Save your breath because I know what you're thinking. How can someone with a 9 year old and a 7 year old know much about parenting? Well, I really don't, but I do have some strong opinions. And I'm sure once I have teenagers, the wheels will come off. But, there are a couple things I have a knack for and I seem to understand at a fundamental level. I admit, I may come back one day and we can all laugh at how wrong I was. But, I actually spend a good deal of time thinking about it, especially when I see some of these parents and their tragic mistakes. Isn't it always easier to see the mistakes of others?
Nevertheless, I am a very intuitive thinker and when I have a strongly intuitive thought, I go with it. It usually serves me very well. Just so you know the real me, I can discuss such topics with you if you like but in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I am firmly convinced that I am right and that time will ultimately prove it to everyone's satisfaction! :)
The best advice I ever got went something like this. Parents usually deliver strong discipline or strong love but rarely both. The kids who receive the discipline will tend to be rebellious and the kids who receive the love will struggle with a low self-esteem. The very BEST strategy then, is not to attempt a balance necessarily, but to discipline at a 10! AND to love at a 10! While our self-centered thinking sees a conflict here, the two are NOT in conflict. I'll explain.
When I was growing up, there seemed to be a transition in parenting philosophy. The Boomers are typically well acquainted with strong discipline and it seems, were (in a broad sense) working on a corrective to show more affection with their children. You would think then, that their offspring (my generation) would move the process further along, improving parenting on the whole. Sadly this does not seem to be the case.
Rather than incorporate the very best - tried and true discipline AND the very newest development of displaying lots of love and adoration, the movement has been to focus on the love, and the discipline is sorely lacking. Ironically, the parent who is so concerned about his child's self-esteem that he refuses to allow his child to experience disappointment of any kind, is actually setting his kid up for a self-esteem crisis, later in life.
Allow me to take this one step further. Ever heard someone say, "I just can't bring myself to punish Little Johnny." The insinuation (or perhaps they verbalize it) is 'I love my child so much, I can't punish him.' The presupposition is incorrect! Whether influenced by a decline in our societal expectations or influenced with feelings from a childhood where discipline was not received accompanied by love, this is tragically misguided. In fact, it takes so much more work, physically, mentally, and emotionally - to discipline properly - than it does to spare the metaphorical rod. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, one can watch this process unfold and conclude that the parent who doesn't discipline the child doesn't love the child as much as the parent who takes the substantial effort to make sure the child is corrected. Or at the very least, doesn't take the time to give his child the very best care possible.
Case in point: the youngest of three kids almost always receives less discipline than the siblings. Now, this is simple math - by the time the youngest comes along, there is less energy and attention to give. I get that. That is a simple issue of managing the resources a family has at its disposal. Not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a misrepresentation where we have tricked ourselves into thinking that correcting bad behavior - heck even LABELING behavior as bad - somehow means we are bad parents. Indeed the opposite is true.
Love and discipline are NOT at odds although at first glance, it appears they are. And to children, it appears that they are. And furthermore, there are some turdish parents out there who aren't really disciplining at all but they're taking life out on their kids and calling it discipline. We know this exists and we don't want to be perceived as such and the truth is, those parents who are afraid to discipline, they are afraid of their children. They are scared of not being liked. And it is difficult for me to imagine a more selfish scenario than a parent foregoing discipline - in so doing foregoing the child's well-being - because at the very core of the issue, the parent wants to be liked.
Coming up in Part II, I will discuss what I see happening in the grocery store, the ballfield, and even in my own house (gasp) as the number one mistake us parents make and how there might be a very simple solution.
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