Rethinking How to Discipline Your Kids
I started writing about parenting, youth sports, and helping kids pursue their goals because I can’t stop thinking about these passions. I’m a recovering serial entrepreneur who started fatherhood by putting business before family.
As a result, I now have a burning desire to make up for the parenting mistakes I made early on when I did what was easy instead of what was right. I now spend my nights and weekends researching common parenting mistakes and child development. I feel it’s my purpose to help other parents not make the mistakes I made.
One of these common mistakes is how to use discipline. This is an area I failed at during my early years as a father. I started fatherhood using punishments to discipline my children.
When my kids did something wrong, I would threaten to punish them because this was the easiest way to get their attention. I was so focused on launching my business that it made me a lazy parent. I didn’t spend more than 2 minutes deciding on a punishment. Sometimes I would follow through on my threats, but most times I didn’t. My mindset was to take swift action so I could get back to more pressing matters with my startup. However, I now know that mindlessly punishing a child (or threatening punishment) as an act of discipline is a crude and useless method.
If your child continues to make the same mistakes over and over even after you punish or threaten to punish them, then obviously the threat and punishment is useless.
Discipline is not punishment.
The concept I failed to understand is that discipline is not a punishment. The point of discipline is to drive a change in behavior. What’s more, changes in behavior take time. There is no quick and easy process to change a child’s behavior. I was too busy to take the time to think through the process of disciplining my child in a way to change their behavior. Thankfully, I am no longer that dad.
I now understand that if my children have a behavior pattern that warrants discipline, then my undivided attention is needed. Rushing to punish a child is a senseless and emotional act of parenting.