Interpersonal Relations

Love and Discipline

Love

On the page, Parenting Tips, we talked about loving God and instilling this love in our children. We must also love our children. Of course! How obvious. What good parent doesn't? But love includes looking for the good. It's to so easy to forget at times and harp on the mistakes (just ask my kids). But we want them to recognize that we love them. Different people recognize love in different ways. An affectionate word, a pat on the back, an errand cheerfully done, a thoughtful little gift, time spent working together or having fun together. Each of these types of expressions of love has a different value to different people. If we use as many of them as we can, we will probably fill our children's unique needs.

Our love for our spouse is also one of the most important things we can give our children. For those who are separated or divorced, it has often been observed that those mothers who speak well of their child's father, or at least avoid speaking bitterly of him, do much to benefit their child. (Of course, the same is true, conversely, of the father speaking of the mother.)

Discipline

Appropriate discipline, lovingly administered, also shows love. Discipline is not punishment, though it may - and sometimes should - include punishment. Discipline is learning that there are limits and authorities, and learning to live an ordered life. It must be internalized and eventually become self-discipline to be effective for life.

Some of the methods of punishing may be to assign an extra chore or to withdraw a privilege. An extra chore could be any reasonable task that the child isn't normally required to do. The privilege withdrawn could be anything that IS a privilege...in other words, something that is not necessary to their welfare or to learning to keep prior commitments. For example, I might recommend taking a child off sweets for a day, depending on the severity of the offense (and the age of the child); but I would never recommend depriving the child of a meal, or even of a wholesome snack if snacking is something you normally do in your family. Or I might ground a child from playing with the neighbor children for a short time, depending on the offense; but I would not keep him from going to a baseball game for which his team is depending on him. Another rule of thumb is that the more it is related to the offense, the better; the more it resembles natural consequences, the more just it seems to be.

We should always try to be reasonable in the type, degree, and length of punishment. We are trying to reach their hearts. St. John Bosco had wonderful insights on discipline. I'll let him "speak" to you on the following pages, beginning with "Salesian Methods". To go to that page, you can CLICK HERE.

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