (Nelsen et al., 2019).Most studies find that positive discipline, like giving children time outs or taking away privileges, tends to be associated with a variety of desirable outcomes.In contrast, the use of harsh discipline, like spanking, shouting, or demeaning, is often associated with behavioral problems and other negative outcomes in childhood and adolescence (Silveira et al., 2021).
In promoting positive discipline inside the home, parents should know more about their children so that they can discipline them better if they know the root cause of a children's misbehavior.However, simply knowing and recognizing the unpleasant behavior that a child does, is not enough to have positive discipline and to promote children's learning interests.Parents should also be consistent in communicating their expectations and limitations to their children so that there is no occurrence of children's confusion and misunderstanding.In disciplining a child, parents should also remember that they should not act out quickly based on their emotions and that it is okay to let themselves breathe and think of appropriate words before talking to a child.Trying to execute positive parenting strategy when frustrated, angry, or upset is useless.

Learning Interest
Filipino parents consider the support of children's schooling as among their primary goals, and a child's completion of higher education (i.e., makapagtapos) is a source of immense family pride (Alampay et al., 2019).Students' academic performance is essential to the constellation of factors that determine student success (Tus, 2020).However, pupils also lack learning interest in various specialized subjects.
In the Philippines, Saavedra (2020) stated in his study that despite the effort of teachers, they acknowledged that elementary pupils' lack of motivation and interest influenced their poor English and Filipino writing skills.In addition, one way to help students improve their writing skills is to increase writing activities that focus not just on penmanship but on strategies, planning, and organization (Saavedra, 2020, as cited in The Grade Network, 2019).Ganeb and Morales (2018) stated that learning science is a multifaceted endeavor to develop positive science-related attitudes, emotions, identities, and practices.In addition, the article entitled "Filipino Students' Preferred Motivational Strategies in Science: A Cross-Sectional Survey" states that, without science content and process, pupils are experiencing issues using science process abilities since these procedures are best learned in setting and organizing the curriculum around problems that challenge and arouse learners' curiosity motivates them to learn and appreciate science as relevant and useful (Rogayan & Bautista, 2019).
Parenting practices and student learning involvement positively impact pupils' school adjustment and academic achievement (Alampay & Garcia, 2019).However, parents' disciplinary strategies at home affect the performance of the pupils at school.Depending on how the parents taught discipline and promoted learning interest inside their home, pupils could either excel in their academic performance and/or perform low.
The importance of education can be reflected in parents' beliefs and involvement, which strongly affect their children's schooling.For example, positive parental beliefs, expectations, and support foster children's academic achievement and motivation (Lerkkanen & Pakarinen, 2022).

METHODS
This study employed the case study research model developed by Sharan B. Merriam Case Study model.The characteristics of the chosen model are Descriptive (Merriam, 1998).In this study, the specific Open Access: https://ejournal.papanda.org/index.php/edukasiana/problem is how to promote the learning interests of the Grade 5 pupils through exploring the different disciplinary strategies of their parents.
The qualifying participants of this study were the parents, either the mother or the father, who has a 5th grader son or daughter who has a high performance in class and is an achiever currently enrolled in a private elementary school in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines.Then, the respective classroom adviser was also involved and stood as the second source of data.This study has ten coded participants and was ensured as anonymous.
The researchers followed the process of qualitative data collection.The researchers produced a letter of request and was approved by the school President of the research environment, the School Principal as well as the Classroom Adviser of 5 th grade pupils of the selected private elementary school in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines for the researchers to conduct the study and collect data from the participants.The researchers conducted the interview face to face with the respondents.Yet before the interview, the researchers asked permission from the participants and let them be wellinformed about the purpose of the interview and were assured of the confidentiality of their responses.
After the discussion, the researchers evaluated and were able to interpret the gathered data to arrive at a valid and reliable result.The collected data were used to formulate a conclusion to present.
The Researchers gathered all possible descriptive data from the responses of Research participants who are ten (10) coded parents (P1-P10) and were chosen purposively.The results were directed to the central questions that tackle the parents' disciplinary strategies in promoting the learning interest of 5th-grade elementary pupils in Saint Columban College, Grade School Department.Since the utilized case-study model is of Sharan B. Merriam, the researchers provided a holistic description, interpretation, and analysis of the result, such as the disciplinary strategies used by the parents at home and the measures to promote children's learning interests.
This study also utilized the thematic analysis method proposed by Braun and Clarke (2008).
Thematic analysis is a flexible method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data.This method offers a way for analysis that is theoretically and methodologically sound (Braun & Clarke, 2008).

