What is discipline?

Discipline is no doubt something we want for our children and all our parenting efforts are incessantly put into what we call the 'disciplining process. 'Would you agree to the below or you have different ideas?

• Giving your child tools to succeed in their lifetime?
• Doing what it takes to ‘like’ living with your kids?
• Working on a respectful relationship with them?
• Using right techniques and good communication?
• Helping them build inner control on themselves?
• Virtuous behavior that will last them a lifetime?

Where you are right

It’s absolutely essential to empower your children with the necessary skills for becoming respectable, obedient, hardworking, intelligent and successful. It’s mandatory that you love your children, fulfill their desires, make them happy, and not deprive them. We toil hard in our own way and we don't intentionally do things to hamper our child’s development in any physical or behavioral sense ever. Intentions are always the best (that ought to be). Everyone out there is the ‘best’ parent because they put in their ‘best’.

Where you are wrong

Not being pessimistic, just realistic. If you feel that overprotecting your child, overindulging in her, keeping her ‘up close and safe’ is your best, it may not be good enough for your child’s development. Likewise, spanking him, scolding him when he does something unpleasant, screeching at her when she misbehaves, are certainly not the best disciplining moves.

Your best may not be enough

Your little ones need you. They need every bit of you for every step of their development. If you’re doing all that you can, take a step further and do even better than your best. Your child needs to be independent, and by herself she must choose to do the right thing. You are always there in the background: maybe 4 feet away, maybe in another room or probably a few miles away. But your child believes in your presence and chooses to behave right. (Maybe you can simulate it with God; you cannot see Him but you ‘feel’ and choose to believe in Him so you do the right thing). Your kids should do the right thing not for fear of punishment, or greed of reward. They must do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. That’s discipline.

Discipline for adults

Not just kids, adults need to follow discipline too. You need to be tolerant towards your child because that's the right thing to do. You need to make amends and promise yourself that you will deal with them maturely, entrench the right thought processes in them and shape their behavior gently. The tough branch breaks if you strike it hard (like all stubborn children who don't like to be scolded). If you gently use heat, you can even bend glass without breaking or scorching it.

Why you need to change

Sometimes your understanding of the word "discipline" is different. Like many other parents, you may equate discipline with reacting negatively to bad behavior. You don’t realize that discipline is mostly what you do to encourage good behavior. It's better to prevent a child from falling down in the first place than to patch up crashes and scrapes after he has taken the tumble. Disciplining is about preventing bad behavior.

What you need to do

Discipline is everything you put into children that influences how they turn out. You want the guidance system that keeps the child in check at age three to keep his behavior on track at age thirty, and you want this system to be integrated into the child's personality, a part of him or her. Here is a checklist for you. Do you follow these? Are these a part of your disciplining curriculum for your child? Do you build these in your child? If not, we have some disciplining to do for ourselves. Do feel free to write in your comments and discuss on how we can deal with our kids better.