Parenting – Importance of Discipline

It is important for your children to know the types of behaviors that you expect from them and the types of behaviors that are acceptable within society. If you fail to provide your children with this information they may set up their own rules of behavior and this can have extremely detrimental consequences to your children. Furthermore, an essential basic of discipline is that is should be administered in love and never in anger or out of frustration. Your children will be able to tell the difference, and discipline dispensed with love will be more readily accepted and understood by your children than will be discipline that is doled out as the result of your anger.

As a parent you want to provide your children with a constructive environment that will encourage their growth and maturation as well as help them safely learn that all of their actions will have an affect on their lives – either positive or negative. This can be accomplished through creating rules which establish acceptable behavior and providing discipline when rules are broken. The behavior expectations you place on your children should be reasonable and age appropriate. Unreasonable or inappropriate expectations will cause frustration and anxiety for both you and your children.

Successful Discipline Requires Discipline

For you to properly discipline your children you must institute household rules with the expectation that the rules will be followed, and you must make sure that your children know the consequences for violating established rules. When you establish household rules you should be consistent in the enforcement of the rules, and you must be consistent with discipline. If you as the parent are inconsistent in either the enforcement of rules or discipline, your children are not likely to take household rules seriously.

It takes a lot of work to find the balance between strict discipline and casual discipline. You probably do not want to become a dictator in your children's eyes but you also do not want to become an overly permissive parent either. Being overly strict or being too permissive can both be harmful to your children. Your job as a parent is not to be a drill sergeant that rules entirely out of fear nor is it to be a doormat for your children to walk over at will. Your job is to teach your children in loving and kind ways and help them to learn from their mistakes through appropriate means of discipline.

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