Disciplining for dummies

There's something hanging pretty heavy on my heart this morning. Something that I've questioned about myself and how our separation/divorce would affect our kids.

It has to do with discipline. Disciplining of children. Not about spanking or dealing with a troubled youth, but rather with consistency and effectiveness.

I was walking into church this morning. A little late. A single mother with her daughter were also coming in, having a very one sided 'discussion'. The mother is probably in her forties and the daughter is 9 or 10. There is no father in the picture that I know of, and I do know a little about them.

The topic of the conversation was about the glasses that the girl was not wearing. It was obvious that her mom had told her to wear them and she wasn't. Here's an excerpt of the conversation;

Mom - "I wish I hadn't bought those glasses. We could have used the money for something else! Oh, just forget it!"

Daughter - "Does that mean I don't have to wear them anymore?"

Mom - "Whatever. I said just forget it."

That broke my heart. I almost stopped them right there to chew them both out, but I'm sure that would not have been very productive. Can't she see that the girl got exactly what she wanted, which was against her mothers demand?

The thing that's wieghting on my heart is the fact that my girlies mother is also not effective when it comes to discipline. She's a good mom. She loves them very much, but I have, in the past, had to follow up on her disciplining for her.

Now, I'm certainly not an expert on parenting (and no, having children does not make anyone an expert) but I have read a little and there are a few points I've confirmed through experience.

1. Discipline your children. As in, actually do it. Reprimanding is not disciplining. There is no point in simply chastising, yelling, or trying to make them feel guilty. There has to be a consequence for disobedience. This is one area that I would like to say I do well at. Quite often I let them choose their consequence. That works pretty well actually.

2. Be consistent. This is difficult but imperative. Everyone has heard that children need to have boundaries, but only with consistency will they know what those boundaries are. How can they work within boundaries if they don't know what they are?

3. If you're wrong, apologize and ask forgiveness. I've been known to say "no!" to things they request, especially if they've annoyed me at some point that day. I'm not talking about apologizing for that, although you should if you need to. I'm talking about apologizing for being wrong about what they're being disciplined for. I have 3 little girls. Lovely, manipulative little girls. Sometimes it's difficult to discern the truth when someone disobeys. If and when I inadvertently discipline the apparent victim too much, I make it a point to apologize and ask their forgiveness.

Every time that's happened between me and one of my girls, it brought us closer. I think they appreciate it more than we know.

4. Do it, get it over with, and be done. Don't drag it out. The other crummy thing about the situation above was that the mothers guilt trip probably lasted the entire trip to church. Forgiving your children goes with along with this. Can you imagine a parent holding a grudge towards their children? Completely destructive, for both the parent and child.

So, four seemingly simple points. I would like to think I am relatively good at it. Relatively. What breaks my heart is that my girlies mother is not and nothing I've tried has made any difference in her. Yes, the focus is my girlies and I haven't lost that.

(I promise to post updated pictures of them when I figure out how to get pics in a post on this thing.) Thanks for reading.

EDIT: I forgot Compassion! 'Be compassionate' should probably be number 1. As kj mentioned below, there may be circumstances surrounding the act of disobedience that warrant consideration. This may sound dorky, but something I learned in management school was "The 5 Why's." The idea is to ask why as many times as you need to find the root cause of a problem. (It says 5, but it's really as many as you need.) I always ask why when one of my girlies disobeys. Even if they don't have an answer for me, it gets them thinking about it for themselves.

Compassion also means keeping their feelings in consideration. Sometimes they need a harsh 'wake up', so to speak, even if its just to get them to pay attention to you. But if you push it too far, they will stop thinking about anything except their fear. At that point, any consequence is practically worthless.