Discipline or Negotiation

I hated being disciplined as a child. If Mom ever said, “Just wait till your dad gets home…” I would instantly change my behavior to avoid getting yelled at. I don’t remember Dad ever actually yelling at me, but his look of disapproval would send me into an immediate fit of tears. Mom’s discipline never had the same effect on me.

When I became a parent and it was my responsibility to dole out punishment, I have to admit I was pretty wishy-washy on the strictness scale. I hated being the bad guy and being too strict, so I inevitably let the kids get away with more than they should have.

If they said a “bad word,” I didn’t wash their mouths out with soap, like some might have. Instead, I would sit down and talk to them about why we don’t say those words. If they didn’t do their homework, I didn’t just sit them at the kitchen table with nothing else to do. Instead, I would sit with them and help them get through the assignments. If they got into a fight with each other over a toy, I didn’t take all their toys away. Instead, I would talk to each of them about sharing.

As they got older and more tech-savvy, there were times when a punishment had been issued that I had to help enforce. Most of the time, I didn’t like enforcing the punishment, but I felt I had to. The hardest part as a divorced parent was enforcing the discipline that the other parent decided on. One form of punishment was to take away all their technology for a week. That included cell phones, Xboxes, Gameboys, and any other such devices. I was working in Milwaukee at the time, so I wasn’t at home to keep control of the punishment. Instead, I would take all the devices with me to work. With the quantity of electronics each of them had, this became quite a daunting task. Eventually, I got smart and took only the smaller devices, leaving just the power cords for the larger ones. That seemed to do the trick.

I agree with the idea of presenting yourselves as a united front to your kids, but in my case, that was often challenging. When things got too strict, I found myself becoming much more passive. Parenting taught me that discipline isn’t about punishment—it’s about teaching, guiding, and sometimes improvising. Sure, I may not have been the strictest parent, and I probably let my kids off easy more than once, but I always led with love. Whether it was confiscating power cords or sitting down to talk things through, I did my best to balance structure with empathy. Looking back, I can say this: My kids may not have had the toughest disciplinarian, but they had a parent who cared deeply about raising them to be kind, thoughtful, and responsible humans. And honestly, that feels like a win to me.

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