By: Steven Wayne Ansell
It seems these days children are in charge of parents. The modern parent has lost control and is willing to do almost anything to make the child happy. Children will not eat what is given to them. Children will not wear what is laid out for them. Children will not obey the rules submitted to them. The parent is so stressed they will go to great lengths to accommodate any demand upon them by the child. Children have been able to gain complete control over parents by appealing first to the parents soft, tender, loving emotions for the child, and then manipulating those emotions to achieve dominance over the parent.
No parent wants to be the "bad guy" to the child. This philosophy, however, is in no way doing a favor to the child and it certainly has done nothing but make the parents life more and more stressful. There are two simple ways of teaching your child to be more obedient . These tips, if properly and consistently used, will provide a marked improvement in the child's behavior and drastically decrease the parents stress.
Mean what you say ... This is a simple way of reminding yourself to enforce consistent discipline in your child's life. If five minutes of time out is the required punishment for disobedience, make sure five minutes is enforced each and every time. If the child is told to finish eating all your vegetables before eating any candy or snacks, this too must be enforced consistently. Simply put, a parent must be consistent in following up with the punishment set down for breaking rules. Only when discipline is enforced in a regular, loving manner will it be effective. At first the child may rebel, but in the long run "meaning what you say" will make the child well adjusted and the parent stress free.
Say what you mean ... Even the youngest child will recognize idle threats from a parent. "Saying what you mean" simply teaches us to be careful of the words we say to our children. Never threaten your child with punishments you are unable or unwilling to enforce. These are threats such as; "Do that again and you will be in time out all week" or "If you don't eat your vegetables you won't eat again". These types of threats are made with no real expectation of enforcement and the child will quickly learn to ignore all your words. Consistent, meaningful discipline is the only way to encourage good behavior from your child and produce a stress free parent.
