The root of discipline is disciple.  The point of disciplining is to teach.  As parents, we are in the business of teaching our children to lead fruitful and healthy lives. However, many times we find ourselves feeling frustrated about how we handle difficult parenting moments – Those moments when we yell, shame, or are sarcastic instead of teaching.  Bill Cosby says, “No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids – their behavior is always normal.”  So, how should we treat these wonderful, frustrating, crazy and normal children we have been given to guide to adulthood?
A great way to begin thinking about your parenting is to consider your own parents. Did your parents yell, or did they discipline you in a gentle but firm manner?  Did your parents believe that “it was always your fault” or did they build you up by telling you a lot of the things you were doing right? Whether we realize it or not, our parents have a significant influence on us, and as children, we learn and absorb the way our parents behave toward us. These internal parenting tapes replay themselves whether we are helping our own children with homework or coaching sports.
Being aware of what comes naturally to you as a parent is a first step in assessing your learned style. Everyone’s story is different -birth order, gender, and family structure all play roles in how we think and act toward our children. Sometimes we would be wise to do exactly as our parents did, and sometimes we might need help in figuring out how to “unlearn” some of what we experienced. This awareness allows us to understand ourselves better, and therefore enables us to make better choices about how we react to our children.
One of my sisters has chosen to parent her children without spanking, a fact that makes sense in light of a favorite family story. Saturday mornings were a great treat in my household because my Mother always made French toast. On this particular morning, it was cold, and Mother yelled at us from the kitchen to be sure to wear our slippers. So, all four of us sisters put on our slippers and shuffled down the hall into the kitchen. From out of the blue, Mother snatched my sister up and proceeded to whip the snot out of her, as we three stared in dismay and confusion.  The whole time she was being whipped, she screamed, “I HAVE ON MY SLIPPERS, I HAVE ON MY SLIPPERS!” Now, we laugh about the story, and as a mother myself I can understand that parents have a million things on their minds, and sometimes we assume things we shouldn’t and can behave in ways that make a ten-year-old doubt our sanity.
Like my mother, we are all going to mess up; we cannot parent perfectly.  Our kids can’t be perfect either, but we can try to choose to focus more on their positives than their negatives. I like to say that children (and adults) have emotional bank accounts. Our job as parents is to build those bank accounts up by communicating your belief in them, your confidence in their ability to learn, and your unconditional love. So, when they do mess up, and we have to make a withdrawal, they will continue to operate in that positive surplus. Watch a child’s disposition brighten when a parent communicates something positive and uplifting about them. Not only will your actions make them better people, but it will also make them better parents. James Baldwin summed it up nicely when he said, “Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
Great authors on parenting:
Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend – Boundaries with Kids
Dr. John Gottman – Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child
Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. – The Blessing of A Skinned Knee
William J. Richardson, Ph.D. –  Loving Obedience:  Child Training Techniques that Work
Gary Chapman – The Five Love Languages of Teenagers
Chap Clark – anything he has written about teenagers
– From Lida Caraway