A lot of times, posters write in about disciplining the stepchldren.
But discipline means different things to different people. I have always thought that discipline is an internal principle. We encourage and guide our children to develop discipline, by leading them in the right direction, and using age appropriate rewards and consequences to steer t hem in the right direction and help them to make wise choices in the future.
I think its important to realize that "discipline" can omly come from within, and controlling your childs behaviour is something totally different from discipline. I think sometimes parents dont get t he results they want, because they impose controls on kids, without using methods that foster internal lessons in kids, and then as the kids get older, they blow off the controls.
Its fairly easy to get a six year old to obey. They obey out of fear. But that does very little to help them make the right choices when they are older.
I guess thats one reason why I think punishment should be infrequent, rather than a regular occurance for poor choices( such as lying about homework, or swearing, or being rude to someone). Punishment in those kind of cases will stop the behaviour, especially at a young age. But it wont help the child to develop a moral compass as to why its wrong. It just develops fear. Fear doesnt work by the time they hit their teens, and its much harder to change track and do something different at that point.
One of the most effective ways of developing discipline in children is to model it yourself, as a parent. If you get angry easily, expect your child to do so. If you or the other parent lie, get lazy about accomplishing tasks, are a slob, then the kids will not be motivated to be different just because you tell them to do something. If you and your parenter have totally different parenting styles, then there will be a lot of confusion and testing, and the kids may not respond even to your own modelling, because they have other influences . This is especially true in a step family because there are two households with most likely totally different ways of doing things, that the children are learning from.
I also think its important to realize that just because you want it done your way, doesnt make the other way necessarily wrong. Kids have to find their own way, even if it drives you nuts. Most kids do, eventually, if they are given room to fail, not rescued every time, and allowed to be different than your ideal image of what you want t hem to be.
Kids are individuals. They dont have to turn out exactly the way you want them to. Its hard for us, as parents, because we can SEE they are making choices t hat may hurt them in the future, but, in reality, if we step in and control what they do, they arent learning anything. They will just have to face the same lesson again. It takes a lot of balance.
Its worth remembering as well, that mistakes, even costly ones, done in youth, can be corrected in later years, once the child truly wants to correct them. There are a lot of teen mommies out there who end up changing their lives, getting a decent job, working hard, and making a success of it, even though they will be the first to admit that they were idiots to have kids that young out of wedlock. Then there are teen mommies who expect a free ride all through life and never ever stop blaming other people for their poverty and frustration. THe different between the two usually comes down to discipline. THe first group learned the discipline lesson, the second group always were bailed out and told it wasnt their fault.
SOmetimes its far more effective to allow your kids to suffer the consequences of their own actions, rather than to punish them for their bad choices. Specifically, poor grades in school from not doing homework. If they lie and hide homework, if they refuse to study, its probably, after a time of trying to correct it, if it continues....its probably better to let the kid fail a year, than to crack down and force the kid to sit at the table and do the work.
Just my thoughts.
Its a fine line. I guess I just grit my teeth when I hear the word discipline, because I KNOW a lot of people think its about controlling actions. They make it external, when its really internal.
And here I ramble on.
lovehadley
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