Experiences of parents in identifying different kinds of child's behaviors that need discipline
Based on the participant's responses, the sub-themes emerged are Too much screen time in playing mobile games and being impolite that pointed out the different kinds of their child's behaviors that they had experienced and identified that need discipline.
Too much screen time in playing mobile games.Spending multiple hours in a day on electronic devices is associated with shorter sleep duration across all ages (Twenge et al., 2019).With this theme, the participants shared:

P10
Most of the parents identified mobile phone addiction to playing mobile games as one of the behaviors that their child has and needs to be disciplined.They have also observed that playing mobile games leads their child to academic procrastination.Academic procrastination carried out by students is usually due to the feeling of laziness that exists in students (Famor et al., 2022).In addition, students who feel they have to do their assignments perfectly and make them a heavy burden to give an unpleasant impression also tend to practice academic procrastination.In learning, motivation is needed to increase enthusiasm so that students feel happy and motivated to learn (Kemal et al., 2023).
Being impolite.Impoliteness has become a part of everyone's life, whether it is intentional or not.
Throughout life, speakers participate in conversations in which they can get hurt or hurt the other participant (Mlynáriková, 2022).In addition, being impolite involves rudeness towards the parents, which they think is a behavior that needs to be disciplined.The participants have narrated: "I have observed many behaviors from my child that need discipline such as hard headedness, laziness, irresponsible, refusing to listen, talking back, and trash-talking."P7

"My child talks back at me and refuses to follow orders such as helping with household chores." P2
The research participants mentioned that their children show behaviors of hard-headedness, talking back, and not listening.Disciplining children and promoting learning interests is a challenge for the parents.It shows that parents are eager to discipline their children and promote learning interests (Famor et al., 2022).

Disciplinary Strategies in Disciplining Children
The participants provided the following responses about their disciplinary strategies in disciplining children, and three themes emerged.These themes are Effective communication, Being a good role model, and Negative Punishment.
Effective communication.Most of the research participants find it as one of their disciplinary strategies in disciplining their children.Effective communication allows parents and children to actively talk and think in a two-way communication that will make children comfortable and make it easier for parents to convey messages (Triwardhani, 2020).The research participants shared: Most of the responses of the participants revealed that talking, giving attention, and reaching out to their children gently and firmly are the best disciplinary strategies for disciplining their children.
Participants find effective communication can make a connection between them as a parent and their children.Effective communication is therefore essential.
Being a good role model.Being a good role model will help their children mold themselves to be a well-disciplined child wherein parents demonstrate the importance of living a purpose-driven life, which influences the child later to be more focused on finding a life purpose (Hill et al., 2019).The participant narrated: "The disciplinary strategies that I employed to discipline my children are firmness and consistency, never sparing the rod, modeling, and never breaking a promise.All of these are listed in numbers.I came up with these strategies from copying from my parents especially my mother, advice from my elders, and learnt from my trusted friends in church and in the workplace" P7 Based on the participant's response, one way to discipline a child is that first, a parent must be a good role model in a way that the child may be able to adapt to the behaviors a parent has shown.In disciplining the children, the importance of modeling is what you hope to teach your children.
Negative Punishment.Negative punishment is the removal of a stimulus or event immediately following a response and the suppression of the future frequency of that response (Davis, T & Akers, J. 2023).Participants find this strategy effective in converting their undesired behavior to desired one or for the child not to repeat their unacceptable behavior and as an effective strategy to promote their children's learning interest.The participant narrated: "No rewards, no allowance, and no use of cell phones, television, and laptop.I will tell them to stay at home or even inside our room as my way of inculcating discipline in them.I came up with such strategies by observing them first to implement appropriate interventions and I found these strategies effective.
Whenever my children manifest inappropriate behaviors, I discipline them by setting limits and giving consequences."P5 Some of the participants are in favor of giving punishments as the consequence of their children's undesired actions and they see it as an effective strategy for disciplining their children.According to Saputri and Widyasari (2022), punishment also has an equally important role in shaping or improving children's attitudes.In addition, with the behavior accompanied by punishment, the negative behavior will be reduced and will not even repeat.

Ways in which the Disciplinary Strategies Promote Children's Learning Interest
The participants provided and contributed the following responses on how to promote their children's learning interests through utilizing disciplinary strategies, and three themes emerged.These themes are Implementing positive discipline, utilizing negative punishment and Monitoring children's behaviors.
Implementing positive discipline.Positive discipline method includes guidance on how to handle emotions and regulate behaviors, while guaranteeing children's rights, self-esteem, and physical and psychological integrity (Cuartas, 2018).Participants find this disciplinary strategy effective in ensures that the character of their child will be developed and will be carried out throughout their lives.
Negative Punishment.Negative punishment as a type of behavior modification under punishment is when "the occurrence of a behavior is followed by the removal of a reinforcing stimulus, and as a result, the behavior is less likely to occur in the future" (Lorini & Moroni, 2020).
" Based on the response of the participant, the use of gadgets affects the child's behavior which makes it challenging to discipline the children.Gadgets can give the children various kinds of entertainment that will lead them to excessive use and cause mental and physical health damage.

