Discipline

There's a good chance you can relate to Henry's problem—that is, if you have a wife and kids….

It began with Henry asking his son a simple question about the boy's grades. His son gave him an elusive answer, and well, one thing led to another, emotions flared, and they argued for over an hour.

A story from retired U.S. Army General Tommy Franks and how it can apply to dads as we seek to train our children.

You already know how to discipline your child. But do you know where you learned how?

I know a man named Don who, in disciplining his 10-year-old son, pushed him forcefully down to the floor. It surprised this father, and shocked everyone in the room. No one knew what to do next.

Beginning in the early 1980s, child development specialists encouraged parents to build their children’s self-esteem by giving them lavish amounts of praise. The only problem, writes Sharon Jayson in a 2005 USA Today article, is that “life will burst your self-esteem bubble.” Jayson reports that the self-esteem movement created an environment that protected children from failure, consequently keeping them from learning some very basic life skills and lessons essential to their development.

Accidents happen. But who pays for the broken stereo? There are many tough questions for parents to wrestle with.

Jerry and his wife left their normally responsible 10- and 11-year-old home alone for about an hour. But this time, the kids started roughhousing and ended up breaking an expensive piece of stereo equipment that would cost hundreds of dollars to fix.

A popular child-rearing proverb teaches fathers: “Train up your children in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not turn from it.” This proverb, well-known in faith communities, provides a mixture of comfort and concern for dads.

When kids get mouthy—when they have a come-back for everything we say—tension fills the house, blood pressures rise, and we may say and do things that we'll later regret.

Dad, we need to be self-controlled. And teach self-control. But how? How do you teach right behavior so it sinks in—without yelling, making threats, or other emotional fireworks?

Recent research goes against many of the current views warning against spanking our kids.

Diana Baumrind, an influential figure in the psychology of parenting, followed children starting in preschool up through their twenties. She found that, overwhelmingly, occasional or even frequent swats used in discipline did not cause major adjustment problems for those children. Though she doesn’t advocate spanking, she recognizes that the evidence is clear.