Strike! (Not your child; the balance)

Disciplining is all about your knack at striking that balance between autocracy and permissiveness with your child. Children need to get the right message so that they learn the right behaviors. Everyone needs to have these limits set for themselves so they find direction towards the goals they need to accomplish. The younger your child, lesser the self-understanding of boundaries, and more defined should be the limits that you set for them. You love your children (everyone usually does) and the virtues you instill in them come with some level of control and authority; levels of which you have to determine as per your own preferences. Boundaries provide security for a child whose exploratory disposition leads her to explore, but her inexperience may lead her astray. You are the guiding light who knows it all and can direct her.

Behavior modification for parents

It’s so normal for parents to consult therapists for their children’s behavior. You don't realize that your children wish that they could get some treatment for you at times. Just as you wish your kids would introspect and appreciate how much trouble you go through for them, likewise they too feel that you ought to look within and ask yourself how you really make your kids feel about your own behavior towards them. You blame them for making you the monster. You need to step back and ask yourself...

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?

Making your child obey you

The dictum in life is to be reasonable in expectations so that we are not let down. Maxims also state that when you put in your best you are welcome to expect the finest outcome. And then, laws of physics state that every action generates an equal and opposite reaction. Next, mirrors reflect back at us what we truly are, nothing more, naught less. So the key to happiness (backed by evidence base and science) is to sow the best seed so that you get supreme and flawless crop. That crop who ‘wants’ to listen to you. The crop who ‘waits’ for your command because he has the utmost desire to follow you as his role model. The crop that every parent wishes, dreams, prays, pines for. The crop of the obedient child.