Coping Strategies in Disciplining Children and Promoting Learning Interest
Based on the responses of the research participants with regards to their coping strategies in disciplining their children and promoting their learning interest, two themes came out such as Effective communication and Divine intervention.Parents shared that effective communication is one of the effective strategies to discipline their children and to promote their interest in learning.
Effective Communication.Effective communication is based on openness and positive support for children so that children can properly accept what parents say (Aryani, 2020).Participant 6 find this strategy effective and narrated: "Encouraging them that if they don't know something they can ask me and their father for an explanation.I give them a chance to explain what they want to say or tell and try to communicate with them with calm feelings."P6 Through effective communication, the participant corrected the behavior of the child in an approachable way.Giving them their full attention, acknowledging them, and having words of affirmation will make the child feel loved, supported, appreciated, capable, and cared for.Hence, this promotes a good connection and relationship between a parent and the child.
Divine Intervention.To have faith in God is significant, it allows people to trust in Him in their most difficult obstacles that they have faced.The participant believed that offering the problem to God along with faith to solve the problem is an effective coping strategy in disciplining and promoting the learning interest of the child.She narrated: "I just pray to God and let him intervene.Consistent discipline is what I used to solve problems.I also motivate them in reaching their goals."P3 If we have faith, we surrender our problems to God and pray that everything will be alright.One participant revealed that offering the problem to God is one of the coping strategies that was used in disciplining children and promoting learning interest.
Through previous research, there are various ways that are utilized by the parents as their style with regards to disciplining their children.Across different countries, most of them agreed to utilize physical or harsh punishments, or authoritarian.This study shows that parents use negative and positive reinforcements to discipline their children and promote learning interest.Hence, their children will feel more interested, encouraged, and motivated in learning.Furthermore, it is significant for the parents to utilize appropriate disciplinary strategies along with the proper reinforcement and consistency to enhance behaviors of the children chiefly their interest in learning.
promoting children's learning interest.The participants shared: "First, show love and support, show interest in school activities, positive thoughts, and support, and encourage them that everything is for their good future.Based on my children's behavior, they love to learn and they are obeying the rule we made at home." P6 "I promote my children's learning interests through motivation, encouragement, and modeling."P7 Parents discipline their children positively in a way of motivation, encouragement, connecting lessons to real-life situations, balancing study time and leisure time, and avoiding the use of physical discipline to enhance the learning interest of their children (Hingo et al., 2022).Hence, children do better when they feel better.Same goes in the classroom setting, even their child's classroom adviser mentioned and also proved that implementing positive discipline is certainly effective.It shows that positive discipline made her pupils feel motivated and improved their interest in learning.She shared: "Implementing positive discipline really helps my classroom management become well-organized and well disciplined.Through positive discipline my pupils showed behaviors such as being participative in the class, they show interest in learning the lessons, they feel comfortable and motivated to share and express their ideas during our classroom activities or during discussions, and they are eager to learn new things and lessons in our class."T1 When children are positively disciplined by their parents by encouraging and motivating them, it inculcate discipline by talking to my child them all the time.I explained that not all the time life is always good.I let my child do mistakes and I can expand my patience.It is just me and my child, so I always ask what is wrong so that I will know what to do.I set limit and I would always tell my child to be calm at Hinahayaan ko siya magkamali at habaan ang pasensya.Dalawa lang kami ng anak ko, kaya natatanong ko kung ano ang problema niya upang alam ko ano ang nararapat gawin.I set limit at sinasabihan ko siya lagi na maging kalmado sa lahat ng bagay." [I always ask my child what is wrong.Specifically, I Open Access: https://ejournal.papanda.org/index.php/edukasiana/ Mobile phones are difficult to defeat in disciplining a child.There are also instances that I have experienced common problems of repeated mischief as my child's misbehavior.In promoting learning interest, the issues I have come across is whenever my child got distracted with mobile games and too much use of cell phones."P3 No use of cell phones, internet, television, and laptop.I think this strategy is effective because I can see a development in my child's behavior and get interested in learning new lessons in school.I think this helped me to encourage my child to learn because I observed that through it, my child "