Discipline and core values are tricky

Discipline and core values are tricky

Discipline and core values are tricky

Discipline and core values are tricky!

One of the most complicated and most painful task parents have is to socialize their children effectively and successfully. Funk & Wagnall defines "socialized" as "to convert from anti-social to a social attitude; make friendly, cooperative, or sociable."

The only understanding that we have of socializing our children is through our own childhood experiences. Unfortunately, if anything, most of us did not have the best classrooms to learn the skills of socializing another successfully and respectfully.

The common notion of discipline that is usually understood by parents, is manipulating the environment with the idea to "stop" the unwanted behaviours. Being "grounded" which means to socially isolate the child for a certain period of time has not the same intent as a "time-out." Losing access to the TV or video games would be a common consequence for an infraction perceived by many parents. These strategies are extremely common. Unfortunately they are not very effective in getting the desired behaviours.

Some parents are beginning to teach their children to be accountable rather than punishing unwanted behaviours. The idea that the child is accountable and not the parent, determines success in the learning! This idea influences the notion of personal power and self-esteem issues. The more a child is able to take responsibility for the anti-social behaviour the more the child gains self-worth and self-confidence when successful in "fixing" the consequences of the unwanted behaviour. The question that you need to ask yourself when in doubt or confused about accountability, is who has the control to change this behaviour?

For example teaching children about the core value of nutrition as necessary to build and maintain healthy bodies means the parents would need to guarantee that quality healthy food is the main source of meals. The parents' knowledge about daily food portions and sources would be fairly sophisticated. If not, then the parent is responsible to find out what their growing child needs to maintain and sustain the incredible growth needed to reach their full physical and mental potential.

Parents also need to keep up with the medical research without becoming paranoid. So easy to say, but a nightmare to follow! An example is carbonic acid found in carbonated drinks (soda) leeches out all the essential minerals in the system and if the person drinking the beverage is not more than 100 pounds, the leeching is rather serious for the consumer. We are also discovering today the role these beverages play in obesity and the onslaught of diabetes II. Celiac disease is becoming much more common in the last 10 years. This disease is an inability to break down gluten foods found in most grains and foods that are commercially filled with gluten fillers.

An example of how easy it is for parents to want to be responsible but are unable to understand some healthy food consumption, was when a couple I worked with experienced their young son of 6 going through a phase of not eating vegetables and consuming only meat or meat protein. He ended up under medical care. He was unable to stop the body's inability to become sick from the lack of fibre in his diet. Human beings are omnivores (meat/plant) and to force the human body to be herbivore (exclusively plant) or carnivore (exclusively meat) creates havoc to the human digestion system if not done with a lot of care and medical supervision.

It is important to be gentle with ourselves and understand that parenting is an incredibly complex experience that demands skills that are never taught formally. The information that is critical in producing healthy, mindful kids is not readily available. Therefore, the challenges are infinite in raising confident kids.

Mistakes are to be celebrated. A mistake is a genuine intent to do your best, which wasn't enough. The best part of the mistake is the invaluable learning of what not to do. The fixing of the consequences of the mistake is empowering and builds a strong sense of worth that too translates into self-confidence. So, it is important that we give ourselves some slack in making mistakes that provide wonderful opportunities to learn more about ourselves, and the world that we live in. A well-meaning mistake is a celebration of learning. Capitalize on them! Again, a gentle reminder to be kind to yourself and know that you are doing the best you can, which is really all you can do.

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