Discipline and Parenting
After having had the privilege of teaching the martial arts to thousands of students for 20 years, I have seen just about every way to parent under the sun. In addition to the parenting culture of the USA, I have both traveled and lived overseas many times and witnessed first hand the European, and Asian cultures.
That said, I believe that children come in all shapes and sizes. You can not treat children equally, but you must treat them fairly according to their individual personalities. Some children you can tell not to touch something and they just don’t touch it. Other children think about it, wait, and do it later. Still others will look at you, smile, and do exactly as they were instructed not to. Obviously, discipline would be reserved for the latter two examples.
In my opinion, when discipline is needed it should be painful enough to not only shock the behavior at hand, but leave a lasting impression for the future. Once consequences have been administered, the child should be dealt with lovingly and supportively. They should be told that you love them and the reasons that they were disciplined. They should also have the difference between “being disciplined” and exercising “self discipline” explained to them. I do not believe in time outs or taking things away unless you have a child that rarely needs discipline AND when discipline is given in small doses, the lesson is learned and there are no repeats of this behavior.
For the other 95% of children it has been my experience that there MUST be a balance of love and discipline. I have seen so many parents that raise children without discipline because they buy into the psycho babble that “spanking teaches children to hit” or “painful consequences” in someway damage a child’s creative abilities. It has worked itself out every time that the children raised in these environments have grown to be spoiled teens and adults that their parents ultimately lose control of. They have no respect for their teachers, society, and ultimately their parents.
In 20 years of teaching and having hundreds of discussions with these types of parents, I have never been wrong. However, I would love to hear your opinions on the subject.
Filed under: Connected
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!